The Hump was the name given by Allied pilots in the Second World War to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek and the units of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) based in China. Creating an airlift presented the USAAF a considerable challenge in 1942: it had no units trained or equipped for moving cargo, and there were no airfields in the China Burma India Theater (CBI) for basing the large number of transport aircraft that would be needed. Flying over the Himalayas was extremely dangerous and made more difficult by a lack of reliable charts, an absence of radio navigation aids, and a dearth of information about the weather. the Empire of Japan had effectively blockaded the entry of fuel and supplies into China by 1940, pushing the Republic of China government further hinterland to the new wartime capital of Chongqing, further culminating into the Japanese invasion of French Indochina and attack on Pearl Harbor, and necessitating the need in keeping the Chinese well-supplied for the continued fight against the Empire of Japan in the overall war effort. While committed to the success of the "Europe first" strategy of the Allied forces, keeping China well-supplied in the war on the Asian mainland would tie-down more than a million Japanese troops who might otherwise increase threat to the Allied strategic offensive in the Pacific War, had also become a priority. The Japanese invasion of French Indochina closed all sea and rail access routes for supplying China with war materiel except through central/north Asian states with the Soviet Union. That access ended following the signing of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941 due to the need for the Soviets to commit to war against Nazi Germany, and the Burma Road became the only land route where supplies trickled in. and commissioned CNAC pilot Charles L. Sharp flying for the first-time, this route which was to become known as The Hump in November of that year.

On 25 February 1942, President Roosevelt wrote to General George C. Marshall that "it is of the utmost urgency that the pathway to China be kept open", and committed ten C-53 Skytrooper transports for lend-lease delivery to CNAC to build its capability to 25 aircraft. When the newly created Tenth Air Force opened its headquarters in New Delhi under the command of Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton in March 1942, it was assigned the responsibility of developing an "India-China Ferry" using both U.S. and Chinese aircraft. Although he was never given command authority over aircraft or personnel, the officer responsible for the India-China Ferry was Brereton's chief of staff Brig. Gen. Earl L. Naiden, who held that responsibility until mid-August.

From its onset, the air route was predicated on operating two branches, unofficially deemed "commands": a "Trans-India Command" from India's western ports to Calcutta, where cargo would be transshipped by rail to Assam; and the "Assam-Burma-China Command", a route from bases in Assam to southern China. The original scheme envisioned the Allies holding northern Burma and using Myitkyina as an offloading terminal to send supplies by barge downriver to Bhamo and transfer to the Burma Road. However, on 8 May 1942 the Japanese seized Myitkyina which, coupled with the loss of Rangoon, effectively cut Allied access to the Burma Road. To maintain the uninterrupted supply to China, U.S. and other allied leaders agreed to organize a continual aerial resupply effort directly between Assam and Kunming.

Airlift history

Haynes, 1942

thumb|left|C-47 Skytrain

Tenth Air Force was hampered by a constant diversion of men and aircraft to Egypt, where Nazi Germany was threatening to seize the Suez Canal. Its Air Service Command was still en route by ship from the United States, forcing it to get aircraft and personnel for the India-China Ferry from any available source. Ten former Pan American World Airways DC-3s and flight crews were sent from the trans-Africa ferry route to outfit the new operation. 25 other DC-3s requisitioned from American Airlines in the United States could not be moved to India due to lack of crews, and were later integrated into the complement of the first transport group committed to the airlift.

The command structure of the India-China Ferry was fractured after senior officers in India and Burma made competing claims for jurisdiction, with part of the authority given to Gen. Joseph Stilwell as CBI theater commander and part remaining with Tenth Air Force, which had also been ordered by Marshall to "co-operate when requested" with the British in defending India. Movement by ground transport of supplies arriving from the United States at the port of Karachi to the airfields, as well as construction of the infrastructure required to support the operation, was the responsibility of the U.S. Army's Services of Supply, commanded in the CBI by Maj. Gen. Raymond A. Wheeler. The airlift was the final leg of a journey of from Los Angeles to China often taking four months.

On 23 April 1942, Colonel Caleb V. Haynes, a prospective bombardment group commander, was assigned to command the Assam-Kunming branch of the India-China Ferry, dubbed the Assam-Burma-China Ferry Command. Col. Robert L. Scott, a pursuit pilot awaiting an assignment in China, was assigned as his operations officer and a month later as executive officer. Haynes was a fortuitous choice to be the airlift's first commander, as he had just completed an assignment as a key subordinate of Brig. Gen. Robert Olds. Olds and his staff had founded the Air Corps Ferrying Command in June 1941 and pioneered overseas military air transport, including use of the South Atlantic air route by which aircraft, personnel, and cargo would reach India from the United States. However, at the time the India-China Ferry was conceived, the ABC Ferry Command was not prepared to plan, control, or execute such an operation. Its formal organization was minimal, it had no units of its own, and its few aircraft were committed to establishing air transport routes. By June, however, the ABC Ferry Command had begun a greatly expanded wartime restructuring, and became the Air Transport Command on 1 July.

The first mission "over the hump" took place on 8 April 1942. Flying from the Royal Air Force airfield at Dinjan, Lt. Col. William D. Old used a pair of the former Pan Am DC-3s to ferry of aviation fuel intended to resupply the Doolittle Raiders. The collapse of Allied resistance in northern Burma in May 1942 meant further diversion of the already minuscule air effort. The ABC Ferry Command resupplied Stilwell's retreating army and evacuated its wounded, while establishing a regular air service to China using ten borrowed DC-3s, three USAAF C-47s, and 13 CNAC C-53s and C-39s.

Innumerable problems with the Indian railway system meant that aircraft assigned to the airlift often carried their cargo all the way from Karachi to China, while much cargo took as long to reach Assam from Karachi as the two-month journey by ship from the United States. India's highway and river systems were so undeveloped as to be unable to support the mission, leaving air as the only practicable way to supply China in anything resembling a timely fashion.

The first crews and aircraft from the United States went to the 1st Ferrying Group, arriving on 17 May at their base at the New Malir Cantonment near Karachi. The group was activated in India in March without personnel or equipment and was assigned to the operational control of the Tenth Air Force over the objections of the commander of ATC, who feared that its planes and crews would be steered into combat units, which did in fact occur at times. Aircraft continued to arrive in small increments through October with flight crews consisting of airline pilots holding Air Corps Reserve commissions who had been called up for active duty specifically for the India-China assignment, and navigators, engineers and radiomen from the USAAF technical training schools. For the remainder of 1942, the 62 C-47s of the 1st Ferrying Group were the backbone of the airlift, flying both branches of the operation from Karachi until August, when it began a three months' relocation to Assam.

In the first two months of the airlift the USAAF delivered only 700 tons of cargo and CNAC only 112 tons, and tonnage fell for both June and July, mostly due to the full onset of the summer monsoon. In July, CNAC quadrupled its tonnage to 221 tons, but 10AF C-47s brought only 85 net tons of materiel and personnel into China.

Tate, 1942

On 17 June 1942, Haynes continued on to China to take up an assignment as bomber commander of the China Air Task Force, Tenth Air Force's eastern appendage commanded by Brig. Gen. Claire L. Chennault. Scott was left in command for several days before he too was ordered to China to command the first U.S. fighter group in the CATF. On 22 June Col. Robert F. Tate (who like Haynes was a bombardment officer) was named to replace Haynes, but he was also in charge of the Trans-India Command in Karachi and remained in that capacity. Lt. Col. Julian M. Joplin, acting at the direction of Naiden, for all practical purposes commanded India-China operations until 18 August. Tate took actual command on 25 August, when Naiden was forced to return to the United States, although like Naiden he delegated direction of airlift operations to Joplin. Effective 15 July 1942, the two branches of the India-China Ferry merged into the India-China Ferry Command, an organized component of the Tenth Air Force.

thumb|Chabua Airfield. The white line at the top is the Brahmaputra River.

Tate was immediately and severely handicapped when the best pilots and 12 aircraft of the airlift went west to Egypt with Brereton on 26 June. Despite the use of the 1st Ferrying Group, the buildup of the airlift grew very slowly during the summer monsoon. Overuse of the small number of aircraft available, spotty maintenance, and a lack of spare parts led to numerous groundings until overhauls could be effected. In particular the lack of replacement tires and spare engines held down operations even after eight of the C-47s sent to the Middle East returned in August. For a short time engines intended for P-43 fighters of the Chinese Air Force were adapted for use on C-47s, but the supply of those proved small.

Although three bases constructed by the British on tea plantations at Chabua, Mohanbari, and Sookerating were declared operational in August 1942, and construction of a fourth began at Jorhat, none were expected to be ready for all-weather operations before November or December because of problems with unskilled indigenous labor and the failure of promised heavy equipment to arrive from the United States. Throughout the monsoon rains Dinjan remained the chief transport base. The dismal results of the India-China Ferry to this point led to a proposal in Washington to turn over control of the operation entirely to CNAC, which would place U.S. military personnel in a combat area under foreign civilian control. Stilwell vigorously and successfully opposed the plan. He reinforced his position by insisting that CNAC lease its C-53s and crews participating in the airlift to the USAAF to assure that they would carry only essential cargo and not commercial activity. Losses of transports increased sharply, Under Hardin, tonnages increased, but so did expectations and frustrations; morale and safety concerns continued to plague the operation.

Operations Grubworm and Rooster

Because C-47s and C-46s which landed in China were temporarily beyond ATC control, they were constantly being diverted for local emergencies by Chennault's and China Theater commander Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer's forces, disrupting the flight crew rest and aircraft maintenance schedules necessary to maintain tonnage. To alleviate the situation and also provide the additional support needed by the combat forces, 50 C-47s and 20 C46s were permanently based in China after October 1944 for internal movement of cargo and to assist the India-China airlift when gaps in local scheduling permitted. Most of the remaining C-47s were eventually sent to bases in Burma and continued India-China missions over the lower routes. They proved their continuing usefulness by playing prominent roles in various support missions within China in 1944 and 1945.

Between 5 December 1944 and 5 January 1945, C-46s and crews were attached to the Tenth Air Force to augment "Operation Grubworm". This was the relocation of the 14th and 22nd Chinese Divisions, located in reserve on the Stilwell Road near Myitkyina, to bases around Kunming. Chiang and Wedemeyer proposed to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, over the objections of Mountbatten, to relocate the divisions to counter a Japanese offensive seeking to capture the Kunming airfields. The operation was approved with the proviso that it not strain Tenth Air Force's extensive air transport system supplying Allied ground operations in Burma. IDC provided the C-46s of the mobile air transport squadrons and all of its China Wing C-47s to provide the necessary augmentation.

The 2nd MATS moved in entirety from its base at Dergaon to Luliang Field, China, completing the deployment by December 13.

thumb|C-46 Commando China Doll

The Curtiss C-46 Commando began to fly India-China missions in May 1943. The C-46 was a large twin-engine aircraft capable of flying faster and higher than any previous medium-range cargo aircraft, and could carry heavier loads than either the C-47 or the C-87, albeit at two and one half times the unit cost of a C-47. With the C-46, airlift tonnage increased significantly, surpassing objectives with 12,594 tons in December 1943. Loads continued to increase throughout 1944 and 1945, reaching an all-time maximum tonnage in July 1945. Performance of the Commando was enhanced when camouflage paint, standard on all USAAF aircraft until February 1944, was removed to reduce weight and provide five extra knots of speed.

Notable Hump airlift participants

Notable people involved in the Hump airlift, and their later careers, included:

  • Maj. Gen. Barry Goldwater, Pilot and flight instructor, later US Senator and presidential nominee
  • Col. Harry L. "Red" Clark (former Eastern area flight manager for American Airlines and vice president-flight for Seaboard World Airlines), commanding officer 1st Ferrying Group
  • Col. Robert L. Scott, Jr., pilot and commanding officer
  • Col. Merian C. Cooper (movie producer), liaison officer
  • Col. James H. Douglas, Jr. (Secretary of the Air Force), ATC staff member
  • Lt. Col. Robert S. McNamara (corporate executive, Secretary of Defense), scheduling analyst for "Reverse Hump" operation
  • Lt. Col. Thomas Watson Jr. (corporate executive, CEO of IBM, ambassador to Soviet Union)
  • Lt. Col. Reserves Erik Meidell Jr. (Berlin Airlift pilot, as United Airlines pilot flew King Olav V of Norway in his 1969 state visit to the United States), C-46 pilot
  • Lt. Col. Lloyd H. Aronson, Pilot. Saved a Chinese girl from pneumonia after his plane was forced to crash-land in western China. (Scott, Col. Robert. God Is My Co-Pilot. Second Special Printing, Ballantine Books, 1976. Page 149.) Later flew the Berlin airlift and worked for NASA.
  • Maj. Floyd Shaw "Buckley" Benjamin Jr. (Pilot TE(1051) & 4E(1024) (P); B-24, B-25, C-47, C-54.), 1596th (2nd Foreign Trans Gp) (Ferrying Div, ATC) New Castle Army Air Field, Wilmington, Del.
  • Maj. Arthur Chin, Chinese-American fighter ace, one of the original volunteer pilots to join war against Imperial Japan
  • Maj. Ernest K. Gann (author), C-87 instructor pilot
  • Capt. Jack Narz, C-46 pilot
  • Capt. Walter G. Hughen, noted civilian AA commercial pilot recruited as commander in the earliest stages of the operation
  • Capt. Larry Clinton (band leader), flight instructor 1343rd Base Unit
  • Capt. Richard E. Cole (Doolittle Raider), 6th Ferrying Squadron (1st Ferrying Group) pilot
  • Lt. Ralph Knudtsen, (CA Steel Industrialist) C-47 pilot, commanding officer, Purple Heart recipient, over 300 missions and shot down in Burma, wound to the head
  • Capt. Edgar E. McElroy (Doolittle Raider), C-47 pilot
  • Captain Frank Kingdon-Ward (botanist), British soldier recruited to locate crash sites
  • Captain Lawrence D. Edmonson (psychologist, later lifetime private pilot until age 88), C-46/C-47 pilot
  • Lt. Jerry Disharoon (USAF Colonel), C-46/C-47 pilot
  • 2d Lt. Theodore F. Stevens (U.S. senator), C-47/C-46 pilot
  • 2d Lt. George Olesen (cartoonist), B-24 pilot 7th Bomb Group
  • Lt. Beryl Clark (NFL player), C-109 pilot 1347th Base Unit
  • Lt. Bruce Sundlun (Rhode Island governor), C-54 pilot
  • F/O. Gene Autry (television and movie star), C-109 pilot
  • F/O Vernon Martin (NFL player), C-109 pilot 1347th Base Unit
  • David Elvin Nelson (1920–2022), Santa Rosa, California, surviving pilot and last surviving founder of San Francisco Maritime Museum
  • LT COL W.E. Yeates, founder member of the Veterans Memorial Museum in Laurel, MS
  • Major J.W. Slaton, Captain & initial cadre (1937 hire) at Delta Air Lines

See also

  • Fort Hertz covered an airstrip in Northern Burma which served as an emergency landing ground for planes flying the Hump.
  • Hengduan Mountains
  • South-East Asian Theatre of World War II
  • Ledo Road

Notes

Explanatory footnotes

Citations

General references

  • .
  • CMH Publication 9-1

Websites

  • (retrieved with the Wayback archive)
  • credits:

Contemporary newspapers

Further reading

  • China-Burma-India - Remembering the Forgotten Theater of World War II
  • Tunner, Lieutenant General William H. Over the Hump.
  • Jon Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War, London: John Murray, 2004 Index site for Hump Express, 1945 military newspaper of India-China Division, ATC Reproduction of Dec. 21, 1944 issue of CBI Round Up (military newspaper), "HUMP SMUGGLING RING EXPOSED BY ARMY"
  • Hastings, a Pictorial Report, 1945 publication by Hastings AAB, India
  • USAAF Net: FLYING THE HUMP
  • Imphal, The Hump and Beyond (Combat Cargo groups)
  • "Fireball Express to India"—LIFE photoessay featuring the C-87 Liberator Express]