The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II [Hardcover]

Judith M. Heimann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2007

N ovember 1944: Army airmen set out in a B-24 bomber on what should have been an easy mission off the Borneo coast. Instead they found themselves unexpectedly facing a Japanese fleet—and were shot down. When they cut themselves loose from their parachutes, they were scattered across the island’s mountainous interior. Then a group of loincloth-wearing natives silently materialized out of the jungle. Would these Dayak tribesmen turn the starving airmen over to the hostile Japanese occupiers? Or would the Dayaks risk vicious reprisals to get the airmen safely home? The tribal leaders’ unprecedented decision led to a desperate game of hide-and-seek, and, ultimately, the return of a long-renounced ritual: head-hunting.

A cinematic survival story that features a bamboo airstrip built on a rice paddy, a mad British major, and a blowpipe-wielding army that helped destroy one of the last Japanese strongholds, The Airmen and the Headhunters is a gripping, you-are-there journey into the remote world and forgotten heroism of the Dayaks.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Using detailed research and new interviews with all the surviving players, including the tribal Dayaks of Southeast Asia, diplomat and author Heimann (The Most Offending Soul Alive) presents the story of two B-24 crews, one U.S. Army Air Corps and one U.S. Navy, shot down over Borneo in November 1944 and January 1945, respectively. With the help of a local District Official and Lun Dayeh tribesmen, the airmen survived several months in uncharted interior jungles, avoiding capture by occupying Japanese forces. The book gives great insight into the Lun Dayeh, a thriving culture that uses few tools and almost no knowledge of modern machinery, best known for their practice of headhunting. Surprisingly enough, they prove kind, welcoming and very generous with what provisions they have; meanwhile, the Japanese plunder native resources and subject opposition to torture and worse, proving the terms "savage" and "civilized" to be quite subjective. A good read for WWII history buffs, Heimann's volume also contains enough material on the culture of Southeast Asian tribes to please any armchair anthropologist.
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Review

PRAISE FOR THE MOST OFFENDING SOUL ALIVE

"Lively and scrupulously researched." --The New Yorker

"Explorer, museum curator, guerilla fighter, pioneer sociologist, documentary filmmaker, anthropologist--Tom Harrisson was all these things. He was also arrogant, choleric, swashbuckling, often drunk, and nearly always deliberately outrageous. In spite of these contradictions, he became a key figure in every enterprise he undertook . . . A brilliant and insightful biography." --David Attenborough

"The Airmen and the Headhunters is an engaging and unique tale of courage and rescue. Heimann has created a nuanced portrait of Borneo and a fascinating group of truly heroic tribesmen."

(Alex Kershaw, author of THE FEW )

"At first the downed Flyboys thought their hosts to be savage. But by the end of their remarkable journey, the Americans learned just how civilized headhunters can be. Judith Heimann has uncovered a dramatic, touchingly human tale in the jungle forests of Borneo."

(James Bradley, author of FLYBOYS )

"Sixty years later, World War II is still giving up its secrets. The Airmen and the Headhunters recovers a forgotten tale from the far Pacific that should interest anyone who cares about the gallantry of our aviators who flew into harm''s way."

(James Hornfischer, author of SHIP OF GHOSTS )

"Heimann brings a visceral urgency to one of WWII''s most unlikely tales. Along the way, she makes us like the airmen rethink our definitions of civilized and savage."

(Entertainment Weekly )

"[F]ew writers could have tracked down this captivating story. [Heimann] paints a vivid picture of the indigenous people who comfortably inhabited the dense jungle and carried on a flourishing trade with the coast... A fascinating anthropology lesson, delivered with the bonus of a dramatic adventure and a happy ending."

(Kirkus Reviews )

"Heimann rivets one''s attention."

(Washington Post Book World )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (October 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151014345
• ISBN-13: 978-0151014347
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > History > Asia > Indonesia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It had to be told!, October 31, 2007

By 

Cornelia Montgomery (Cedar Rapids, IA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II (Hardcover)

This is a truly gripping tale (Hollywood should snap it up!) and only a writer with Judith Heimann's unique mix of experience and determination could have uncovered it. The native eyewitnesses were fast disappearing when Heimann travelled (twice) to Borneo where, reviving her knowledge of Malay/Indonesian from seven years living in the area, she tracked down and interviewed in their homes more than a dozen Dayak tribespeople directly involved. She also found and interviewed five of the eleven American airmen involved (of whom only one is still alive today) and collected papers, photos and diaries from the widows of still others.

The book tells the story of American airmen whose two Liberator bomber planes -- one Army, one Navy -- were shot up in the last year of WW II over the jungles of Borneo, which was totally uncharted territory about which the airmen knew nothing except that the natives had been famous as headhunters. Although the airmen could not have expected it, the local Dayak tribespeople were willing to befriend them. The Yanks would surely have starved without the Dayaks' food and shelter, humble and unfamiliar though it was. Even so, the Yanks' survival borders on the miraculous. They suffered from numerous tropical ailments for which their "survival kit" proved woefully inadequate. Their clothes and boots rotted away and they walked barefoot many miles up and down steep, wet, leech-filled mountainsides during their seven-month stay in this strange world. Heimann fleshes out the details she recovered into a narrative with descriptive passages that let you share in the experience.

Why did the Dayaks risk the wrath of their pitiless Japanese occupiers to protect these American strangers? It seems that this was at least in part thanks to the good will earned by North American Christian missionaries who had behaved with tact and courtesy towards the Dayaks from the 1930s up till 1942 when the Japanese took them away and murdered them, their wives and their children. In addition, for those Dayaks who had not converted to the new faith or who longed for the thrill of the headhunting raids that had been central to the old faith, the opportunity to take heads again -- even though only Japanese ones -- had strong appeal.

Heimann relates her many-sided tale with great clarity, in spite of a dauntingly vast and various cast of characters that includes not only the airmen and the westernized Indonesians from other islands who were serving in Borneo as district officers and acting pastors, but also brave Dayak men and women, both Christianized and pagan (whose way of life was entirely unknown to this reader), as well as a handful of Chinese shopkeepers, daring Aussie special operations paratroops and pilots and a mad British Major!

Furthermore, for once, there are decent maps that help you follow the plot, thanks to months Heimann spent with a mapmaker entering the names and river courses of this poorly charted region,

Altogether an exciting and surprisingly upbeat story from a world few of us know anything about!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What a story of courage and survival, November 19, 2007

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II (Hardcover)

Reviewed by Jan Warren

The Airmen and the Headhunters is a true account of eleven young American crewmembers of a B-24 bomber, Lucky Strike, shot down over an unexplored mountainous region in Northern Borneo during WWII. It is also a touching story of heroism by not only the airmen, but of those who risked everything to protect and care for them during the six harrowing months before the survivor's liberation by Australian special forces.

Because of the torturous cruelty of Borneo's Japanese invaders and their determination to find and kill the airmen and any who aided them, the Lun Dayeh tribe was forced to return to the gruesome ritual of headhunting against their Japanese enemies.

As I read the airmen's vivid accounts of trudging exhausted, starving and sick through the dense Borneo jungle with their feet and legs covered in leeches and bug bites, I felt their hopelessness and pain.

The deeper I delved into the story of the unimaginable hardships of these brave men and those of Borneo's jungle inhabitants, I found myself giving thanks for even the simple comforts I usually take for granted, like clean running water and a comfortable bed.

If you are looking for a true story that will stir your emotions, then I can recommend The Airmen and the Headhunters. Heartfelt gratefulness may rise within you, as it did me in honor of all of the heroes who suffer for the cause of freedom past and present.

The author, Judith M. Heimann spent ten years compiling the detailed information before writing this book. Included are maps of the places in Borneo mentioned within the story, photos, acknowledgements, a detailed glossary and index, all of which are impressive.

I would rate this non-fiction book PG-13 not only because of the intense subject matter but for the occasional "colorful" vocabulary used by those who lived through it.

Armchair Interviews says: Yet another stirring story of WWII events and the people who survive them.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enthralling Gem of a Story of WWII Culture Clash in Borneo, October 13, 2007

By 

Mr. Truthteller (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II (Hardcover)

Author Judith Heimann provided intriguing glimpses of this unusual story in her previous work on Tom Harrisson, a Britisher living in Borneo in World War II who, despite being "The Most Offending Soul Alive", managed to organize Dayak tribesmen (an indigenous, loosely affiliated group of tribal groups) in Borneo armed with deadly blow-pipes into a small but effective army against the Japanese, eventually being credited with killing over 1,500 of the enemy.

Her new book, "The Airmen and the Headhunters", is an outgrowth of her book on Tom Harrison (who coincidentally was a neighbor of hers many years ago in Borneo - he died in 1976). It is a well-written and engaging account of 11 Yankee airman who survive a crash-landing of their B-24 "Liberator" bomber in November 1944 only to find themselves surrounded by Dayak tribesmen who agree to help them escape from and evade capture by the Japanese, an adventure which takes a harrowing six months. The result is an unexpected gem of a story of survival in which the airmen (untrained and unable to survive in the wilds of Borneo) are saved by a peoples who had nothing to gain and everything to lose (through the vengeance and retribution of the Japanese) by helping them out.