Allied Supply Routes: Air Route Trumbull took to China in Yellow
After home leave, Harold reported back to California, and went by train to Miami Beach, Florida. They left Miami at 9 pm on March 9, 1944. They caught the “Red ball express” route which went to China via Puerto Rico, Belem (Brazil, missed because of fog and rain), Georgetown (British Guinea), Natal (Brazil, there a whole week, as engine had problems.) They flew 1400 miles to Ascension Island (a volcanic rock, had 1 tree). The next stop was Accra (Gold Coast, now Ghana), then Khartoum (Sudan), then Aden (Yemen). Up the Arabian coast (now Yemen) was a little airport which was a final refueling stop before Karachi (India). Stops were usually about 15 minutes in length to refuel and eat something.
They had to get across India to the Assam province where they had 4 airfields to take off to go over “the Hump” to Kungming, China. “The Hump” was a dangerous 520 mile journey over the 16,000-18,000 foot high Himalayan mountains. (Moody, S. 1994) It took about 3 ½ hours to fly across. They spent 3 weeks waiting for the weather to be right for a ride over “The Hump.”
Near Karachi, India, they were assigned to the Malir Air Force Base (AFB) in the desert. The Malir AFB was expecting bombings from Germany, so all the barracks were dispersed, one had to have a bicycle to get to the mess hall, or start walking early.
In the service, everything depends on orders. They waited there over a month for orders to go to China.
They had to get across India to the Assam province where they had 4 airfields to take off to go over “the Hump” to Kungming, China. “The Hump” was a dangerous 520 mile journey over the 16,000-18,000 foot high Himalayan mountains. (Moody, S. 1994) It took about 3 ½ hours to fly across. They spent 3 weeks waiting for the weather to be right for a ride over “The Hump.”
“The Low Hump route over the southern end of the range was less perilous, but Japanese fighters forced most missions over the main Hump—including the 15,000-foot-high Sansung range between the Salween and Mekong rivers. (Staff map by Zaur Eylanbekov)” (www.airforcemag.com)
By 1942, the Japanese held all the territories in red.
