Mary Walker Clark barely knew her father or his past. When he died, he left not only the expected void in a teenager’s life, but he disappeared without sharing his Indian Jones-styled tales about flying the Hump, a little-known treacherous series of US missions that transported supplies over the Himalayas to China during World War II.
I would take a chance encounter with the WWII pilot who had flown with her father in the war to launch a series of extraordinary journeys – into a shrouded past and halfway around the globe to India and China – for Clark to finally come to know the father whose absence had haunted her for decades.
Landing in My Present chronicles the adventures of a daughter who chose to pry open a painful past while enlarging her view of an adventurous father long thought lost.
Imagine if Indian Jones had died young leaving a teenage daughter somewhat disenfranchised and vaguely aware of his adventures. Then, 50 years later a box of his things filled with clues and a recording from a friend of her father’s sets her on an adventure across the globe to discover the truth about her father’s past. This is “Landing in My Present” and the most amazing thing is it is all true! Mary Clark’s attention to detail allows you to easily slip into a long gone era without letting the details get in the way of her fast paced telling of this fascinating World War II story. Her father’s adventures seemingly touch on every continent while centered on his perilous flights from India across the Himalayas to resupply the Chinese, a perilous route known as “The Hump”. It’s part mystery thriller, part history class, part travelogue, and 100% page burning awesomeness.
-Jeffrey Lehmann
Host & Producer of the multi Emmy awarded “Weekend Explorer” travel series on PBS and broadcasters worldwide.
A true account of a fantastic quest to know a father, a WWII veteran originally from the Texas Panhandle. Like many war veterans, he kept his experience to himself. Mary Clark reveals a growing understanding of the father she’d always wished to know. Since he died when she was sixteen, she’d retained only a teen-aged memory of him and a strong desire to know about his adult life. She gives us step by step evidence—by traveling to remotes parts of his world— of her father’s service providing supplies from India to American allies in China. Letters from his friends, and memories from other pilots reveal a quiet hero. “Flying the Hump,” he endured icy frigid skies 150 times while carrying mostly gasoline and little hope of rescue if he failed. Readers will appreciate Clark’s careful investigation and her exemplary style while writing about an emotional journey of discovery.
—Carolyn Osborn, author of Durations, a memoir and personal essays; recipient of Lon Tinkle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters
Imagine if Indian Jones had died young leaving a teenage daughter somewhat disenfranchised and vaguely aware of his adventures. Then, 50 years later a box of his things filled with clues and a recording from a friend of her father’s sets her on an adventure across the globe to discover the truth about her father’s past. This is “Landing in My Present” and the most amazing thing is it is all true! Mary Clark’s attention to detail allows you to easily slip into a long gone era without letting the details get in the way of her fast paced telling of this fascinating World War II story. Her father’s adventures seemingly touch on every continent while centered on his perilous flights from India across the Himalayas to resupply the Chinese, a perilous route known as “The Hump”. It’s part mystery thriller, part history class, part travelogue, and 100% page burning awesomeness.
–Jeffrey Lehmann
Host & Producer of the multi Emmy awarded “Weekend Explorer” travel series on PBS and broadcasters worldwide.
