Their destination, at the end of the 1,200-mile flight, was one of four new airfields south of Chengdu, where construction work was ongoing. More than a quarter of a million Chinese peasants had been enlisted to build the 8,000-foot runways almost entirely by hand. Newsreel footage depicts an immense throng of laborers, many barefoot and wearing conical hats, hauling dirt and gravel in baskets and wheelbarrows.
