Brendan I. Koerner

What I love about the second world war is scale of the conflict was so big that it touched so many parts of the world and so many different people. Herman Perry's story is pretty heartwrenching. The treatment of black GIs working on the Leto Road in Burma was horrendous and I cant believe more didnt do what Herman Perry did. His time on the run from the authorities is fascinating. The author provides interesting historical interludes that help contextualize the things happening to Perry. The section regarding the Naga people and the relationship between Chiang and Stilwell are particularly clarifying.… (altro)

I'm certainly old enough to remember "the Golden Age of Hijacking", as described in Brendan Koerner's book "The Skies Belong to Us", but don't have any memory of the specific hijacking featured in this book. Koerner tell the story of Roger Holder, a black VietNam vet, and his girl friend Cathy Kerkow, and their hijackings of a Western Airlines flight in 1972. Perhaps the fact that I don't remember the incident is indicative of the frequency of airline hijackings back then. Hijackings in the late 60's and early 70's were practically a monthly occurrence, and most were little more than a brief inconvenience. A hijacker wanted a little money and to be flown to Cuba seemed to be the norm. It was an era before the security checks we know of today. No x-ray machines, no baggage inspections, no prohibition of liquids, etc.

The book is interesting in that it describes a number of hijackings which took place at the time, and how reluctant the airlines were to take additional security measures to prevent them, for fear of bothering the passengers. That lack of security made it easy for Holder, angered over his removal from the service for a minor offense while off duty and having trouble adjusting to civilian life in San Diego, to concoct a plan to hijack a plane to leave the country. His girl friend Cathy Kerkow was only too happy to join him on this adventure, and the two of them made it to Algeria, and eventually lived the good life in Paris. The whole story of their hijacking, mingling with the rich and famous in Paris, and their "Bonny and Clyde" notoriety is a strange one. They are one of the few hijackers who seemed to get away with it too.


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