Fate is the Hunter

Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann. (published in 1961) Not sure what to make of this book exactly. On one hand I was mesmerized by Gann's story telling skills, but on the other I was annoyed by a few things...such as not sharing with us who he really was as a person. I had no idea whether he was married or had kids (I read on Wikepedia that he did)...but this is a flying story right, not a personal memoir? But, in his dozens of self declared close calls with fate, you would think that he would have once mention this motivation for wanting to survive the on board fires, sabatoged engines, aileron "unportings", near misses and once almost crashing into the Taj Mahal. However, surviving for his family was never mentioned or even hinted at. The somewhat sloppy "thesis" of this book is that fate is the ultimate hunter and that we exercise little control over whether or not we live or die and that we only have a certain amount of luck. Gann assumed he had spent all of his quotient of luck and quit his career (for the final time) while working for his 3rd or 4th airline. Another thing that annoyed me was his repeated contempt for the "numbers" or the seniority system for airline pilots. He was totally offended that he became merely a co-pilot after he was hired at his final airline and he clearly felt disrepected by this "demotion".  Ironically, if he had stuck with American Airlines he would have controlled his own fate and his "high" number (267) of which he constantly complained would have relatively low later in his career and he would have had all of the choice picks of routes and schedules as a full captain. But, I guess his fate was to become an author and that is what he did and I guess he actually wrote several successful books, not just "Fate is the Hunter."  My final complaint is that he threads the book with the names of pilots and co-pilots that lost their lives flying for their respective airlines...so every few pages you get a quick report of fresh death...quite gloomy. I thought this was a bit overly dramatic, maybe because I specialize bombers in Europe during WWII. There were single days in Europe during the war where we probably lost as many airplanes in one day as the airlines did over the course of several years.
OK, now that I have totally aired my grievances with the book, I feel free to say that overall it was an enjoyable and at times a really exciting read. I think the biggest contribution of this book is in its influence in "hangar flying". I am not sure if pilots talk the way they do because of this book, which is widely read in aviation circles, or that maybe Gann captured the way pilots talked in the old days and the popularity of his book keeps all of us pilots talking a certain way, using certain words and telling certain stories as if they were our own (although we may vary them a bit).
My favorite parts of the book are when he was first hired by the airlines as a young man. At the beginning of the book he was much more modest and openly spoke of some of his terrible landings, especially in the DC-2. After his first landing, which was especially smooth, his instructor was not at all impressed and merely stated that "a whore is easy to meet". His descriptions of the next two "landings" are really vivid and hilarious. I also especially enjoyed his hard-ass captain that mentored him, Captain Ross. Ross would light matches under his nose while Gann was attempting landings to teach him to concentrate while other things were going on. He demanded precision flying from Gann and reminded him often that in this game "we play for keeps". Ross's training surely probably saved Gann's life in later years and the lives of his passengers. He said he even thought of Ross years later in a particularly dramatic flight when he had to land a smoke filled airplane full of GI's during WWII. In a tough business like flying or when we face many of the hardships or crises in life, I think we all need a "Captain Ross" we can lean on.
During part of WWII Gann flew the C-87 which is the cargo version of the B-24 Liberator bomber. He didn't care for it much: "They were an evil bastard contraption...they betrayed each of us in various ways and there was a tendency to approach one as if it were an angry bull elephant--to which they somehow bore a startling resemblance...It was a ground-loving bitch and with heavy loads rolled, snorted and porpoised interminably before asserting it questionable right to fly." He also wasn't impressed with its ability to carry ice: "the C-87's could not carry enough ice to chill a highball."
One thing I found particularly true for me was his statement that as pilots we are "incapable of ignoring any take-off, we turn (no matter what we are doing) to watch the plane leave the ground." I have seen pilots ignore landings and take-offs and it has always made me suspicious of them.
Overall, despite my complaints, of which I unfairly may have to many, I do highly recommend this book to all pilots, students pilots, would be pilots, aviation enthusiasts and any who likes an exciting read. In fact, I am making a top ten list of books all pilots/student pilots should read and Fate is the Hunter will no doubt be on the list.
Sadly, while Gann decided to cheat his own fate by quitting his career, a worse fate awaited him. In 1973, his eldest son George, was killed on an oil tanker, when a wave swept him overboard (from wikepedia). So, Gann was right in the end, fate really is the hunter and what a bastard it can be. I think we all want to think, especially those of us that fly, that we can control what happens to us and the fact that we can't control everything makes us hostile and angry and thus my mixed emotions about this book.