Flying Tigers Over Cambodia
Larry Partridge
McFarland & Company, 2001
196 pp.
Before the Khmer Rouge defeated government troops to take over Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, they held siege to the city and cut off almost all supply lines. Reports by American relief agencies at the time described the situation as desperate. Malnutrition was rampant and many officials feared that the city's over one million residents would starve to death if nothing was done to alleviate the crisis. Since the Khmer Rouge had complete control over roads and waterways leading into Phnom Penh, a bold attempt was made to feed the encircled population by airlifting rice into the city.
Several airline companies participated in this humanitarian venture, including the renown "Flying Tigers." The valiant effort of one of the Flying Tiger crews is chronicled in Flying Tigers Over Cambodia by Larry Partridge. The book is a personal memoir of Partridge's 52 missions into Phnom Penh in March of 1975, just a month before the final collapse of the Khmer Republic regime. Flying Tiger planes each flew up to three missions a day with a cargo of 96,000 pounds of rice on each mission. The crew members were volunteers who placed their lives in jeopardy as they maneuvered to avoid Khmer Rouge rockets and artillery each time they landed and took off from Cambodia's Pochentong airport.
Partridge's memoir is written in the form of a daily log. As such, he describes his activities outside of the airlift just as vividly as he does the action and adventure aboard his plane. And like the so many fine grains of rice that made up his precious cargo, the many minute details in his memoir are what give substance to his story. These subtle observations draw the reader into the narration and make the story vivid: Partridge's friendship with the precocious little girl who sells newspapers outside his hotel in Saigon; his references to the old couple who scramble to fill shrapnel holes at the Phnom Penh airport; even his nicknaming of the giant cockroach in his hotel room are details that help bring the memoir to life. With these observations, the story goes from being a recollection of events that have already transpired to becoming sometime more contemporary, more alive. Yes, the story puts the reader into the cockpit of the Tiger DC-8 airplane with all its excitement and anxieties; but Partridge's memoir also shows the less dramatic but equally important nuances of war, such as falling asleep to the sound of mortars in the distance and the burden of having to wake up at dawn to tempt fate yet again.
In the preface, Partridge states: "Some may say I've overdone the drama and trauma, and of course, those who shared the 'pleasures' of combat will accuse me of suppressing it." In fact, the book does neither. Instead, it is a well-balanced account of both periods of "action" inside the plane and "inaction" outside of it. The author provides drama and suspense without being melodramatic or self-aggrandizing. He tells us with pride of his crew's accomplishments, but honestly recounts their faults and failures as well. The reader has the privilege of being privy to everything this Flyer Tiger pilot experienced in his month of flying rice into Phnom Penh: fear, frustration, anger, fatigue, and, not least, the little pleasures in which he was able to delight.
While the particulars make Partridge's narration unique, his story is probably representative of the experience of many of the pilots who flew the Ricelift. Most of these pilots, like Partridge, were volunteers who understood and accepted the dangers of flying into Phnom Penh; they equally understood the desperation of the situation. Unfortunately, all the rice in the world could not have saved the people of Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge. Although the efforts of these pilots ended up only serving to delay what eventually became mass starvation under Khmer Rouge rule, their heroic attempt to save the city of Phnom Penh from starvation in Spring of 1975 is still a story worth telling. Without their services, many more people "down there" would have starved to death while simply awaiting resolution to the war.
Reviewed by Sody Lay
Lecturer, Cambodian American Experience, UCLA
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