Flying the Hump

Pioneering the Hump route over the eastern spur of the Himalayas in late 1941 and 1942 certainly has to be considered to be the China National Aviation Corporation’s capstone achievement from its two decades of service in the Far East, and its myriad adventures on the Hump comprise one whole part of my book, China’s Wings.

Here are three photos of the Hump taken by CNAC pilot Jim Dalby, and one of a bunch of CNAC veterans at their 2002 reunion:

There are a lot of great Hump-related items on the internet I’ve stumbled across, and I thought I’d link to a few of them:

A great Flickr photostream of World War II: China-Burma-India theater related photos.

A WWII newsreel piece about flying the Hump on YouTube, and a modern video showing a DC-3/C-47 engine start.

Here’s a video of an old B-24 pilot describing some of his experiences on the hump. (I think he was probably flying a C-87, the cargo version of the B-24.)

This one shows a C-46 commando landing and taking off in the Northwest Territories.

Shifting to the written word, here’s an article about the Hump in Air Force magazine, and here’s a scan of the article Teddy White wrote about it in the September 11, 1944 issue of Life, which has some great pictures.

All of the record holders for number of Hump trips are CNAC pilots, and I was fortunate enough to interview the two guys who flew it the most while writing China’s Wings. On the left, that’s Dick Rossi, who set the record at 715 trips; On the right is Pete Goutiere, in second place with 680 trips.

Those are incredible numbers, especially considering that for much of the war, the Air Corps considered 100 Hump trips to be a full tour of duty.