Today we take comfortable, nonstop flights to Japan or Australia for granted, but a mere seventy years ago transpacific flight was only a dream. Wings Across the Pacific tells the epic struggle of the generation of pilots who made that dream a reality.

The feats of Lindbergh and others who crossed the Atlantic have been more celebrated. But the Pacific was to flying what Everest was to mountain climbing: the biggest, most implacable, most irresistible challenge on earth. To fly the Pacific meant aiming for tiny islands amid seventy million square miles of ocean, and the slightest mechanical failure- of error of judgment-could mean a watery grave. Amelia Earhart is only one of many who vanished into the Pacific without a trace.