Centenarian Hump pilots celebrate 80th anniversary of WWII airlift mission

BEIJING, Nov. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from Beijing Review:

In March this year, 70-year-old Eve Coulson made the 4,700-km journey from New Jersey to California to visit her 109-year-old Chinese-born "uncle" Moon Fun Chin. As far as she knows, Chin is one of the few surviving pilots in the U.S. who flew "the Hump," a trans-Himalayan air route for delivering supplies to China to fight against the Japanese invaders during World War II (WWII).

Another survivor is Peter J. Goutiere, who turned 108 on September 28 this year. He, along with Chin and Coulson's father, Ursel Elbert Coulson, were pilots for the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), a Sino-U.S joint venture established in 1929. Most of its pilots were American and the majority of its co-pilots and radio operators were Chinese.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Hump Mission. "It's great to be part of the group that flew over the Hump during WWII and to still be around for the anniversary," Goutiere, who flew 680 Hump trips, told Beijing Review.

Flying the Hump

Japanese troops started invasion of the northeastern region of China on September 18, 1931, and launched a full-scale invasion of China in July 1937. More than four years later, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, triggering the outbreak of the Pacific War. China teamed up with the U.S. and the UK to fight against their common enemies in the China-Burma-India Theater.

Initially, military and other supplies from the U.S. were transported to China via the Burma Road, the only practical route for international supplies into China. However, after Burma's submission to the Japanese in May 1942, the road was closed.

To support China in the war against Japan, the India-China Division of the Air Transport Command (ATC) of the U.S. Army Air Forces and the CNAC worked together to airlift the supplies from Assam in India to Yunnan and Sichuan provinces in southwest China.

When the pilots crossed the southern section of the Himalayas, the Gaoligong Mountains and the Hengduan Mountains, the towering peaks looked to them like the humps of a camel. It is from this resemblance that the air route came to be known as the Hump. It was the military supply lifeline for China from 1942 to 1945.

High altitude, perilous weather and Japanese fighter planes were among the major dangers faced by the pilots on each supply mission. Between June and December 1943, the ATC's India-China Division lost 155 aircraft and 168 crew members, not including passengers, according to the division's commander William Henry Tunner. He recorded this in his 1964 memoir Over the Hump. "Flying the Hump was considered as hazardous as flying a combat mission over Germany," Tunner recalled.

The routes covered a vast area, subjecting pilots to conditions ranging from torrential rain in the tropical south to dust storms in desert regions and blizzards in the high mountains in the north. January 6, 1945 was the most tragic day in the history of the Hump. Winds at speeds of 161 km per hour created strong updrafts over the ridges and downdrafts over the valleys. The radios were filled with cries of "mayday" and a total of 15 aircraft were lost on that single day, all due to bad weather, according to Tunner.

The Japanese also posed a constant threat. "The Japanese were attacking us fiercely in 1944," Deng Chonghuang, a former CNAC co-pilot, wrote on November 15, 2003 in a letter to Liu Xiaotong, a Chinese reporter. Deng joined the CNAC in 1943 and completed about 600 Hump flights before the end of WWII. "We all knew that it was the only lifeline to our country. As long as the war hadn't ended, the cargo flights couldn't cease. There needed to be someone to deliver the supplies," Deng wrote.

When planes crashed over the Hump, the chance for those onboard to survive was slim. Most pilots who bailed out died of hunger, cold, wounds or even Japanese attacks. But there were some exceptions, including Coulson's father, who lost an engine while flying over the Hump on August 31, 1944. He and his crew had to bail out over the jungle of north Burma. He landed in a tree where the ground was heavily covered with underbrush. To survive, he sustained himself on leeches. Eventually, he found a village and its leader connected him to the search party. He was the lone survivor of the incident.

Every American airman who helped with China's resistance against Japan received a "passport to safety" from the then Chinese government—a strip of silk with Chinese characters which read, "This is a foreigner who helps China to fight. Be you military or civilian, please help and protect him or her." Many pilots stitched the silk inside their jackets or on their backs. And it worked. Most Chinese voluntarily came to their aid when they were forced down. As Tunner put it, "Once in China, the airmen would find nearly all natives friendly and most helpful."

Thanks to the concerted efforts of the ATC and the CNAC, more than 800,000 tons of military supplies and other critical materials were airlifted to China from 1942 to 1945, providing much needed support not only for the Chinese army but also the Flying Tigers, or the American Volunteer Group founded and commanded by Claire Chennault in 1941 as an air force to directly resist the Japanese in China. "If it hadn't been for you and your convictions and your fine ATC organization, we wouldn't have won the war in China," Chennault told Tunner many years later at a ceremony honoring the Chennault couple in Washington.

Continuous connections

Over the past eight decades, many people have been working hard to keep the Hump memories alive and cherish the legacy that comes along with them. Coulson is one of them. "I am proud of being a descendant of a Hump pilot. My pride has grown over time," she told Beijing Review.

Coulson is now the vice president of the CNAC Association, a post-WWII reunion group in the U.S. that began meeting in 1954. She believes that person-to-person connections are helpful for improving Sino-U.S. ties, which have reached a low ebb in recent years.

Zhu Junkun, head of the Yunnan Flying Tigers Research Institute, has kept in touch with many descendants of the Hump pilots and Flying Tigers. "We all believe that difficulties are temporary and friendship is the way forward," Zhu told Beijing Review. "The Hump is a good example of how the two countries worked together to tackle common challenges," he added.

Comments to [email protected]

SOURCE Beijing Review