Flying Through Midnight, John T. Halliday
Flying Through Midnight, John T. Halliday
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Flying Through Midnight
A Pilot's Dramatic Story of His Secret Missions Over Laos During the Vietnam War

Author: John T. Halliday

Narrator: William Dufris

Unabridged: 15 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/15/2005


Synopsis

A Pilot's Dramatic Story of His Secret Missions Over Laos During the Vietnam War

Like Jarhead, We Were Soldiers Once..., and Young, John T. Halliday's combat memoir is gripping, novelistic, and startlingly candid, taking readers through the devastating trials and hard-won victories of flying in the Vietnam War.

The year is 1970, and John T. Halliday has just landed in the middle of the Vietnam War, primed to begin his assignment with the 606 Special Operations Squadron. But there's a catch: He's stationed in a kind of no-man's-land. No one on his base flies with ID, patches, or rank. Even as Richard Nixon firmly denies reporters' charges that the U.S. has forces in Laos, Halliday realizes that from his base in Thailand, he will be flying top-secret black ops night missions over the Laotian Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A naive yet thoughtful twenty-four-year-old, Halliday is utterly unprepared for the horrors of war. On his first mission, Halliday's aircraft dodges more than a thousand anti-aircraft shells. Nothing is as he expected-not the operations, not the way his shell-shocked fellow pilots look and act, and certainly not the squadron's daredevil, seat-of-one's-pants approach to piloting. But before long, Halliday has become one of those seasoned and shell-shocked pilots and finds himself in a desperate search for a way to elude certain death.

A powerhouse fusion of pathos and humor, brutal realism and intimate reflection, Flying Through Midnight is a landmark contribution to Vietnam War literature, revealing previously top-secret intelligence on the 606' s night missions. Fast-paced, thrilling, and bitingly intelligent, Halliday's writing illuminates it all: the heart-pounding air battles, the close friendships, the crippling fear, and the astonishing final escape that made the telling of it possible.


About John T. Halliday

He served in the military for twenty-six years and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. A decorated war hero, he logged more than 800 hours of combat time in Southeast Asia and the Gulf War. Halliday lives in Northern California and is a retired Boeing 767 captain. This is his first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Liam on May 03, 2017

I can't believe I left this book sitting in a box for more than six months after I got it... This is one of the best flying stories I've ever read, right up there with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Ernest K. Gann.......more

Goodreads review by Chad on September 18, 2023

If you're looking for a dramatic and gripping true flying story, this is it! Flying Through Midnight is a gripping and deeply personal account that offers readers an intimate glimpse into the harrowing world of covert aerial missions during one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. Wit......more

Goodreads review by Theophilus (Theo) on November 01, 2014

I love this book. Halliday provides much insight into the total mechanisms of what goes through a military person's mind and the sometimes ridiculous military bureaucracy/autocracy that affects not only how the mission is performed, but also how it affects the peole who are on the line performing i......more

Goodreads review by William on August 09, 2017

Flying Through Midnight by John T. Halliday The reality of this book is depressing. Depressing because once again we have failed to learn from our history. The story of a young man and the country that sent him into harm’s way with inadequate tools and superiors has been repeated ad nauseum for centu......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on November 27, 2023

This book was given to me by someone after I said "I'd like a book I can read in order to learn something about you, or know a part of you better." I'm so glad I read it.......more