Böcker av Tom Burkhalter

The Flight So FarBy July 1, 1942, the United States has been fighting in the Pacific for nearly seven months. The Japanese advance halted west of Australia at the island of Timor, and from Timor the Japanese stage bombing raids on Darwin. In the north, the Japanese hold the former Australian possessions of New Ireland and New Britain, including the town of Rabaul in the north of New Britain. Holding Rabaul gives the Japanese possession of Simpson Harbor, a deep-water port that the Japanese turn into a formidable forward base, swarming with Zeros and antiaircraft weapons. Rabaul begins to earn an evil reputation among the bomber crews of the USAAF and RAAF who fly there.In May the Japanese tried to take Port Moresby, the Allied base on the south coast of Papua New Guinea. They were turned back at the Battle of the Coral Sea. In June, the Japanese were soundly defeated at the Battle of Midway in the north Pacific. Both sides suffered losses but neither the Empire of Japan nor the Allies were close to being beaten. East of Salamaua and Lae on the western end of the Huon Gulf, the north coast of Papua New Guinea is a no-man's land.Jack Davis has been sent home, and Jimmy Ardana takes his place as Boxcar Red Leader. Charlie Davis and his crew continue flying missions in their increasingly worn and patched B-17E, Bronco Buster II.Everywhere in the world there is savage fighting. The Japanese are fighting in Burma against the British and in China against the Chinese. The Germans are fighting the Soviets on a front from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and in Stalingrad the Wehrmacht and the Red Army slaughter each other for possession of a city being bombed and shelled into rubble. The Afrika Korps is fighting the British 8th Army in Libya. The British supply line to Malta and the eastern Mediterranean is under constant attack by the navy and air forces of Italy and Germany. In the North Atlantic the Kriegsmarine's U-boats are sinking freighters and tankers at a rate that may choke off Great Britain's war effort. In England, the fledgling US 8th Air Force flies its first mission on July 4, 1942, with airplanes borrowed from the RAF. In the United States the mobilization of the economy to produce tanks, airplanes, and warships is only beginning, as is the training of the men to take those weapons to war. In the South Pacific there is a lull, but in that lull the Japanese continue to stage air raids on Port Moresby and Seven-Mile Drome, and the Allies continue to bomb Rabaul and Simpson Harbor.Turn the page. Step back in time.

Jack and Charlie Davis, pilots in the USAAF, along with a new companion, Jimmy Ardana, are part of the Allied effort to stop the Japanese at Port Moresby in May 1942. But the Allies have received little in the way of reinforcements, and the only fighter available to face the Japanese Zero is the difficult to handle Bell P-39. Charlie flies dangerous reconnaissance missions to determine the location of the Japanese Navy. Jack, supposedly on his way home to the States, is diverted to be a flight commander in the 8th Fighter Group at Port Moresby.If the Japanese take Port Moresby they can cut off the convoy routes from America to Australia, leaving Australia isolated and vulnerable. The situation, in early May of 1942, is grim, but the question is the same one Jack and Charlie have faced since December 8, 1941: can we stop the Japanese with what we have?Boxcar Red Leader is the third book in the "No Merciful War" series. Other stories are in preparation.

These stories span over thirty years of writing time. In themselves, they each represent that struggle that goes on inside a writer to bring something out of the inchoate darkness within the subconscious, and shove it out into the light for all to see who care to look. Because of the time span these stories also represent something of a learning curve. The oldest short story in this collection is "Purple Heart." I wrote that on a typewriter. Somewhere I still have the yellowed manuscript pages, held together with a rusting paperclip, that I carried from a failed marriage into an uncertain future and from one job and one apartment to another. Some of these were written on my first desktop PC. I remember I was living in a weekly-rental motel room. I was drinking a bit too much and delivering pizza for Domino's, as well as fighting the depression that seems to be the natural enemy of every writer. The youngest ones made the transition from PC to laptop. So the learning curve is not only the craft but the tools. Anyone who has converted a story from Word Perfect to Word will know exactly what I mean. Now I'm sending these strange children out into the world to see what others might make of them. You'll make your own judgment about them, based on what you yourself bring to the work. Perhaps it's presumptuous of me to tell you a little about their genesis, but putting one word after another is what I do, and besides, I'm saying goodbye. These stories will never be quite all mine again."The Visit" came out in a rush, and although I've moved commas around and made minor sentence changes over the years it is pretty much as it was written in that two-hour stretch in the spring of 1996 - eighteen years ago. "Soldiers of the War" was modified a little more over the years because I was never quite happy with the ending. "The Ball Turret Gunner" was inspired by a poem written by Randall Jarrell, which is one of perhaps three poems I actually like. "One Step At a Time" was written for a short story workshop taught by Kevin Keck. "Cutters" just sort of came to me; I was thinking about a no-nonsense Navy fighter pilot as a character and then started wondering about the guy's father, a no-nonsense surgeon. I made some minor changes to the original version to produce the story you see here. "Mona Lisa" had a similar thought process; the model, the artist, and what's in a smile? "Pedestal" is a little too personal to talk much about. We all face choices and regrets of that sort, and you'll see what I mean when you read it. "The Faraway Dreams of God" concerns a modern young man who is introduced to wonder on a warm Florida evening. What struggle do you suppose he might face?The struggle we face in and for life represents the core theme of these stories; every single one of us is in a struggle for our lives. It may not seem quite so dramatic day to day, but someday each of us will be like Dr. Stephen Cutter, taking his last breath, and struggling to try to say one last thing to his wife.

By the end of 1942, the Japanese base at Rabaul on the island of New Britain is still the major strategic factor in two theaters, the South Pacific, which includes Guadalcanal at the southern end of the Solomons chain, and the Southwest Pacific, which includes New Guinea. Possession of Rabaul allows the Japanese to strike Allied forces in either theater.Jimmy Ardana returns to the 35th Fighter Group after recovering from malaria and assorted jungle fevers. The war of the 35th Fighter Group revolves around air support for the Allied troops fighting the Japanese Army at Gona and Buna. The 35th has one squadron equipped with P-38s, but the rest of the group soldiers on with increasingly worn P-39D Airacobras.Danny Evans is now command pilot of Bronco Buster II, the aging B-17E he inherited from Charlie Davis. The 19th Bomb Group has left the theater. Danny Evans and Bronco Buster II now fly for the 43rd Bomb Group. The only other heavy bombardment group in the 5th Air Force, the 90th, equipped with B-24s, suffers continual failures of equipment and training but are gradually improving. Neither group is up to full strength.Tommy "Chinkerbell" Bell makes a major mistake and finds his true home.New replacements arrive, still largely untrained beyond graduating flight school. Jimmy and Danny will have to deal with these pilots as best they can. Some will live. Some won't.The Japanese have given up on reinforcing Buna and Gona by sea. Instead, they will reinforce their southernmost base at Lae on the Huon Gulf. While the action in the South Pacific theater centers around the Marines and the naval battles around Guadalcanal, in the Southwest Pacific it's still the Royal Australian Army and Air Force and the American 5th Air Force taking the fight to the Japanese.Turn the page. The time is one minute after midnight, December 24, 1942.