[Edward]

"Oklahoman Recalls Military Action"
The Oklahoman - Sunday, September 12, 2004
by Reba Neighbors Collins

"Roy Whistle of Oklahoma City covers many adventures in the 57 pages of "Westward-Ho Jaldijao: India to Junk (Redbird Press, $14.95).

As a flying radio operator/gunner and instructor, Whistle flew 46 missions in Consolidated B-24 bombers over Burma, China and Indochina during World War II. He became a radio operator in a Boeing B-17, then moved to the B-24. After the war, he went to Officers Candidate School, was commissioned an officer in 1948, spent two years in Japan during the Korean War, and the story goes on.

Urged to write about his military experience, Whistle decided to limit his story to World War II. He wrote it as he relived the 466 bombing missions in his mind on a 17,000-mile flight from India to the United States as a radio operator/gunner on a B-24. He divided his dangerous but exciting experiences into chapters as he recalled them on each leg of the trip home. The reader thus gets two adventures in one the trip home plus the scary missions in combat and the humor that keeps the men sane.

Along with the first-person narrative, the writer includes photos and maps of the areas. Full names, ranks and hometowns of his fellow servicemen are given as well as dates and details of military action.

Conversations between the author and the planes' pilots and crews give the book a "you are-there feeling as the bullets fly and planes go down. It's a valuable piece of history."
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"Bomber group recounts WWII sagas"
Veterans gather in Salt Lake for their national reunion
Deseret News - June 18, 2004
by Larry Weist

"Roy A. Whistle, 83, recently completed a book about his experiences with the 7th, "Westward-Ho-Jaldijao: India to Junk." The book recounts his crew taking a recovered B-24 and flying it from Pandaveswar, India, to Utah's Hill Fieldfor scrapping. The plane had been abandoned for nearly eight months and was in far worse shape than the crew realized until their 17,000-mile flight that took nearly four weeks to complete because of breakdowns. "Jaldijao" is a Hindu word meaning "hurry," Whistle said. "And we were in a hurry to get home." Whistle, of Midwest City, Okla., flew 46 combat missions in the CBI Theater."