En route from New York to Kunming, China, an Air Transport Command Douglas C-54 makes first stop at Stephensville, Newfoundland.  Plane gets gas, engine check.

NEW YORK TO CHINA

On the World's Biggest Airline

The Air Transport Command supplies urgent  needs  of  U.S.  and  Chinese armies  over  a  trail-blazing  route

Passengers, both military and war-important civilians, are checked out of New York's La Guardia Field at trip's start.

  From New York to Kunming, China, stretches one of the longest and most important routes of the U.S. Army Air Forces' Air Transport Command. A distance of 10,816 miles, it is flown on regular schedule day and night.
  With the speed, flexibility and multiple usefulness characteristic of air transport, ATC carries war-important passengers, returns wounded and sick troops to the U.S., flies high priority cargo of almost every description abroad (including troops mail), brings home atrtegic materials (such as tungsten from China) and ferries planes. It has transported a cow to a remote base to supply personnel with fresh milk. It has flown a falcon (complete with mice to feed it en route) to a certain area over which enemy carrier pigeons passed. It has moved a soldier with a broken back from Kunming to Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, in 82 hours.
  The total operation is shared by the Divisions of the ATC, which pass cargo and passengers to each other as relay runners pass a baton. The North Atlantic Division and Ferrying Division both fly that section of the route which begins in New York (also in Miami and Wilmington, Del.), passes through Newfoundland and the Azores, and ends in Casablanca, Morocco. The North African Division flies from Casablanca to Karachi, India. The India-China Division carries on into China.

Leaving the Azores, in the North Atlantic, passengers are none too comfortable; plane interior is stripped to save weight, has "bucket" type seats.

Casablanca, French Morocco, marks the end of the first leg. Here the four-engined C-54's, needed for ocean hops, go back to the U.S. as hospital planes.

Almost inside Tunis, next stop out of Casablanca, there is a graveyard of destroyed planes, mostly German, some of our own - souvenirs of the African war.

Over the Atlantic to Casablanca, then to Tunis, is the route

At Tunis airport, natives are building a new super-runway of crushed rock and asphalt. Runway's size, as well as new terminal building with lounge and restaurants, suggests plans for postwar commerce, with its huge transports. When planes on this route leave Tunis, they make a refueling stop at Bengasi, Libya, then fly over great desert speces. They look down on the Sphinx, stop at Cairo. They cross the Mediterranean, refuel at Abadan, Iran. Next comes Karachi.

Karachi airfield, seen past a whirling propeller: in the forground, the runways; behind it, two hangars, flanking the administration building; at far right, a huge prewar Zeppelin hangar, built but never used by German interests. A seaport city on the west coast of India (note Indus delta in background), Karachi is an aerial gateway for climatic reasons: relative immunity from floods and heavy rains, a minimum frequency of low clouds. Also, flat terrain is available.

Karachi, India, is the aerial gateway to that vast country

The Zeppelin hangar seen below is now used by the Service Command to assemble water-shipped airplanes; they are then flown to China by ATC pilots.

Wounded and sick troops from India and China are flown back to U.S. through Karachi. Here, a few such transients meet Jinx Falkenburg and USO troupers.

The Taj Mahal, memorial to an Indian pronces's wife, is seen four hours out of Karachi, and is always circled by pilots to let passengers view it.

Largest air base of several in the Assam valley, Chabua, not far from Burma, is always piled high with cargo waiting to go over "the Hump" - Himalayan barrier between India and China. In foreground are gasoline tins, near them a laborer's rest tent. Open crates hold belly gas tanks used by fighter planes. More material now goes into China by air than ever went over the Burma Road - as much as one million pounds of cargo have been flown there in one day.

Chabua, India, is the springboard for flights into China

Native Indian laborers, supervised by two GI's, work on tires soon to be loaded into a plane. Sign at upper right marks destination: Yankai, China.

Gun shells are carried to a waiting plane; in the foreground are cartridges and powder. All material is stacked according to destination; here it is Yunnanyi.

Heavy machinery, such as road scrapers, trucks, tractors, is sometimes cut in parts, flown to China. This way it takes four hours; by road, two weeks.

Before take-off from Chabua to Kunming, a pilot and co-pilot fill up at their mess. Characteristic of the route: passengers are briefed on survival in jungle.

A Curtiss Commando (C-46) leaves Chabua. For one six-day period, India-China Division transports took off for China at rate of one every four minutes.

Oxygen masks go on as the plane climbs. Flying the Hump in bad weather (which is almost all the time) requires minimum 17,000-feet altitude.

Over the Hump to Kunming is world's most hazardous skyroad

Flying the Hump: a Commando is seen against the awesome terrain which makes this route the graveyard of many a stout plane. The Ledo Road, built by U.S. Engineers as a feeder for the Burma Road, is seen below; trees on the mountain tower 200 feet. Usually over the treacherous Hump there are low clouds, which pilots say are "stuffed with rocks." Unpredictable, torrentially bad weather, winds of hurricane velocity and icing conditions normally confront the pilot.

A cargo arrives in Kunming, China Rolling to a stop at the signal of a GI ground-crew member, a Commando brings vital supplies and personnel to China. On the field it may well meet the familiar Chinese pony cart (above) or a Chinese carrying water in the ancient manner.

Unloading of cargo begins as soon as the plane arrives; a Chinese work battalion, wearing typical blue quilted coats and pants, unloads absorbent cotton and ammunition. Most work on the field is done by Chinese labor.

Re-assembling trucks is done at the very edge of the field. Many such supplies reach India by sea, then are flown over the Hump. In back are seen mud-plaster shacks which house officers, mess halls and headquarters.

NEW YORK TO CHINA On the World's Biggest Airline Adapted from the September 4, 1945 issue of LOOK magazine Portions Copyright © 2010 Carl W. Weidenburner  TOP OF PAGE      PRINT THIS PAGE      ABOUT THIS PAGE