If you want to know exactly
when the defining time occurred for air cargo in the 20th century, and
what led to its development, just cast a line back sixty years ago and
you will discover that modern air cargo was born in India and China.
Today, as air cargo’s future is
increasingly connected to these two ancient countries, it can be said
that what is old is new again.
 Early
in World War II, President Roosevelt asked Army Air Force General Hap
Arnold to devise a method for supplying Chinese and American troops
and aviators fighting against the Japanese in China.
Americans were aiding the Nationalist
forces of Chiang Kai Shek, while American aviators operating P40B fighter
aircraft supplied by the USA were part of an all-volunteer group known
as the AVG, under the command of Claire Chennault.
Later, the world would come to know this
pilot group as the legendary Flying Tigers.
As the enemy closed in, military planners
decided that an air route across some of the most rugged territory in
the world—the Himalayan Mountains—would be sustainable in
any event.
The route quickly earned a name that has
immortalized the effort and heroism of that first great air cargo movement,
which kept freedom and hope alive for millions during the darkest days
of the conflict: for succeeding generations, “The China-India-Burma
Hump (CBI)” described a journey which created an aerial lifeline
from the Assam Valley in India to Kunming, China.
China-India-Burma Hump operations took
off after the Japanese closed down the overland truck route, called
The Burma Road, as Rangoon and the country fell in early 1942.
To look at it today, that vaunted and
somewhat mysterious Burma Road is/was little more than a mostly unimproved
artery hacked out in serpentine form in the rugged mountains.
But as breathtaking as the sheer cliffs
were to passengers and drivers inching along the Burma Road, that experience
was nothing compared to the adventure of take-off and landing first-generation,
all-cargo aircraft operating back and forth between India and China.
The Himalayas are rugged
mountains, some as high as 14,000 feet, which lay square between the
Assam Valley and Kunming.
Since the Japanese controlled everything
else, there was no right or left about it either.
The only way between the two cities was
the relatively short 500-air mile, truly hellish flight up over the
mountains.
Although today, aircraft routinely fly
over the Himalayan Mountains, as World War II raged, the otherwise picturesque,
snow-capped, remote peaks were a daunting challenge to airmen and their
twin-engine aircraft.
Flights from Assam to Kunming often took
several hours.
Unpredictable weather and wind currents
were a constant challenge, extending the journey for additional hours
as aerial charts were drawn and redrawn to direct flights around fierce
storms.
Bodies were often stressed to the limit;
as engines beat ominously against an unforgiving sky, aircraft would
encounter up and down drafts, falling and rising thousands of feet in
almost an instant.
Without warning, an airplane would be
flipped over by wind currents or whipped side to side.
The run quickly gained the ominous moniker,
“aluminum alley.”
During the three plus years of Hump operations,
more than 167,285 trips were completed, delivering 760,000 tons of air
cargo.
But the price was paid with 792 lives
lost aboard 460 aircraft and 701 major accidents.
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Incredibly, sixty years
later, remains of Hump pilots and their downed aircraft were still being
recovered.
In the summer of 2002, an expedition scaled
an 18,000-foot peak, bringing back fragments and other remains of an
air cargo flight from 1944 that went missing and was never heard from
again, until someone spotted it from the air in 1999.
Not enough can be said of the heroism
and sacrifice that was made by the early military air cargo pilots.
They were a select and intrepid breed
with lion-sized courage and determination.
Everyone connected in any fashion to aviation,
and especially air cargo, owes the Hump pilots who founded our great
industry a debt of gratitude that we should never forget.
The first flights over “The Hump”
carried Avgas and oil earmarked to support The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo
in April 1942 and, as mentioned, Flying Tigers P40B fighter operations.
Those first DC-3 all-cargo flights were
accomplished with passenger aircraft that were conscripted into the
effort from China National Airlines (CNAC, a working partner of Pan
Am) and others.
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Even more amazing were
the pilots, who were sipping coffee in the cockpits of DC-3s a few weeks
earlier at home in the USA as they flew between places like Chicago
and Albuquerque for the commercial airlines.
The outstanding airplane to emerge from
Hump operations was the C-46A- Curtiss Commando.
Called “Dumbo” by its pilots
and crew after the 1941 Disney movie, the Curtiss C46A was an airplane
that was out of place almost everywhere but the CBI Theater.
But at CBI, the Commando lifted twice
as much cargo into the sky as the DC-3, upon wings that were actually
four feet wider than the B-17 heavy bomber of the era.
The Commando had better manners at high
altitude and could haul twice the load of the DC-3.
The Commando’s “double bubble”
fuselage offered more room and stability aloft, and in some cases pressurized
high altitude operations at its service ceiling of 21,000 feet.
But as many veterans of the CBI recall,
Dumbo was no push over.
Almost every flight was an adventure.
Serving the theater it was destined to
define, the Curtiss Commando flew its last CBI Hump flight in November
25, 1945.
In total, more than 3,100 Curtiss Commandos
were built, serving in every theater of World War II.
After the war, several carriers converted
the wartime transports to civilian tasks for air cargo and passenger
usage.
The Commando made a brief comeback during
the Korean War, but was quickly replaced in air cargo and other applications
by the newer C-119 Flying Boxcar.
As late as the 1980s, more than 300 Curtiss
Commandos were still in service.
Today, with the exception of South America
and several air museums, the public has mostly forgotten the Commando,
opting for a love affair with the more popular Douglas DC-3.
For the record, the first Hump airlift
delivered 30,000 gallons of Avgas and 500 gallons of oil.
In August 1942, aerial deliveries continued
aboard what was named the India-China Ferry Command.
By December 1942, with some 29 aircraft,
the cargo service flights were folded into the newly formed Air Transport
Command (ATC).
Volumes of air cargo that were moved across
The Hump formed an ever increasing supply tide, which eventually contributed
to Allied victory.
An indication of how great an impact Hump
operations had on the fortunes of the Allies can be seen by tracking
shipments numbers.
In July 1942, 85 tons were moved. In July
1943, 2,916 tons flew above the Himalayas.
In 1944, 18,975 tons of air cargo flew.
In 1945, the last year of operations, more than 71,042 tons of war material
was delivered.
Make no mistake, those shipment numbers,
plus a wealth of cheaply priced DC-3s and Curtiss Commandos made available
after the war, fueled aviation’s imagination as to a future role
for air cargo.
As the war ended, returning GI’s
once again took up their civilian lives.
Pilots and soldiers would become entrepreneurs.
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Aircraft once used to
move gasoline and oil, people and tungsten, green tea, hand grenades
and Hershey Bars were sold off as war surplus, as more than 100 air
cargo companies, including one outfit called The Flying Tiger Line,
went into business in the United States and elsewhere in the world between
1945 and 1947.
Later in 1948 the Russians, in a political
power play they were destined to lose, surrounded Berlin, not allowing
any vehicular or rail traffic to access the inland city located in the
Russian Zone of post-war occupied Germany.
With the success of the China-India-Burma
Hump air cargo operations and Air Transport Command now a full time
branch of the U.S. Army Air Force, air cargo was at the world’s
attention as The Berlin Airlift saved a city of three million.
Geoffrey Arend
A Postscript
Often people inquire as to our name FlyingTypers.
“Don’t you mean Flying Tigers,” is a comment we have
heard.
Actually
during WWII Flying Tigers were both fighter pilots (P40) and air transport
pilots (C46 & C47) as well.
Our publication title is genuine. It
dates back to the days of the AVG, when during the long trek over the
mountains, the pilots got to know another determined group of people,
the first air cargo journalists who worked for Time & Life and Yank
Magazine, New York Herald Tribune, Stars and Stripes and others.
Along with
their regular kit, these reporters brought along the essential tool
of their trade, a small portable typewriter in a black case—the
1940's version of the laptop computer of today.
Our Contributing
Editor, Ed "Ansel " Talbert, who served as top aviation editor
of the New York Herald Tribune, and a founder of The Wings Club recalled:
“Preparing
for a flight, a pilot looking out the left seat window at some reporters
as they trudged their way toward his aircraft to cover the story said
to the co-pilot:
“Here
come those flying typers.”
We are proud to carry the
name FlyingTypers as we pioneer this 21st Century Ezine worldwide thrice
weekly.
We are also
dedicated to never forget the people and events that shaped our great
industry.
(GDA) |
100%
Green
As
Emirates SkyCargo readies a third weekly freighter flight across the
UAE-Brazil trade route to serve bustling Brazil, SkyCargo said that
it just delivered a cameo run in the form of two large helicopters for
energy giant Petrobras.
RE:
Dear
Geoffrey,
