A Yankee Flier in the Far East — Background and Themes

(2 User reviews) 387

In Category - School Stories

Authors: Montgomery, Rutherford G. (Rutherford George), 1896-1985, Laune, Paul, 1899-1977 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2018 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Fighter pilots -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1939-1945 -- Juvenile fiction; Fighter plane combat -- Juvenile fiction; East Asia -- Juvenile fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 42,111

Reading time 184 min

Text sections 16

For A Yankee Flier in the Far East — Background and Themes, the stored edition analysis reports 42,111 words, 3 hr 4 min estimated reading time, and 16 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 11.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Fighter pilots -- Juvenile fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #56895

In this WWII adventure, American pilot Stan Wilson faces off against a treacherous German agent and a Siamese warlord in the Far East. The opening contrasts a sweltering Singapore rest cure with a tense jungle prison, while the narrative shifts between Allied fliers and their enemies, revealing a web of betrayal and survival.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg56895

Read the Text

n tellin’ Allison what a rotten hole this is. We’ll be seein’ no action out here.”

“I aim to, and right away,” Stan Wilson announced excitedly. “Of course you two bums will want to rest and enjoy the charming atmosphere of Singapore. But I’m on my way to a war.”

“See here, old fellow,” Allison began, “just because you’re a Yank and can get a release, you don’t have to sneak off and leave us to dehydrate. You have to stick around until we all get called back to London.”

“You’ll get action when the Japs cut loose, plenty of it. I think they’re about ready to grab Singapore while it’s still asleep. But I don’t want to wait that long,” Stan said.

“Wherever you’re goin’ I’m comin’ along,” O’Malley said. He had lost all of his laziness.

Stan grinned widely. “It might be arranged.”

“Now see here, let me in on this plot,” Allison cut in.

“It seems the United States is lending fliers to China. A hundred or so pilots, ships and ground men. Their job is to protect the Burma Road and help the Chinese build up an air force of their own.” His grin widened. “Of course there will be a few odds in favor of the Japs, probably twenty to one or something like that.”

“They’d never release O’Malley and me,” Allison said sourly.

“I did a bit of snooping and wire-pulling. The Wing Commander is a mighty reasonable man. He feels that the Chinese should be encouraged a bit.” Stan got to his feet.

O’Malley and Allison were at his side at once. “When do we pull out?” O’Malley asked eagerly.

“You boys have to get your releases and then you have to sign up with the Chinese. Me, I’m one of Chiang Kai-shek’s majors.”

“You spalpeen! Salute one of Chiang’s generals!” O’Malley pulled himself up as straight as he could. “I’ll most certainly get a generalship.”

“The pay is all the same,” Stan said with a smile.

“Whom do we have to see?” Allison asked.

“You see Wing Commander Beakin for your release. He’ll put you on the right track,” Stan said.

“I said, when do we leave?” O’Malley demanded.

“Right away. We are to ferry a Hudson bomber up to Rangoon.” Stan laughed at the impatient O’Malley. “I have already listed you two as probable members of the crew. Majors O’Malley and Wilson; Major Allison commanding,” Stan explained.

“I say, old fellow,” Allison protested, “you rate the commander’s stripes.”

“Nothing doing. This is still Red Flight of the old Channel days. There won’t be any changes in personnel, except that we have to take along another flier, a fellow by the name of Nick Munson.”

“Is he Royal Air Force?” Allison asked.

Stan shook his head. “No combat training, I guess. He’s an American and is supposed to have flown test jobs over in the States. He’s signed up and we’ll take him along.”

“What are we waitin’ for?” O’Malley cut in impatiently.

“One other thing I ought to tell you,” Stan said. “The Japs will consider us outlaws and spies. If they catch us, they’ll shoot us. This won’t be the Royal Air Force, this is wildcat work and mighty tough.”

“The Chinese Air Force needs a helping hand,” Allison drawled in his most ironical manner.

Stan grinned. He had known all along that his pals would go with him. “We may as well step across into the gardens and meet Nick Munson,” he said.

The three fliers stepped out of the mess and walked across a broad plaza. Outside the iron fence crowds hurried along a narrow street. There was a babel of races and colors and castes which the wealth of rubber and tin had drawn to Singapore from every part of the teeming East. People hurried past, some of them half-naked, jinrikisha coolies trotted along, their bodies gleaming with moisture, pulling carts in which perspiring passengers sat fanning themselves.

“’Tis no white man’s country,” O’Malley muttered as they crossed the street and shoved their way through the throng.

They entered a palm garden and Stan led the way across a lush lawn to where a heavy-set man stood talking to a laughing group of native girls. The girls seemed to be enjoying the white man’s jokes and well able to understand him. Allison scowled but O’Malley grinned.

“Nick, meet your future buddies,” Stan greeted the stranger.

Continue Reading →

The novel opens not with aerial combat but with two RAF officers wilting in the Singapore heat. Lieutenant O'Malley, a lanky Irishman with a “flaming red hair seldom disturbed by a comb,” laments he cannot eat a slab of berry pie, while his companion, ace pilot March Allison, drawls with “insolent mockery.” This initial scene of lethargy and banter establishes a voice that mixes self-deprecating humor with a hint of danger—a tone that quickly gives way to the stark violence of the jungle.

Later, the narrative shifts to Stan Wilson, an American flier captured by Siamese guards and brought before the warlord Te Nuwa. The setting transforms from a humid mess hall to a decaying temple filled with “leering idols” and “a foul odor of dampness and decay.” Here, the story’s central tension emerges: a clash between the straightforward, physical strength of the Yankee flier and the cunning, ritualistic methods of his captors.

Contrasts in Voice and Setting

The excerpts display a deliberate contrast in tone between the opening chapters and the later captivity scenes. In Singapore, the dialogue is laced with ironic banter: O'Malley calls the heat “as close to Hades as I iver plan to get,” while Allison mocks his own inactivity. The prose is leisurely, dwelling on sweat, damp cushions, and the “glamorous East” as a rest cure. Once the action moves to the jungle, the language becomes terse and sensory: “little yellow men,” “grease lamp,” “wild-eyed, wild-haired men.” The setting itself shifts from the marble buildings of Singapore to a temple with “glass eyes gleaming in the flickering light.” This juxtaposition suggests a world where the comforts of colonial outposts are a thin veneer over a more dangerous, alien reality.

The Enemy Within and Without

The excerpts introduce two distinct antagonists: the German agent Munson and the Siamese lord Te Nuwa. Munson is a brutal, direct threat—he whips out a “German automatic” and demands Stan be killed. Te Nuwa, by contrast, operates with theatrical politeness, calling Stan an “honored guest” and insisting “I allow no blood to be spilled on my grounds.” Their conflict over how to dispose of Stan reveals a deeper tension: Munson represents a Western-style, ruthless efficiency, while Te Nuwa prefers “the ways of the East,” employing dacoits and ritual. This split mirrors the broader war setting, where the Allies face not only a conventional enemy but also local powers with their own agendas. The narrative thus weaves a web of betrayal that extends beyond simple battlefield loyalties.

Physicality and Power

Stan Wilson is repeatedly defined by his physical presence. The Siamese guards admire his “terrible strength” and the way his “fists shot out, inflicting black eyes and swollen jaws.” Even in captivity, he braces for a fight, drawing back his fists “as the first move for a bid for freedom.” This emphasis on raw physicality contrasts with the cunning of his captors and the mockery of his fellow pilots. The narrative uses Stan’s body as a marker of his American identity—direct, forceful, and out of place in a world of shadows and indirection. Yet the excerpts also show that strength alone is insufficient: he is overpowered by numbers and led through a “maze of columns” where he cannot track his course. The story thus balances the ideal of the rugged individual against the reality of a hostile, labyrinthine environment.

Readers should attend to how the novel builds its world through sensory detail—the heat, the stench, the flickering lamps—rather than through extensive exposition. The excerpts offer only fragments of the plot, but they reveal a pattern of contrasts: between Allied and enemy, between open combat and covert manipulation, between the straightforward and the ritualistic. The narrative voice shifts from ironic to urgent, and the setting from colonial comfort to jungle menace. These elements suggest a story that is as much about the psychology of survival as about aerial warfare.

There’s something about Stan Wilson’s wary watch over that sweltering Singapore rest cure that reminds me of the quiet, patient pacing in old school stories—the way a game’s rhythm can hold its own kind of tension. That same unhurried build lingers in Double Play: A Story of School and Baseball — Edition Insights, a gentler sort of waiting, but no less real for it.