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 ...
But I have a cousin who is 91 now and went skydiving over the Mojave Desert at the age of 72, so there is that.
I did a few jumps to try it out back in the mid-80s, but decided it wasn’t my thing.
The engines look larger than in 1952. Did they change them for more HP?
I had a co-worker who’s dad flew the hump. He still had his GI issued 1911. The co-worker donated it to a WWII museum.
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