70,000 to 1

QUENTIN REYNOLDS has a keen nose for a good story, as well as tireless industry. In 70,000 to 1 he lets Lieutenant Manuel tell his simple, heroic tale: how he parachuted from a stricken B-17 to land at last on New Britain not far from Rabaul and 70,000 hostile Japanese, with one leg broken and the other filled with shell fragments, equipped with a gun and six cartridges — not even a knife. A smashed mouth and fifteen or more bouts of malaria provided additional handicaps. Nevertheless Lieutenant Manuel, who had been a guide in the State of Maine, succeeded in healing his wounds, made fast friends with faithful natives, became a leader in underground activities, rescued other Allied parachutists, collected valuable intelligence, and after many months was rescued and evacuated by submarine to New Guinea and his friends.

There is little suspense in this story, as the reader knows beforehand that it has a happy ending, but it is a remarkable and stirring record of quiet heroism, of a stubborn, unconquerable will to survive, of ingenuity and resource, of unshaken loyalty. The most touching and impressive element in the narrative is the affection and respect which developed between the castaway flier and the faithful and honorable natives who rescued him. They deserved better things than Japanese oppression or exploitation by the Australian planters, whom Lieutenant Manuel, with restrained hostility, terms so many “game wardens.”

There is no profound philosophy in this story. Lieutenant Manuel’s feelings about the Japanese are crude and youthful. He was a flier and he had seen his comrades shot down as they parachuted from burning planes. That was enough for him. He lived on under incredible handicaps, not only just to live, but to get back to his gun on a '17 and take his toll of the Japanese. A fighting man — in the jungle or in the air.

RICHARD E. DANIELSON