FLYING THE HUMP TO CHINA

On one occasion when I was copilot flying with a Captain as first pilot, he lost his nerve about 15 minutes into a very violent thunderstorm and decided to turn back toward China. Before we got back out of the storm he concluded it wasn’t such a good idea after all and turned around again. This business of doing 180 degree turns in these violent storms was not a good idea either, because a severe up or down draft could cause one to lose control of the aircraft while turning. With my encouragement he plowed the rest of the way through the storm in about 30 minutes. Not long after getting out of the worst of the weather, we were not far from Myitkyina and landed there for a breather.

While on the ground in Myitkyina, we learned of another C-54 that hadn’t fared so well. The pilots nearly lost control of their airplane and brought it into Myitkyina so twisted out of shape that it was retired from service at the side of the field and used for spare parts. At this stage of the war we had no problems with Japanese planes, so the weather was our worst enemy.

On July 27, 1945, orders were issued which contained a long list of officers and airmen who have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross or Air Medal.  I was among the officers awarded the Air Medal for participating in more than 200 hours of operational flight in transport aircraft over the dangerous and difficult India-China air routes. At that time 500 hours qualified for the Distinguished Flying Cross.  I had just over 400 hours at the time.

Not long after this, when I was first pilot, we had the experience of a lightning strike taking out our radio compass in a storm while we were still over the Hump, probably at least 600 miles from Kurmitola. We were on actual instruments, so all we could do was to fly by dead reckoning and hope we’d find Kurmitola without need of an instrument approach! When we were about 50 miles from our estimated target, our VHF radio was able to reach the tower and they gave us a heading to the station. You will recall that the monsoon weather began to be a major factor in the amount of instrument flying we encountered in May and continued on into September. It also changed the landscape below us east of the Himalayas. The lowlands became mostly water with only ridges being high enough for the Indian farmers and villagers to locate their huts and houses. This kind of landscape made it very difficult to spot any distinguishing features on the ground, even if you had a map, so you can understand why we had some concern about finding our landing runway at Kurmitola. Unless the ceiling turned out to be below 500 feet, which would be very unusual  at our home base, we could get a good altimeter setting and ease down slowly through the clouds with little fear of mountains being a problem in that area. Nevertheless, you can imagine that we still were a bit nervous about our approach to the runway. Fortunately everything worked in our favor and we landed with a sigh of relief!

During the months of June and July I had accumulated over 119 hours of qualified dual flying time in both C-109 and C-54 airplanes. Evidently my first pilots were favorably impressed with my performance, because I was among 17 Second Lieutenants out of 42, who came to the 1345^th AAF Base Unit on the same date, who were promoted to First Lieutenant on August 1, 1945.  This was barely a year after getting my wings and commissioned as Second Lieutenant. I always felt that my deep interest in the challenge of navigating with such limited equipment and maps paid off for me. I also found that many of the copilots assigned as part of my crews, either didn’t care or didn’t become proficient at the navigating job and I made sure to be aware of this aspect of our trip in order to be on the safe side.