The hump

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Allied route network in Southeast Asia (1942–1943) - The Hump is on the right edge

The Hump [ ðɘ hɑmp ] ('The Hump') refers to an airlift between India and China , which was established by the US Air Force from 1942 onwards under the name China-India Ferry during World War II . The airlift led over several mountain ranges attributable to the Himalayas with a height of up to 4900 meters. It was established in connection with the withdrawal of the British from Burma (Myanmar) and the subsequent occupation of Burma by Japan . For 42 months, this US airlift was the only route from the US to China that was not controllable by Japan. The airlift served to supply the national Chinese troops of Chiang Kai-shek , who not only fought the Japanese Imperial Invasion Army in China, but also the Chinese People's Army of Mao Zedong in a civil war . A US volunteer air corps stationed in China, the so-called Flying Tigers of General Chennault , who supported Chiang Kai-shek on behalf of the US government in its fight against the Japanese invasion troops , was also supplied via the airlift .

The Commander-in-Chief of the Airlift was US General Joseph Stilwell , who from 1942 to 1945 was also the Commander-in-Chief of US troops in India, Burma (Myanmar) and China, as well as chief of the lend-and-lease program and chief of staff of the national Chinese Troops with headquarters in Kunming was.

The operation was initially carried out by the US 10th Air Force and later by the Air Transport Command (ATC) of the US Air Force USAAF. The Indo-Chinese branch of the ATC (ICWATC) was honored on January 29, 1944 with an honorable mention from American President Roosevelt, which is also particularly noteworthy because the ATC was the first non-military unit to have such a unit Award was presented.

The English word "The Hump" literally means "The hump" or "The hump". In the term “over the hump” it not only literally means “over the hump”, but also in the figurative sense “being over the mountain”. This refers to the fact that the flight route over "The Hump" was extremely risky - one flew with small, underpowered, fully loaded machines from the wide plains of the Brahmaputra Valley, first over the foothills of the Himalayas, and then over mountain ranges up to 4900 meters high where bad radio links, severe tropical turbulence, bad weather and attacks by the Japanese air force stationed in Burma were the norm.

The operation of the airlift over "The Hump" began in May 1942 with 27 aircraft and 1,100 men and was initially improvised rather than set up. The Japanese army had by their triumphant from Singapore to the north through Malaysia and Burma to the Indian border, the " Burma Road ," a 1130 km long connection that of the port city of Yangon on Lashio in Burma through the mountainous western China to Kunming in China leads, cut off, so that the only possible route from the USA to China or from China to the West - through areas not controlled by Japan - was the air route "The Hump" from Assam / India.

American aid deliveries, so-called lend-and-lease deliveries, with a total tonnage of approx. 650,000 tons were transported via this first airlift in the history of aviation. After the occupation of Rangoon by the Japanese Empire, the deliveries took the sea route from the American east coast, across the Atlantic, past the Cape of Good Hope and Africa , on across the Indian Ocean to Karachi , at that time still part of the British Empire . From Karachi in what is now Pakistan, the deliveries were transported by rail across the Indian subcontinent to the end point of the rail line in Ledo in Assam , where they were finally loaded onto the airlift planes to be flown to Kunming in China.

The transport planes flew around the clock from one of the thirteen airfields on the banks of the Brahmaputra in northeastern India to one of six Chinese landing sites and had to cross mountains of up to 4900 meters in this way. Up to three missions were flown per day. Due to the isolated location of northeast India, the supply of spare parts and supplies as well as fuel for the aircraft was permanently difficult, so that salvage teams were regularly sent to the foothills of the Himalayas to retrieve spare parts from the wreckage of aircraft that were crashed there, which were needed to maintain the remaining machines were.

All flights were initially carried out on a narrow corridor 50 miles wide and 10-20,000 feet high, towards the end of the war on a width of 200 miles and 10-25,000 feet high, in view of the dwindling Japanese threat now also more in the south with lower mountain ranges . An average of 650 aircraft flew this corridor daily with an average interval of two and a half minutes.

594 aircraft were lost in the 42 months and 1,659 people were killed or are missing.

The airlift lost its importance after the " Ledo Road " (later "Stilwell Road") was completed in 1945. This supply road, built with great effort and privation and initiated by General Joseph Stilwell , led from the railway terminus in Ledo (in Assam, India ) to Bhamo in Burma and on to Kunming in Yünnan / West China. From February 1945 the anti-Japanese forces in China could be supplied by land via the 1736 km long connection from Ledo to Kunming. The supply via the dangerous airlift became less and less important. On July 31, 1945, the airlift consisted of 640 aircraft and 34,000 men. The last flight took place in November 1945.

The airlift was largely organized by William H. Tunner , who made a major contribution to the functioning of the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and 1949 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tunner, Over the hump chap. The Hump, p. 129