The moonlight war : the story of clandestine operations in Southeast Asia, 1944-5 / Terence O'Brien.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 353-354) and index.

Terence O'Brien was an Australian who joined the RAF in the UK as a Pilot at the outbreak of WW2. He came close to completing 2 tours as a bomber pilot over europe before leading a flight of Hudson's to Singapore. He flew out of Singapore before it fell and after a stint as a glider pilot with the Chindits (the subject of another book he wrote) ended up flying DC3's out of Jessore in NE India as part of a squadron supporting special forces units thruout SE Asia - Burma, Thailand, Malaya and French Indo-China. Most of the book is based on diaries he kept at the time and then wrote up as a book in 1946 before putting to one side. He eventually came back, picked up the pieces, did a lot of additional research into the official files that weren't available when he did his first draft and completed the book in the mid-80's. It's a fascinating combination of personal recollectons, stories of missions flown, O'Brien's personal flying experiences and comments on the aircraft, the techniques used, the various special operations groups in SE Asia (OSS, Force 136, ISLD, the French, etc etc). American's (the US sort) will find of particular interest the involvment of the OSS in supporting Ho-Chi Minh and the Viet-Minh (Communists) in French Indo-China, as opposed to supporting the French Resistance, who had thousands of troops on the ground but without support. O'Brien is quite scathing of US policy in this instance, a policy which in all fairness very likely lead to the debacle of the Vietnam War. What the book is not is a comprehensive story of special ops in SE Asia. What it is is the story of O'Brien's and his squadron';s involvement and their missions as well as some general history and comments. There were numerous other air units supporting special ops but these are not within the scope of the book. This aside, it's a fascinating personal account from someone who was there and in the thick of it pretty much from start to finish.