Posted on 12/10/2023 9:59:08 AM PST by DFG
A newly-opened museum in India houses the remains of American planes that crashed in the Himalayas during World War Two. The BBC's Soutik Biswas recounts an audaciously risky aerial operation that took place when the global war arrived in India.
Since 2009, Indian and American teams have scoured the mountains in India's north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, looking for the wreckage and remains of lost crews of hundreds of planes that crashed here over 80 years ago.
Some 600 American transport planes are estimated to have crashed in the remote region, killing at least 1,500 airmen and passengers during a remarkable and often-forgotten 42-month-long World War Two military operation in India. Among the casualties were American and Chinese pilots, radio operators and soldiers.
The operation sustained a vital air transport route from the Indian states of Assam and Bengal to support Chinese forces in Kunming and Chunking (now called Chongqing).
The war between Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the US, the Soviet Union, China) had reached the north-eastern part of British-ruled India. The air corridor became a lifeline following the Japanese advance to India's borders, which effectively closed the land route to China through northern Myanmar (then known as Burma).
The US military operation, initiated in April 1942, successfully transported 650,000 tonnes of war supplies across the route - an achievement that significantly bolstered the Allied victory.
Pilots dubbed the perilous flight route "The Hump", a nod to the treacherous heights of the eastern Himalayas, primarily in today's Arunachal Pradesh, that they had to navigate.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
From a book I once read, cited from memory, so I don’t have the source:
Vinegar Joe Stillwell needed every scrap of aid he could give to the Chinese, but the OSS outmaneuvered him and got the U.S. government to guarantee that 1/3 of every cargo shipment flown over the Hump was designated to their use.
I remember my father telling me when I was a kid. “I was in Kunming when the Burma road opened. Every single Studebaker truck was being towed by a GMC. I was never a Studebaker fan again.”
Thanks for the BBC link.
FTA: ...the newly opened The Hump Museum in Pasighat, a scenic town in Arunachal Pradesh nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas.
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I don’t know much about India, but I have to wonder how much traffic a museum in this town will receive.
That would be the Army.
American volunteer pilots began flying for China in the late 1930’s, but the American Volunteer Group under Claire Chennault didn’t see combat until shortly after Pearl Harbor. The press dubbed them the Flying Tigers, although most of the fliers detested that moniker. The unit later became the China Air Task Force and then the Fourteenth Air Force.
Operation Matterhorn. I did my Squadron Officer School paper using the original documents. Truly audacious and successful.
I always wanted to fly in a DC-3.
I have two words for you: CHYYYY NAAHHH
The Ted Stevens International Airport, Anchorage, Alaska, has a bronze statue and plaque of former Alaska US Senator Ted Stevens. Mentioned on the plaque: he had been in WW2 one of the C-46 pilots who “flew the hump.”
Hence the fortune paid to develop the high-altitude B-29 to be able to attack Japan from the Pacific instead of from bases in China that required such resupply, and the development of the atomic bomb.
The CAF is presently doing their nightly DC-3 Christmas Lights flights out of Messa, AZ, Midland, TX and Ft Worth, TX.
My 7th grade social studies teacher flew P40s with the Flying Tigers during WWII.
Take up skydiving. Some of those planes are being used for that purpose.
Here I am in Marietta, GA eight miles from McCollum Field.
There is at least one still in service, based in Fairbanks, AK. My son-in law works on this one:
https://evertsair.com/about/our-fleet/curtiss-wright-c-46
During my heart attack rehab program at the hospital was exercising on treadmills. On my left was a Hump C47 pilot and on my right was Gen. Bruce Davidson, noted Army historian and Army troopship commander at Iwo JIMA. ThE REST Of the room was Ww2 and Korean War vets. I was in the middle of living heroes. It was awe-inspiring and an honor.
Bookmark
One crashed aircraft and 3 dead per 1,100 tons delivered,
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