Hump: America's Strategy for Keeping China in World War II

8. The End of the Hump

✪ 229 8 T H E E N D O F T H E H U M P The news of the Japanese surrender changed little for the India-China Division . Day-to-day flights continued, albeit at a slower pace due to Tunner’s operational choice that placed safety before tonnage. Instrument flight rules became mandatory for all sorties to ensure adequate spacing and reduce the risk of a midair collision, and pilots flew no more than one hundred hours per month.1 Most flights were accomplished by two-engine C-46s while the older C-87s were used only during the daytime and C-54s were used even more sparingly. In addition , only experienced pilots flew passenger missions, though this rule proved unhelpful in the face of the division’s last crash of the war, a C-54 loaded with forty U.S. servicemen from Chabua en route to Karachi on November 3. The plane was reported missing after being many hours overdue; it was not found until another plane spotted its wreckage in Bhutan two weeks later. Investigators speculated that the pilots may have intentionally flown off course to treat their passengers to a “sight-seeing trip of Mt. Everest.” The accident investigator noted that “a holiday spirit prevailed among all passengers facing the possibility of an early arrival in the U.S.,” encouraging the tragic diversion.2 CHAPTER 8 230 CLOSING THE HUMP Division morale spiraled downward with air and ground crews obsessed on when they would return to the United States. Tunner vainly tried to arrest this trend with homegrown entertainment in the form of “one act plays, musical dramas, minstrel shows, dramatic stunts, play reading, Vaudeville acts, and amateur nights,” but the average airman was concerned only with getting home. Family members in the United States increased the pressure by asking congressmen why their sons, husbands, or sweethearts were being kept overseas. Making matters worse were reports that earlier restraints on allowable cargo were being relaxed; in midOctober Congressman John J. Cochran of Missouri contacted Hap Arnold to inform him of the contents of a letter from a constituent who was an ICD aircrew member and who claimed, “The cargo that has been going into China these past three weeks is of the type that I refuse to fly and risk my life for. They consist of: Shrubbery (for the China General’s house), baled cotton, women’s sanitary napkins , prophylactics, beer, ping pong tables, talcum powder, cocktail tables, [and] tent pegs. . . . Those [American] fellows in China don’t want all those things. All they want is to go home like the rest of us. By the way, last week I took over a load of two-by-fours.” Cochran closed his letter with the veiled threat that Arnold should be grateful the “letter did not get into the hands of someone who likes to criticize,” or else it would have been read “on the Floor” (i.e., of the House).3 Problems and abuses aside, the ICD played a critical role in initial demobilization plans, serving as the chief means to get India- and China-based troops to port cities for shipment home. The Hope Project moved 14,000 men from Chabua to Karachi in September while maintaining regular shipments to support troops still in China.4 Americans in China were flown to coastal cities for shipment home across the Pacific, as Tunner’s “airline” played the key role in CBI demobilization while still delivering almost 40,000 tons of supplies to China in September and 8,000 tons in October. The Hump was formally scheduled to close on November 15, though Tunner relinquished command in late October and returned to the United States because his wife was undergoing major surgery for brain cancer. He was replaced for the Hump’s last month by Brig. Gen. Charles W. Lawrence, a bomber group commander.5 Concurrent with the frenzied U.S. demobilization effort was the larger strategic matter of the Japanese surrender in China, something that posed an immedi- THE END OF THE HUMP 231 ate threat to Chiang’s leadership. Wedemeyer had been goading Chiang since July to make preparations for Japan’s surrender and was dismayed by the generalissimo ’s seeming carelessness for this eventuality. Writing to Marshall on August 1, Wedemeyer stated: “Frankly, if peace should come within the next few weeks we will be woefully unprepared in China...