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First Published:
Jan 2002, 544 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2003, 736 pages
Griffin leaves World War II behind and thrusts his readers deep into the heart of the Korean War.
Through eight books, Griffin's bestselling chronicle of the Marine Corps has proven itself to be one of the country's most enduring and popular series. Now Griffin leaves World War II behind and thrusts his readers deep into the heart of the Korean War.
June 1, 1950: Captain Ken McCoy's report on probable North Korean hostilities meets with so much bureaucratic displeasure that not only is it promptly suppressed, but McCoy himself is kicked out of the Corps. At least two outfits, however, are not impressed by such infighting: the fledgling CIA, which promptly hires McCoy; and the North Koreans, who on June 25th invade across the 38th parallel. Immediately, veterans scattered throughout military and civilian life are called up, many with only seventy-two hours' notice. Fleming Pickering and his daredevil son Malcolm, Ed Banning, George Hart, Jack Stecker, Jake Dillon, Ernie Zimmerman for them, and their sweethearts and wives, names such as Inchon, Pusan, and the Choisin Reservoir will acquire a new, bloody reality, and Korea will become not only a new battlefield . . . but their greatest challenge of all.
Filled with the crackling realism, adventure, and rich characters that are his hallmarks, Under Fire is further proof, as Tom Clancy says, that "W. E. B. Griffin is a storyteller in the grand tradition."
CHAPTER ONE
Aboard Trans-Global Airways Flight 907
North Latitude 36 Degrees 59 Minutes, East Longitude 143 Degrees 77 Minutes
(Above the Pacific Ocean, near Japan)
1100 1 June 1950
"This is the First Officer speaking," the copilot of Trans-Global Airways Flight 907 said into the public address system microphone. "We are about to begin our descent into Tokyo's Haneda Airport, and have been advised it may get a little bumpy at lower altitudes. So please take your seats and fasten your seat belts, and very shortly we'll have you on the ground."
Trans-Global Flight 907 was a triple-tailed, five-months-old Lockheed L-1049 Constellation, christened Los Angeles.
The navigator, who wore pilot's wings, and who would move up to a copilot's seat when TGA accepted - next week, he hoped - what would be the eighteenth Constellation in the TGA fleet, did some calculations at his desk, then stood up and murmured, "Excuse me, sir," to the man in the jump seat.
...
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