The pilots who flew "The Hump" were in many ways the war's greatest unsung heroes. Their job was to carry materials from Assam into beleaguered China; their enemies were the weather and the thrusting peaks of the Himalayas rather than the obviously dramatic risks of Japanese Zeros. Nonetheless, during the season of the monsoon, theirs was a more terrifying uncertainty than any faced by pilots in active combat. The jockeyed their planes through dark, swirling mists and jagged canyons groping for a path to ferry cargoes of high-octane gasoline.