Flying Tiger by Samson Jack

Author:Samson, Jack.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press (R&L)
Published: 2011-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

While Bissell and the new Air Transport Command were struggling to iron out the difficulties involved with getting supplies over the Hump into China, the CATF was living off the land. Before the arrival of U.S. forces the Chinese had carefully stored gas, bombs, and ammunition at airfields scattered all over China. This 100-octane gas and ammunition had been purchased early in the war—long before the Lend-Lease supplies began to trickle in—and was from French, Russian, and even Japanese sources. The ammunition was in every conceivable caliber and fitted a variety of guns. The CATF flew its missions using these depots of stored equipment—dropping the foreign- and Chinese-made bombs on Japanese installations in east and south China and in Indochina. The Chinese made belly tanks for the P-40s out of bamboo and fish glue so the fighters could fly longer missions.

Chennault and his men ate off the land as well, since no food supplies came in from India. For meat, they ate locally raised pigs and chickens and butchered water buffaloes. All the vegetables were grown in Yunnan and the CATF personnel got used to drinking tea instead of coffee. American whiskey on the black market was running $60 to $70 U.S., so most of the men drank local beer or Miss Kweilin Grape Wine and the gagging local brandy. Somewhat better was the British or Indian Haywoods rum and gin, which was regularly smuggled over the Hump in GNAC and Air Corps planes.

The chain of command of the new CATF was unbelievably complicated. Stilwell had headquarters in both Chungking and New Delhi—two thousand miles apart. Bissell was stationed in New Delhi and Chennault was forced to clear most administrative problems with him. In order to communicate with General Chow or General Peter Mow of the Chinese Air Force, Chennault had to write to New Delhi and the letter or memo had to be forwarded back to Chungking from there. The brass at Tenth Air Force headquarters was far more concerned with the impending Japanese attack on India—when the monsoon ended in October—than it was with Chennault’s problems in China.

Chennault sent the 75th Fighter Squadron to Hengyang and the 76th to Kweilin. To protect against any possible raids on Kunming or Paoshan from northern Burma, he dispatched the 16th Fighter Squadron, under Major George Hazlett, to Yunnanyi, and the 74th Fighter Squadron, under Major Frank Schiel, was left to defend Kunming. The 11th Bomb Squadron of B-25s was at Kweilin and Hengyang temporarily but was shuttled back and forth between there and Kunming when Chennault wanted to bomb Indochina, Burma, or Thailand. But for most of the summer their best targets were Hong Kong, Canton, and Hankow, which they could reach with escort from Hengyang and Kweilin.

All through July the Americans attacked targets of opportunity and the Japanese counterattacked. On July 20 the medium bombers of the 11th Bomb Squadron plastered a cotton yarn factory at Kiukiang, but ten days later the Japanese sent wave after wave of bombers and fighters over Hengyang in a massive effort to immobilize the advanced air base.

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