Just this afternoon finished Ernest K Gann's
'Fate is the Hunter' and I honestly can't remember the last time I so regretted coming to the end of a book.
He flew DC-2s and -3s for American Airlines in the late 1930s, various aircraft for the US Air Transport Command during WW2, then Matson Airlines DC-4s post war. During that time, he lost many friends and colleagues to accidents, and the title reflects his belief that nobody is master of his own fate, but rather the timing and combination of circumstances beyond your control may one day hunt you down...or save your life.
Some of his experiences are extraordinary, such as nearly crashing into the Taj Mahal in a C-87 ( cargo version of the Liberator, a plane he described as "an evil bastard contraption, nothing like the relatively efficient B-24 except in appearance ". ) After the war, in a DC-4 en route from California to Honolulu, and with the onset of a starlit Pacific night, he recalls his thoughts with such eloquence:
" I love such a night. I love entering its immensity in this way, enjoying the deception that there is as much below as above. We are suspended between the stars. The functions of our human conceit can expand without apparent folly here. The diminution in size and importance does not apply to night flight because from the darkened cockpit the stars are as close or as far away as anyone would please, and the light from the instruments is not sufficient to reveal a man's smug composure. Here it is possible to become one of the realm, and all the fixtures are comforting support to the fable of immortality. The night sky is a place for children, whose imaginations are equally limitless. "
Shortly thereafter, all four engines shut down !
I can't recommend this book highly enough. More than an aviation memoir, it is at times philosophical, poetic, shocking and elating. Already I feel the need start it again in case I missed anything first time round.
Christmas is coming, ladies and gents, so put it on your letter to Santa. I promise you it will reinvigorate your love of aviation and literature.
