Customer Rating: 
Summary: Flying Tigers over Cambodia
Comment: This is a neat part of history that was not publicized in the media, this is a very dry account of what happened in Cambodia and how Volunteers of The Flying Tigers Airline gave there time and risked there lives to help this cause
Customer Rating:
Summary: A few good men
Comment: I work with Larry's son and was honored to receive an inscribed copy of this great saga.I began to read it as soon as I received it.I became completely absorbed in the humor and the horror of the tale he tells.When I say I couldn't put it down, I mean it in the literal sense.It is completely captivating.We are truly fortunate to have men like larry and his fellow "miracle workers".This book gives one an insight into the life saving effort made in the worst of circumstances.I thank you for the ride.
Customer Rating:
Summary: decency in an indecent place
Comment: Anything, anytime, anywhere
-motto of the Flying Tigers Let's go feed someone.
-Captain Bob Bax
On March 18, 1969, American B-52s began the first of many bombing raids into Cambodia, an action for which the American Left would never forgive the
military and the government of Richard Nixon. On April 17, 1975, the American military having been withdrawn from Southeast Asia, Phnom Penh fell to the
Khmer Rouge, its citizens disappearing into Pol Pot's Killing Fields. For this the American Right will always blame the Left. It seems we've all got something
to ashamed of in how the U.S. treated Cambodia. But largely forgotten between these infamous dates, and amid the bickering over which Americans treated
the Cambodians worse, are the courageous and selfless efforts of the Flying Tigers, noncombatant flyers who airlifted tons of supplies into the besieged
Cambodian capital in the weeks before it fell. Larry Partridge was one of those pilots, a volunteer. In March 1975, he flew 52 missions in operation "Ricelift"
and he tells the story here.
He's reconstructed his tale from a diary he kept at the time, so it's understandably prosaic at times. And it doesn't have the usual shape of a war story, because
the planes he flew--including a DC-8 named Phnom Penh Phnancy--weren't dealing death, but bringing life. But it is this unique aspect of his peaceful
mission set against the wartime background, and his friendship with crewmates and comrades, like Jim Winterberg, and with locals, like a young newspaper girl
named Maria, and even with a cockroach they called Hiram, that makes this an exceedingly human and humane story, all the more remarkable because that
war zone has produced so few.
Larry Partridge has given us a heroic and heartwarming vision of a different side of America's generally tragic engagement with Southeast Asia. We thank
him for his service and for sharing his experiences.
GRADE : B
Customer Rating:
Summary: Compelling, Humorous True Life Adventure!
Comment: Larry Partridge does a wonderful job of taking the reader into the cockpit of "Phnom Penh Nancy" with him... along for the ride into Phnom Penh's Pochentong Airport between rocket attacks, the last "lifeline" to a country under seige! Cambodia 1975. Partridge is able to convey his "birds eye" perspective of what was soon to become the horrific fate of this tiny country, and her people. Though the backdrop of this book is Pol Pot's genocidal victory of 1975, the author has softened the harsh blow of reality by interjecting his own human feelings, observations and light humor. An Exciting True story, A Good Read! Well Done! Mr. Partridge.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Flying Tiger Pilot's True Story
Comment: Author Larry Partridge has written a book filled with his first hand feelings & experiences during the 1975 Cambodian Ricelift. His recollections read as from a personal diary, and are both funny at times, but always true and from the heart of someone who was actually there! Many books have been written about the horrors of the Pot Pot era by western journalists and historians.
Many of whom are extremely well studied in the politics and tragic modern history of Cambodia. But many of these well respected authors were never there in-country during the midst of the violence which ended with the victory of the Khmer Rouge in April of 1975, but Larry Partridge was! What makes "Flying Tigers Over Cambodia" so unique is that Larry Partridge's perspective was that of a civilian volunteer. Underneath the passages that make you laugh, lay a gut wrenching first hand observers real life experience told straight from the heart. I am uniquely qualified to comment on the truthfullness of Larry Partridge's writing, for I too was also there as a Flying Tiger volunteer.
Well done Larry! Reading this book, really took me back to Saigon & Pochentong airport.
Archie Hall [a.k.a. "Nicolas Merriweather"]
(...)
