The Hunters By James Salter Vintage International
Paperback, 256 pages
US$13.00
Once in a great while, a talented writer survives combat to produce a work of literature. John Thomason’s Fix Bayonets comes to mind, as does Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead. It doesn’t happen very often. The odds are simply against it -- there aren’t that many talented authors, and there are too many ways to die in war.
Rarest of all is a literary novel written by a blooded fighter pilot. In the English language, perhaps two works truly qualify. One is Winged Victory by Victor Yeates, who flew Sopwith Camels and brought down five Germans in the First World War. The other is The Hunters by James Salter.
A 1945 West Point graduate, Salter served a dozen years in the U.S. Army Air Force and the U.S. Air Force. During the Korean War he flew a hundred missions in F-86 Sabres, shooting down a single MiG over the Yalu River. He published The Hunters in 1956, a year before he resigned his commission.
You might have seen the 1958 film based on The Hunters, starring Robert Mitchum and Robert Wagner. It’s a good movie, but it has nothing to do with Salter’s story.
The Hunters, like Winged Victory, isn’t a novel about flying, or airplanes, or combat. It’s a novel about pilots. Salter’s protagonist, Cleve Connell, is an aging fighter pilot who missed most of the Second World War. He’s got a good reputation in the Air Force: hot pilot, cool head, dead shot. At 31, in the twilight of his career, he comes to Korea to prove his abilities in combat:
“He had reached the point, too, where a sense of lost time weighed on him. There was a constant counting of tomorrows he had once been so prodigal with. And he found himself thinking too much of unfortunate things. He was frequently conscious of not wanting to die. That was not the same as wanting to live. It was a black disease, a fixation that could ultimately corrode the soul.”
Connell questions his own courage. Greeted with great expectations, as the missions mount Connell fails to score. Denied kills by poor luck, he is surpassed by brash young pilots who possess neither his professionalism nor his integrity. Finally, Connell downs a MiG, but further success eludes him. The end of his tour looms like a death sentence:
“Open-eyed on his cot, he suffered through the darkness. Then, more than at any other time, there was the constant feeling that he was being consumed, drained; and he did not know the extent of his reserves. It was like flying with the fuel gauge reading zero, waiting for the silence that hit like a hammer. In the air, he did not lack aggressiveness. His determination was never missing there, but during the enormous hours in between he felt himself adrift and helpless.”
It is no coincidence that Connell’s surname is so very close to that of the war’s leading ace. He is almost a Joseph McConnell -- a cleaved McConnell, if you will.
Don’t worry, there is plenty of flying in this novel, and technical detail, as well as close descriptions illuminating a pilot’s day-to-day life in Korea. And when he writes about flying Salter is capable of passages that rival Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
“Flashing like fish silver, they broke through a low, billowing surf of clouds and into unmarked sky.... Toward the final test and winnowing they flew together, and though a man on the ground could neither see nor hear them, they were up, specks of metal moving through a prehistoric sky, contaminating an ocean of air with only their presence, electrifying the heavens. Cleve felt a distilled fulfillment. For these moments, no price could be too high.”
Salter would likely dismiss the comparison. Known as a writer’s writer, he’s modest and unassuming. James Wolcott, the critic, once called Salter America’s most “underrated underrated writer.” None of his nine novels have sold more than 12,000 copies in hardback. Like Connell, the lack of success seems to weigh on Salter. One gets the impression that he underrates himself.
"I haven't yet achieved much," Salter said during a 1990 interview. "My ideal is a book that is perfect on every page, that gives you tremendous aesthetic joy on every page. I suppose I am trying to write such a book."
He needn’t worry. With The Hunters, Salter assured his legacy.
James Salter’s most recent work returns to aviation. Published just last year, Gods of Tin: The Flying Years is a compilation of fiction and personal recollections. It’s well worth reading.
Gaming the Book Rowan’s MiG Alley is still the definitive Korean War flight sim. A devoted user community keeps the game fresh; its campaign rivals Dynamix’s Red Baron 3D and Microprose’s Falcon 4.
Sadly forgotten is Eagle Interactive’s Sabre Ace. Although crippled by bugs, and limited by a scripted campaign, the sim’s atmosphere and attention to detail was often captivating.
Most of the Korean War’s principal aircraft are available as community add-ons for Strike Fighters: Project One and Wings Over Vietnam. It’s challenging to fly Sabres versus MiG-15s in single missions or online co-ops, and the types can easily be substituted into existing campaigns. A dedicated Korean War campaign is also expected very soon. Led by noted campaign-builder MK2, the team’s effort promises to be outstanding.
