Here’s an article on a largely overlooked theatre of WWII. It wasn’t inconsequential: some 600 American aircraft were lost, and 1,500 men. A new museum has opened to honor their sacrifice.
7 comments:
raven
said...
A little musical reference to the hump, by a master songwriter. Those guys were flying right at the edge of the envelope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAxKDLiwrhw
One of Mom's uncles was a loadmaster over the Hump. We have a few of his letters home, but they are ... vague ... about what he was doing and where, as you can imagine.
It's a bit funny, in a way- I read about some who became pilots, worked their way up, retired and flew 20 years for an airline etc etc-
And then were were some, like my former employees dad, who flew a B-17 over Schweinfurt, came home and spent the rest of his working career as a high school janitor. I guess, and it is only a guess, that he had had as much responsibility as he ever wanted to bear.
My father was a sergeant-meteorologist during WW2 in Assam, helping supply planes fly over the Hump, a.k.a. the Himalayas.
India fascinated him. He took a lot of slides during his time in India, which we often saw. "Oh no, Dad, not the India slides again."
He did fly to China at least once, as I recall seeing a slide of a Chinese building. Pagoda?
He did not experience "War is hell." Far from it. The Army Air Corps routines may have been boring at times, but that was more than offset by the experience of living in a place so different from what he had grown up in.
On one summer trip we spent several days at his army buddy's Tennessee farm. I enjoyed getting acquainted with his mule.
7 comments:
A little musical reference to the hump, by a master songwriter.
Those guys were flying right at the edge of the envelope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAxKDLiwrhw
One of my wife's uncles piloted C-47's over the hump. His parachute became a wedding gown.
One of Mom's uncles was a loadmaster over the Hump. We have a few of his letters home, but they are ... vague ... about what he was doing and where, as you can imagine.
LittleRed1
It's a bit funny, in a way- I read about some who became pilots, worked their way up, retired and flew 20 years for an airline etc etc-
And then were were some, like my former employees dad, who flew a B-17 over Schweinfurt, came home and spent the rest of his working career as a high school janitor. I guess, and it is only a guess, that he had had as much responsibility as he ever wanted to bear.
My father was a sergeant-meteorologist during WW2 in Assam, helping supply planes fly over the Hump, a.k.a. the Himalayas.
India fascinated him. He took a lot of slides during his time in India, which we often saw. "Oh no, Dad, not the India slides again."
He did fly to China at least once, as I recall seeing a slide of a Chinese building. Pagoda?
He did not experience "War is hell." Far from it. The Army Air Corps routines may have been boring at times, but that was more than offset by the experience of living in a place so different from what he had grown up in.
On one summer trip we spent several days at his army buddy's Tennessee farm. I enjoyed getting acquainted with his mule.
It's interesting that so many readers had family members associated with the supply planes over the Hump.
Would there be a similar response to Battle of the Bulge?
I was also struck by that. It’s a forgotten theater, yet many of us had connections.
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