Posted on 12/10/2023 9:59:08 AM PST by DFG
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.
~~~~~
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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