8 April 1942: First “Hump Airlift” Military Flight

75 years ago April 8, 2017, the most extensive airlift ever undertaken by the United States commenced, doing so in the Second World War’s China-Burma-India Theatre, or the CBI. For those unaware, the “Hump Airlift” was the allied effort to sustain Chinese armies in their resistance against Japanese forces. However, the only entryway defenseless from the Japanese military was over the world’s highest mountain system, the Himalayas, what separates China and India on this map. Aircrews at the time referred to this as “the Hump” Never had a community been supplied such a large proportion of its needs by air; but performing this operation over such diverse and extreme conditions was the true test for these members of the Army Air Force. Not only did crews have snow-packed mountains keeping them on alert; but, should they be forced to evacuate, awaiting them on the ground were Burmese jungles swarming with mosquitoes, torrential rains, and head-hunters, to give only a few examples. The campaign itself started slowly, delivering a little over 300 tons the first two months. When it was over, aircrews involved in the airlift made over 167,000 trips to China and delivered almost 740,000 tons of war material, including armies from India and Burma to the battlefronts of China. The last commander of the India-China Division, General William H. Tunner, was responsible for the sharp increase in tonnage rates and the significant downturn in accidents during the war’s final year. Performed in arguably the most harrowing theater of the war, the Hump Airlift proved to be a pivotal moment in the history of military airlift. Tunner realized its potential: “After the Hump, those of us who had developed an expertise in air transportation knew that we could fly anything anywhere anytime.”