Fate is the Hunter

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Ernest K. Gann’s Fate Is The Hunter may be the most engrossing and entertaining aviation memoir you’ll ever read.

Gann chronicles his career as a commercial airline pilot from the late 1930s into the 1950s—a time when the industry and the technology were rapidly developing.  He covers his entire career from his initial training at American Airlines through his retirement from a short-lived luxury carrier called Matson Airlines.  In between, we hear about ferrying airliners like DC-3s to South America.  He talks about his war years flying supplies, wounded soldiers and VIPs across the Atlantic to Europe, Africa and Asia.  He winds up by discussing the circumstances that led to his retirement as an airline pilot.

Fate Is The Hunter is not a technical or clinical description of flying and airline operations.  Instead, it reads like a novel, depicting adventure after adventure in a variety of aircraft with his colorful colleagues.  His stories include close calls while dealing with weather, limited fuel, or cantankerous aircraft—including the time he almost flew an overloaded aircraft into the Taj Mahal. 

In fact, many of the experiences described in the book were the inspiration for his novels such as The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky.

Throughout the book, Gann is open when he has concerns and fears, and even one incident which he considered his act of cowardice.  That level of candor gives this book a genuine human quality and makes it all the more appealing.

By the way, several of his novels were adapted for movies—most of which were as entertaining as the books themselves.  But the movie that purports to be adapted from Fate is the Hunter doesn’t resemble Gann’s book in the slightest.  While it won an Oscar for best cinematography, I find the plot overly dramatic and even a little silly in spots.

But there is nothing overly dramatic or silly about the book.  Fate Is The Hunter is the book you won’t want to end.

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