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

Judith M. Heimann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156033259 ISBN 13: 9780156033251

Publisher: Harcourt Publishers,U.S., 2008

Synopsis

November 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.

About this title

Review:

PRAISE FOR THE AIRMEN AND THE HEADHUNTERS
"With her title alone . . . Heimann rivets one's attention."--The Washington Post Book World "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

From the Back Cover:

Judith M. Heimann is a career diplomat and the author of "The Most Offending Soul Alive." She spent seven years living in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, including two years in Borneo, where she learned to speak Malay/Indonesian.She traveled to three continents and interviewed all the surviving Dayaks and airmen in her research for this book. She lives in Washington, D.C., and Brussels."

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt Publishers,U.S.
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0156033259
• ISBN 13: 9780156033251
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304