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The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II
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List Price: $26.00
Our Price: $8.75
Your Save: $ 17.25 ( 66% )
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Manufacturer: Harcourt
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5425983
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Harcourt
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2007-10-08
Publisher: Harcourt
Studio: Harcourt
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Airmen & the Headhunters
Comment: I've read an awful lot of World War II books particularily those on the campaign in the Pacific and this was a totally new story to me. It is a fascinating vignette on one little saga in a world of many but it is an amazing story. The author did a wonderful job of bringing this story to life which I am sure was a difficult bit of research and work so many years after the fact. There were many heroes in this story starting with the dying pilot who got the damaged plane to a place the rest of the crew could get out safely. The decision by the local district leader obstensively working for the Japanese, to do everything in his power to save the Americans stranded virtually helpless in the jungle of interior Borneo was a tremendous act of courage which could have easily costs him and his family and many others their lives. The native Dayaks, some of whom had become Christians, also made difficult choices to put themselves at risk to help the fliers. An absolutely wonderful story of courage and trust.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Airmen and Headhunters
Comment: The book is a fascinating and well told story of a crew of young aviators who were shot down during a bombing mission to Brunei Bay, Borneo, on 16 November 1944. The Japanese fleet was refitting after losing the naval engagements in the Philippines in October and the 5th Heavy Bombardment wing was sent on an air strike to further damage the fleet - flying in at about 9,000 feet - a pretty low altitude. Minutes before they would be overhead their targets, one of the aircraft was hit by a six inch shell in the cockpit area; the dying copilot managed to get the crippled aircraft over land, and the crew parachuted into the one of the most primative and unexplored areas on the planet... the middle of the highlands of Borneo. There the real advanture begins.
I am the son of one of the airmen. I have known this story (most parts of it) since I found the "treaure trove" of letters, news clippings, souvenirs and photos at age 10. What I didn't know that in protecting these men, the native population started an uprising to free themselves of their Japanese oppressors, allowing the Australian troops to form up alongside a rebellion in progress. I was proud to read about my then 19 year old father and his equally young crewmates, and read how they "hid out" for over 8 months - and know about the bonds that formed between them and the natives of Borneo that lasted the rest of their lives. The unnamed airman on the right end of the photo of the crew during their jungle survival training is my father - no doubt about it, John Nelson.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An interesting story
Comment: This book reveals not one, but several alien cultures, not least that of a vanished America, and sheds an interesting light on the stories of today's soldiers overseas.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stranger than Fiction
Comment: This engrossing book is a thoroughly researched tale of an amazing episode of World War II in the Pacific. Ms. Heimann, a career American diplomat who herself is fluent in Indonesian (Malay), personally met with all available American and Dayak survivors as well as tapping Australian, Dutch, Indonesian and British archival sources. One hopes that she will continue to write for publication. I found the clear descriptions of the now-disappearing life and culture of the Borneo "headhunters" fascinating, and the adventure of the downed airmen themselves is engrossing from first to last. The native people protected and hid the Americans for months in the deep jungle despite grave danger to themselves from Japanese reprisal. It is good that Christian missionary work in the Borneo interior pre-WWII was such a positive influence. I am glad that this story has been told, for many reasons beyond the enjoyment and information that it will provide for its readers. It is also a pleasant reminder that we are not superior. As one of the returned U.S. airmen told his wife when discussing the people of the Borneo jungle:
"We're supposed to be civilized and they're savages, but they don't beat their wives or rape women, or even correct their children under the age of five. There are no orphans or old people left on their own. Everybody takes care of everybody."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very well done and researched.
Comment: This book is well written and well researched. It is not as exciting and adventure story as I was hoping. However, I was nonetheless eager to follow the heros and heroines.
Although the people were well researched, the terrain and fauna and flora of Borneo are still somewhat mysterious to me. This is not a "Perfect Storm" type analysis of every aspect of jungle survival with native peoples.
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