Customer Reviews

Flying Tigers over Cambodia: An American Pilot's Memoir of the 1975 Phnom Penh Airlift

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Larry Partridge brings us on a journey back to a sadly neglected segment of the Vietnam era, commonly known as the "Cambodian Airlift," through his personal experience as a volunteer Tiger pilot for those special missions. With Partridge's unique narrative, the compelling story employs a perspective utilizing a matrix of characterizations that "puts a face" on the entire event. The climactic episode took place during March of 1975, at a time when both the Khmer Rouge were closing in on Phnom Penh and Saigon was approaching its fall to the communist forces. With each succeeding flight or mission, Partridge builds up the intensity as the drama unfolds in novel-like fashion intermixing humor and tragedy, yet the story is all too real. His picturesque style lends itself to a movie-like memoir where all the characters, sometimes symbolically, bring everything to life. Documentation on the role of Flying Tigers during the Vietnam era is difficult to come by, even seemingly through scanty non-classified U.S. Air Force archives. Thus Partridge's contribution toward this understanding is invaluable. The author gives us a "jump-seat" view of this epic event which otherwise may have very well been little more than a footnote in history. Art Chin Author: Anything, Anytime, Anywhere. and The Seaboard Saga.

I work with Larry's son and was honored to receive an inscribed copy of this great saga.I began to read it as soon as I received it.I became completely absorbed in the humor and the horror of the tale he tells.When I say I couldn't put it down, I mean it in the literal sense.It is completely captivating.We are truly fortunate to have men like larry and his fellow "miracle workers".This book gives one an insight into the life saving effort made in the worst of circumstances.I thank you for the ride.

A moving account of a lost piece of SE Asian history. Larry makes you feel as if you are there with compassion and humour. How did these guys go back every day time and time again into this hellhole. I can't think of any time when airline pilots got this close to dieing on a daily basis, sometimes 4 times a day, for a whole month. The sheer humanity, comes though and grabs you by the throat. If you don't shed a tear at the end of this book, you just ain't human. I will never complain about getting up at 4 a.m. to fight the London traffic again.

Dear Larry,

I was nine when your story began in Cambodia, on March 1975. At that time, I didn't realize the madness my little world was heading into. I just knew there was some food shortages, and some days, what we had in our plates was "American rice", which wasn't as tasty as Cambodian rice we used to enjoy. And on that very days, I ate only a few.

I was far away from imagining there were guys like you, Tigers, Blue, Birds and others, who were flying within missiles range, landing through blind "incomings", taking off under rains of mortars, risking their lives several times a day, just to bring us that not-so-tasty-rice, among other vital supplies.

And I didn't even suspect that not so long ahead, the tasteless rice would run out, too. The darkness had just begun, on April 17, 1975. Most of my beloved ones didn't survive the Khmer rouges' terror. I don't know if there is any reason I did. But I wish to sincerely thank you for what you and your buddies have done, some died, during that very final days of a free world. And above all, thank you for your account, which reminds all the sacrifice from people like you, the guys who gave, to people like us, the ones who received, whatever loomed ahead.

Somanos Sar

This is an easy to read and fast moving flying story of pilots flying large 4 engine jets into a very hot war zone. They are trying to stop over 3 million people from being starved to death. The author takes you into the sweaty and often fear filled cockpit, the rocket attacks, the political clowns, his lonely hotel room and his thoughts. Are our ideas worth the risk? Are we being foolish, thoughtless of our families? Who cares and is it worth it? The author writes with great humor and understatement,almost British in nature. He'll put you right in the cockpit with a very professional crew, operating smoothly under extreme stress.Don't miss the ride!

This is a neat part of history that was not publicized in the media, this is a very dry account of what happened in Cambodia and how Volunteers of The Flying Tigers Airline gave there time and risked there lives to help this cause

Anything, anytime, anywhere
-motto of the Flying Tigers

Let's go feed someone.
-Captain Bob Bax

On March 18, 1969, American B-52s began the first of many bombing raids into Cambodia, an action for which the American Left would never forgive the
military and the government of Richard Nixon. On April 17, 1975, the American military having been withdrawn from Southeast Asia, Phnom Penh fell to the
Khmer Rouge, its citizens disappearing into Pol Pot's Killing Fields. For this the American Right will always blame the Left. It seems we've all got something
to ashamed of in how the U.S. treated Cambodia. But largely forgotten between these infamous dates, and amid the bickering over which Americans treated
the Cambodians worse, are the courageous and selfless efforts of the Flying Tigers, noncombatant flyers who airlifted tons of supplies into the besieged
Cambodian capital in the weeks before it fell. Larry Partridge was one of those pilots, a volunteer. In March 1975, he flew 52 missions in operation "Ricelift"
and he tells the story here.

He's reconstructed his tale from a diary he kept at the time, so it's understandably prosaic at times. And it doesn't have the usual shape of a war story, because
the planes he flew--including a DC-8 named Phnom Penh Phnancy--weren't dealing death, but bringing life. But it is this unique aspect of his peaceful
mission set against the wartime background, and his friendship with crewmates and comrades, like Jim Winterberg, and with locals, like a young newspaper girl
named Maria, and even with a cockroach they called Hiram, that makes this an exceedingly human and humane story, all the more remarkable because that
war zone has produced so few.

Larry Partridge has given us a heroic and heartwarming vision of a different side of America's generally tragic engagement with Southeast Asia. We thank
him for his service and for sharing his experiences.

GRADE : B

Larry Partridge does a wonderful job of taking the reader into the cockpit of "Phnom Penh Nancy" with him... along for the ride into Phnom Penh's Pochentong Airport between rocket attacks, the last "lifeline" to a country under seige! Cambodia 1975. Partridge is able to convey his "birds eye" perspective of what was soon to become the horrific fate of this tiny country, and her people. Though the backdrop of this book is Pol Pot's genocidal victory of 1975, the author has softened the harsh blow of reality by interjecting his own human feelings, observations and light humor. An Exciting True story, A Good Read! Well Done! Mr. Partridge.

Author Larry Partridge has written a book filled with his first hand feelings & experiences during the 1975 Cambodian Ricelift. His recollections read as from a personal diary, and are both funny at times, but always true and from the heart of someone who was actually there! Many books have been written about the horrors of the Pot Pot era by western journalists and historians.
Many of whom are extremely well studied in the politics and tragic modern history of Cambodia. But many of these well respected authors were never there in-country during the midst of the violence which ended with the victory of the Khmer Rouge in April of 1975, but Larry Partridge was!

What makes "Flying Tigers Over Cambodia" so unique is that Larry Partridge's perspective was that of a civilian volunteer. Underneath the passages that make you laugh, lay a gut wrenching first hand observers real life experience told straight from the heart. I am uniquely qualified to comment on the truthfullness of Larry Partridge's writing, for I too was also there as a Flying Tiger volunteer.

Well done Larry! Reading this book, really took me back to Saigon & Pochentong airport.

Archie Hall [a.k.a. "Nicolas Merriweather"]
(...)

This book took me to Vietnam and Cambodia at the same time during the conflict in both countries. It was short but full of interest. I couldn't put it down as I had to find out what the next chapter had in store. It should be a must reading for the person who wants to find out about the last days of Cambodia and Vietnam.