Airlift and airborne operations in World War II /

The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II

Airlift and Airborne

Operations in

World War II

Roger E. Bilstein

A I R F O R C E H I S TO RY A N D M U S E U M S P RO G R A M

1998
Airlift and Airborne Operations

in World War II

As World War II unfolded in Europe during the late 1930s and early

1940s, U.S. military planners realized the nation’s airlift and airborne

combat capability was underdeveloped and out of date. The U.S.

Army Air Forces relied largely on civil airline equipment and personnel to launch the Air Transport Command’s intercontinental routes to

overseas combat zones. A separate Troop Carrier Command and

newly formed airborne divisions hammered out doctrinal concepts

and tactical requirements for paratroop engagements. Despite operational shortcomings, subsequent airborne assaults in North Africa

and Italy generated a base of knowledge from which to plan such

massive aerial formations and paratroop drops as those for the Normandy invasion and Operation MARKET-GARDEN, and strategic efforts in the China-Burma-India theater. Airlift routes over the Himalayas demonstrated one of the war’s most effective uses of air

transport. The Air Transport Command emerged as a remarkably successful organization with thousands of aircraft and a global network

of communications centers, weather forecasting offices, airfields,

and maintenance depots, and air-age realities influenced a postwar

generation of dedicated military air transports operating around the

world.
Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Early Airlift and Airborne Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Pilots and Airplanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

DC–3/C–47 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

C–46 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

C–87 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

C–54 and C–69 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Helicopters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Gliders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Airborne Operations in the Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Special Missions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

FRANTIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

CARPETBAGGER and the Balkans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The Assault on Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

OVERLORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

MARKET-GARDEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Bastogne and VARSITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Flying the Hump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Other Far East Missions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Legacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Suggested Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

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INTRODUCTION

Following the entry of the United States into World War I in the

spring of 1917, the aviation units in the Signal Corps explored the possibilities of employing aircraft for military transport. Although the 1916

Pershing Expedition into Mexico occasionally had used airplanes for reconnaissance and to carry mail and dispatches, the equipment available

during that operation proved unreliable. In 1918, the Signal Corps supplied airplanes and pilots to inaugurate the first U.S. airmail service, an

operation expected to help train pilots and boost airplane production. This

experiment did little for either goal, and the Post Office Department soon

took complete control. Overseas, aircraft based in France sometimes carried a single officer or courier, or perhaps priority military dispatches, but

the available single-engine, two-place airplanes permitted little else.

An effort to assist a force of 500 U.S. soldiers surrounded by the Germans during the Argonne Forest campaign in October 1918 achieved very

little. Remembered as the “Lost Battalion,” the American unit recovered

almost none of the supplies that U.S. airplanes dropped near its position.

However, the beleaguered troops surmised the need to mark their location

for better identification from the air, and the panels they laid out provided

needed information to pinpoint their position and allow relief forces to

fight through to them. The object lesson of aerial marking became standard procedure.

Before the end of the war, Brig. Gen. William Mitchell had begun

plans for a massive aerial offensive against Germany that would rely on

Allied use of extensive bombing as well as tactical air strikes. Mitchell’s

planned aerial assault, moreover, included dramatic use of airborne

forces. He proposed an airdrop of an entire U.S. infantry division behind

the German lines, using Handley-Page bombers from the British Royal

Air Force (RAF), followed by subsequent air cargo missions by the

bombers to support these airborne units with ammunition and other supplies. The U.S. high command had this remarkable gambit under serious

consideration when World War I ended abruptly in November 1918.

Mitchell’s concept clearly anticipated tactics used some twenty-two years

later in the Second World War.

Hampered by parsimonious budgets and deteriorating equipment in

the postwar era, planners had little opportunity to implement comprehensive plans like Mitchell’s. There were some bright spots, such as the Model

Airways system, which operated from 1922 to 1926. Sponsored by several

forward-thinking officers in the new Air Service, the Model Airways

linked Bolling Field in Washington, D.C., with a number of military airfields scattered across several midwestern states, down to Kelly and

Brooks Fields in Texas. During the few years of its existence, the Air Service evolved a regularly scheduled mail and cargo service, as well as ad

hoc operations. Equipment varied: available airplanes designated as cargo

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2

On the schedule board in this Model Airway System’s operations room, one

flight is shown delayed for seven days because of weather. The system linked

several U.S. military airfields from 1922 to 1926.

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An air route 

map for the

Model Airway

System.

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types were used and an occasional bomber was pressed into service. During

its four-year history, the Model Airways completed several hundred flights

and moved over sixty thousand pounds of cargo and more than 650 passengers. Federal legislation for commercial airmail service in 1925, coupled

with specific restrictions on competing services under the Air Corps Act of

1926, put an end to the Model Airways. Its legacy of operational and logistical planning experience, however, proved to be a useful one.

Miscellaneous air cargo activities took place during the 1920s and

1930s and the U.S. Army conducted limited exercises using parachutists,

but doctrinal emphasis on bombardment and on aerial combat meant that

comparatively less attention was expended on airlift concepts. Nonetheless, maneuvers during the late 1920s and early 1930s kept the idea alive

and under discussion at the Air Corps Tactical School. The drawbacks of

this limited approach became all too clear when the U.S. Army attempted

to provide the nation’s airmail service during the late winter of 1934.

Domestic commercial air service, meanwhile, had made impressive

progress by the mid-1930s. Private companies became skilled at developing airmail routes supported by requisite scheduling and logistical support. Passenger flying evolved during the early 1930s, along with improved aircraft and navigational equipment. Although not able to fly in

every kind of weather or night conditions, the commercial airlines offered

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In May 1918, the first U.S. airmail service included a letter from President

Woodrow Wilson to the governor of New York.

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a valuable transportation service for that era. Early in 1934, questions

about the legality of certain airmail contracts prompted federal action to

cancel all of the current contracts and to rely on the Air Corps to fly the

mail. The Air Corps confidently responded, on the basis of its earlier experience with cargo, maneuvers, and long-range navigation exercises for

its bomber squadron—all of which, however, had taken place in favorable

weather. Flying conditions during the early months of 1934 were actually

abominable; a flurry of sixty-six crashes killed twelve Air Corps pilots

trying to fly the mail. In the aftermath, improved training, weather forecasting, and navigational technology for transport duties were developed.

Despite the embarrassing airmail venture, officers interested in aviation remembered earlier events that argued for a modern airlift capability.

Among them was an emergency airlift mounted in 1916 to support a

British garrison under siege by Turkish troops in Mesopotamia. A handful

of single-engine RAF biplanes managed to drop several thousand pounds

of supplies over a period of two weeks before Turkish forces defeated a relief column and the British surrendered. The RAF mounted a somewhat

different sort of airlift during late 1928 and early 1929, when biplane

transports successfully evacuated nearly six hundred people and twentyfour thousand pounds of belongings from Kabul, Afghanistan, during a

period of tribal unrest. These operations dramatically illustrated airlift’s

capabilities to transfer large numbers of personnel and cargo. Closer to

home, from 1927 to 1929, U.S. Marines operating in Nicaragua used tri4

Gen. Oscar Westover (left) and Col. James E. Chaney stand before a map of

airmail service routes.

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5

An early ground crew helps Lt. George L. Boyle take off from Washington,

D.C., on the return leg of the first airmail flight.

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Airmail pilots Maj. Reuben H. Fleet and Lt. George L. Boyle review aerial

routes for the Washington-to-New York trip.

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motor Fokker and Ford transports to carry troops, equipment, and dispatches. The Marines also used these aircraft for medical evacuation and

to air-drop supplies to armed patrols deep in the Central American jungles. With this background and an awareness of airlift sharpened by the

recent airmail experience, essential changes began to occur.

A reorganization of the Army Air Corps gave more authority to transport functions, including authorization for modern, twin-engine transport

airplanes. In 1936, the Air Corps bought twenty new Douglas DC–2 trans-
ports, designating them C–33s and C–34s. The following year, the 10th

Transport Group emerged as the first permanent logistics unit, replacing

several provisional units that had come and gone over previous years. Additionally, General Headquarters Air Force (GHQ Air Force) built up its

own tactical support. This sort of split in resources persisted as a source of

contention for nearly a decade as various commands competed for air

transport assets, especially in World War II. In any case, the total number

of dedicated transport airplanes of useful capacity remained inadequate.

Against proposals for about 150 airplanes in the late 1930s, only 30 additional DC–2 types entered service through 1939.

Moreover, the Air Corps had no large, four-engine transports for

transoceanic missions. Compared with the record of commercial airlines,

the inability of the U.S. military services to deploy intercontinental airlift

was embarrassing. Following the first transatlantic flights of 1919, the development of commercial services required nearly two decades. Nonetheless, by the late 1930s, European countries like Britain, Holland, and

France had pioneered impressive route systems throughout the continent,

over the Mediterranean, and across the Middle East to various colonies in

the Pacific region. The French and Germans operated airmail services

across the South Atlantic between Africa and Brazil, on the South American coast. In the United States, federal support for Pan American Airways

helped transform it into an intercontinental aerial system. By the late

1930s, Pan Am not only delivered mail and passengers throughout Latin

America but also had inaugurated similar operations across the Pacific

and Atlantic Oceans.

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Capt. Ira Eaker survived a crash in his Boeing Hornet Shuttle. The Model 95

mail plane, modified to a two-seat configuration that could be refueled in

midair, made several nonstop transcontinental flights in the 1920s.

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Still, the majority of these efforts operated on a seasonal basis, required several days at a time, kept to a limited schedule of only one or two

flights a week, and were beyond the means of all but the wealthiest travelers. Pan Am’s longest routes relied on big, four-engine flying boats built

by Martin and Boeing. Another U.S. airline, Transcontinental and Western

Air—later Trans World Airlines—(TWA), had introduced four-engine

Boeing Stratoliner passenger transports on important domestic routes.

Pressurized for high-altitude flights, they were in the forefront of modern

airliner design.

Building on this legacy of U.S. airline experience and using commercial aircraft, the Army’s early, long-range airlift gained an invaluable advantage. During the course of World War II, having built numerous weather stations and hundreds of airfields around the world in only a few years,

the Army Air Forces commanded a large fleet of long-range transports

that flew intercontinental schedules as a matter of course. That effort

would provoke a postwar revolution in air transportation.

EARLY AIRLIFT AND AIRBORNE UNITS

The meteoric growth of airlift capability during the Second World

War had its origins in requirements for delivering aircraft to France and

Great Britain on the eve of hostilities, as well as in the need to establish

rapid, secure lines of transportation to friendly nations under enemy threat

in distant areas of the world. The Air Corps Ferrying Command (ACFC)

and the Air Transport Command (ATC) emerged in this first wave of development. The rush of events included changes in nomenclature when

the War Department established the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) on June

20, 1941, to control both the Army Air Corps and the Air Force Combat

Command.

In the wake of rapid German military successes that began with the

invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939 and culminated with the fall of

France in the spring of 1940, a flood of aircraft orders from Britain inundated suppliers in the United States. British and French aircraft orders had

already sparked significant production increases dating from 1938.

Amendments to the American neutrality legislation of the 1930s made it

possible for Great Britain to obtain critical war matériel on a cash-andcarry basis, but the British government began to run short of money by

the end of 1940. Searching for a means to contain the spread of Axis influence, support Britain in this cause, and respond to the erosion of

Britain’s treasury, the Roosevelt administration hit upon the idea of LendLease. The Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in March 1941, authorized production of combat equipment for loan to Britain, with the equipment to be returned when the military emergency ended. Although naval

convoys could probably get much equipment past attacks by German U7
boats in the Atlantic, the difficulties of transporting large numbers of aircraft by sea presented a special problem. For a time, civilian pilots flew

airplanes purchased by Great Britain across the U.S. border into Canada,

where other civilians, under British contracts, piloted them across the

North Atlantic to airfields in Scotland. As the air war intensified over the

United Kingdom, many civilian pilots became reluctant to fly into the war

zone, and others were drafted into the RAF, creating serious bottlenecks

in the flow of aircraft. General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, chief of the U.S.

Army Air Corps, argued that U.S. military pilots could do the job while

acquiring valuable flying experience and easing pressure on the British.

This bold step also placed U.S. fliers in an increasingly active war zone.

The Air Corps Ferrying Command, created on May 29, 1941, immediately began flying airplanes to Newfoundland. The new organization expanded operations during July, delivering 1,350 aircraft to Great Britain

by December 7, 1941. In addition, the ACFC inaugurated an emergency,

transatlantic transportation service for key personnel, high-priority cargo,

and diplomatic correspondence. The first operations began on July 1,

1941, when a four-engine B–24 bomber flew a Washington-MontrealNewfoundland-Scotland mission. Within a few weeks, the “Arnold Line,”

as military personnel called it, scheduled at least six round-trips each

month, a frequency that persisted until interrupted by hazardous winter

weather over the Atlantic. By the end of 1941, authorization from the

White House officially allowed the ACFC to operate far-flung routes on a

global basis, a process that had already begun to evolve in response to

other requirements related to Lend-Lease agreements.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the United States extended Lend-Lease to that nation as well. To assist the Soviets,

one aerial route ran north across Canada and through Alaska to Siberia.

Deliveries to Britain continued to move across the North Atlantic. Another important new aerial route assisted Britain in North Africa, and extended across the Near East to reach southwestern points of the Soviet Union.

Planes on such flights moved southward to Brazil, then eastward across

the South Atlantic into Africa. A diverging route on this southern airway

also supported Allied efforts in India and Australia, where Japanese pressures increased. Because many northern and central ocean passages in the

Pacific were under threat from Japan, the South Atlantic operations became a crucial supply line for aircraft and supplies to the China-BurmaIndia (CBI) theater. At the same time, a tenuous air-route system reached

from the U.S. west coast into the South Pacific to Australia, making the

Army Air Forces a presence on every continent.

The ACFC solidified these routes, building on the pioneer flights accomplished by commercial operations of the 1930s. The command installed vital meteorological equipment and weather stations and began to

erect and furnish maintenance facilities, provide housing for itinerant

crews and personnel, and organize the far-flung infrastructure needed to

8
support hundreds of aircraft moving along thousands of miles of airways

each day. In all of this, the command relied on the resources of airplanes

and personnel in established U.S. airlines.

With so much activity along the segments of the South Atlantic route,

the route became one of the first candidates for civil contract work. Beginning in the spring of 1941, Pan American Airways began to handle this

task, moving airplanes across the Caribbean and down the eastern coast of

South America to Natal, Brazil. From there, three principal airways went

to Africa’s western coast. Most of that air traffic then winged across central Africa to the Sudan, from which point other routes spread through the

Middle East and across India. Pan Am’s experience in the Caribbean and

South America ensured recognition of local customs and supported the

need to obtain supplies from local sources. By the end of 1942, Pan Am

had delivered about 460 airplanes over this southern air transport system.

During 1942, many other airlines became contractors for ferrying aircraft around the world. Northeast, along with TWA, flew missions over

North Atlantic routes. New schedules from the United States to Alaska

were flown by Northwest Airlines, Western Air Lines, and United Air

Lines. Additional U.S. carriers signed on during the war, implementing

services through Central and South America as well as within the continental United States. During 1942, the airlines and their crews performed

nearly 88 percent of the military’s ferrying and airlift activities. By the

end of the war, military transports and personnel predominated, although

contractors still did as much as 19 percent of the work.

At the same time that worldwide air routes were being hammered

out, military leaders overhauled the Army’s organizational structure.

During the spring of 1941, the General Staff thoroughly revamped the air

services, creating the U.S. Army Air Forces in June 1941. General Arnold

became chief of the new AAF, guiding it through succeeding organizational changes. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7,

1941, change became the order of the day. Germany declared war against

the United States a few days later and, among many challenges, the AAF

forged its aerial support network into military air routes around the

world.

Early in 1942, Arnold authorized an Air Service Command to handle

all aerial transport among U.S. bases within the Western Hemisphere. This

command also received responsibility for providing airlift for infantry,

gliders, and paratroop units. The Ferrying Command was charged with

delivering aircraft and providing air transport services outside the Western

Hemisphere. As a history of the Military Airlift Command noted later, the

separation of troop carrier operations from long-range air logistics

marked “a watershed in a doctrinal issue” (p. 18). The Ferrying Command

was a single command with global responsibilities, and its mission, and

that of its successors, “represented the logical development of these doctrinal ideals.”

9
When U.S. military forces transferred overseas in the course of

wartime deployments, an issue of theater precedence created awkward

confrontations. Traditionally, theater commanders could claim all the military resources within their areas. Consequently, when a Ferrying Command flight en route to some further destination landed in an overseas

combat zone, theater commanders desperate for equipment often tried to

commandeer such aircraft for their own purposes. These confrontations

continued to occur for the duration of the war despite efforts of the General Staff to rein in their theater officers and despite further refinements in

nomenclature, roles, and missions.

Another issue evolved from the role of the Naval Air Transport System, which was hastily organized after Pearl Harbor to offer rapid transportation of dispatches and personnel to remote naval installations around

the world and to supply rapid logistical support for critical, lightweight

items required by far-flung units of the fleet. For these tasks, the Navy

collected an assortment of land and sea airplanes, after pressing into service long-range flying boats originally intended for patrol and rescue duties. High-level planners in Washington—civilian as well as military—began to lobby for a unified military air service operation to achieve

maximum use of available aircraft. When the United States became an official combatant on December 7, 1941, having military personnel in

charge of aircraft whose operations took them into active combat zones

became imperative.

On June 20, 1942, Arnold issued AAF General Orders that responded

to these issues and set the pattern for most of the war’s duration. This included creation of the Air Transport Command, which was responsible for

all ferrying requirements within the United States and overseas. Additionally, the ATC was authorized to transport all personnel, mail, and matériel

for the War Department, with the exception of specific combat commands

who had their own aircraft. The ATC also assumed the task of running all

overseas airways, including facilities, communication, support, and related requirements. The Air Service Command retained only its continental

flying tasks. The new Troop Carrier Command became the focus of airborne combat operations and ad hoc air transport within operational theaters. Although the Navy continued to operate its own Naval Air Transport

Service, a committee within the Joint Chiefs of Staff exercised more unified control toward the end of the war. This bureaucratic element (the

Joint Army-Navy Air Transport Committee) helped focus plans to create a

single airlift command after World War II.

Meanwhile, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had triggered an immediate need for many more airplanes and pilots. Early in 1942, the

Army’s air transport resources included only eleven four-engine airplanes,

converted B–24 Liberator bombers. In addition, there arose a severe

shortage of modern transports like the DC–2 conversions. Fortunately, the

means to fill this gap already existed, owing to the foresight of Edgar Gor10
rell, president of the Air Transport Association (ATA), the trade organization for major airlines in the United States.

With military approval, the civil airline fleet of the United States already had an operational blueprint in case of a national emergency like

war. Gorrell, a veteran of the U.S. Air Service in World War I, recognized

the potential military value of the growing airline fleet of cargo airplanes,

and had begun planning for an aerial mobilization as early as 1936 with

the cooperation of the “Big Four” of the airline industry (American, Eastern, TWA, and United). Assisted by Air Corps officers, he had updated

the plans over the years and included options for effective disposition of

airplanes, flight crews, and ground personnel on twenty-four hours’ notice. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, Gorrell had a program ready for

implementation. The Gorrell blueprint was enthusiastically embraced by

C.R. Smith of American Airlines and by General Arnold, and helped to

form the nucleus of the ATC.

As the Ferrying Command became the basis for a worldwide air

transport system, Arnold and other AAF leaders prudently decided to

bring in someone with prior experience in managing the large flotilla of

aircraft, complex scheduling, and thousands of personnel bound to grow

to even larger proportions. A veteran of civil operations could also do a

better job of molding these Air Transport Association assets. In 1942, C.

R. Smith became a colonel in the ATC as deputy commander to the ATC

chief, Brig. Gen. Harold Lee George. All of the ATA carriers in the United

States had to make the best of stripped-down fleets and reduced schedules. American’s own Flagship Fleet dropped from 79 to 41 airplanes;

overall, the total number of ATA civil airliners in the United States

dropped to 176 from a total of 359. The airline industry did its best to

meet civilian demands during the war by squeezing more air time out of

each remaining airplane. In the case of American Airlines, Smith’s residual management team elicited 30 percent more flying hours each year,

compared with a typical prewar year.

In the meantime, Smith settled into his job as the operations chief for

the ATC. At the beginning of the war, the preferred route to the European

theater still ran across the South Atlantic, from Natal, Brazil, to Dakar,

Senegal. Smith listened carefully to those who argued for a regularized

North Atlantic crossing, flying the Great Circle route from Newfoundland

via Greenland and Iceland, to Great Britain. He authorized a technical

staff and a survey flight in a former American DC–3 using American personnel. Having proved the feasibility of North Atlantic service on a regular basis, the ATC soon launched dozens of similar ferry and cargo flights.

While General George and C. R. Smith at ATC contended with cargo

flights and ferrying duties, the Troop Carrier Command (TCC) began to

evolve. As the first U.S. effort at airborne combat operations for paratroops and glider troops, its creation resulted directly from events in

wartime Europe.

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During the spring of 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway, using aerial assault units in a series of successful parachute and cargoairplane operations to seize key positions and then relying on aerial resupply until more substantial forces joined up. U.S. strategists took notice.

German aerial units also attacked advanced strong points in the German

sweep through the low countries and into France. These actions involved

parachutists as well as glider troops. U.S. observers followed these operations even more keenly because the battles in Europe made it clear that

airborne operations had become an integral factor of modern warfare.

Then, in the spring of 1941, Germany’s aerial assault on the British island

of Crete in the Mediterranean combined paratroops, gliders, and the use

of air transports to carry the offensive completely. The U.S. military appeared to lag seriously in this new art of warfare.

During the summer of 1940, the U.S. Army had taken its first steps toward developing paratroop forces and planning for airborne assaults. Germany’s aerial invasion of Crete accelerated preparations for field exercises, which included airborne units scheduled for long-overdue, full-scale

maneuvers. Conducted in Louisiana, these exercises revealed that the U.S.

armed forces were unprepared for modern war. Troop formations included

soldiers equipped with broom handles to represent machine guns and automobiles fitted with stove pipes wheeled around to portray tank units.

The recently formed 50th Transport Wing scraped together a polyglot

force of thirty-nine airplanes for the occasion and managed to stage the

U.S. Army’s first airdrop with more than one company of paratroopers in

a single operation. Much more needed to be accomplished, and the time to

do it was short.

Working rapidly in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the Army created a

new Airborne Command with two components, the 82d and the 101st Airborne Divisions. The chief architect for subsequent airborne missions was

Lt. Col. James M. Gavin, a commander from the 82d Airborne Division.

Gavin, a student of the recent European experiences in airborne attack,

was also informed by the difficulties experienced during the Louisiana

maneuvers. Basically he focused on the need to drop paratroops as a cohesive, concentrated force. With enough airplanes, Gavin argued, a major

airborne assault could achieve substantial victories and pave the way for

the rapid advance of conventional ground troops. In the process of additional training and maneuvers, the 82d Airborne established a standard

jump altitude of six hundred feet—high enough to reduce injuries and low

enough to concentrate the jumpers in a compact area as a cohesive fighting force. Using formations of thirty-six to forty-five transports like the

C–47 (the military version of the DC–3), it was possible to insert a battalion in two minutes and drop a regiment in ten minutes. Typically, mission

planners picked a jump zone within a few miles of enemy positions where

paratroops could seize a key area behind the lines and hold it until Allied

forces broke through to meet them. These principles formed the basis for

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fourteen major airborne assaults by U.S. forces during the Second World

War. In addition, numerous smaller actions and reinforcement missions

took place in every theater of the war.

PILOTS AND AIRPLANES

The search for qualified pilots intensified in 1942. Early on, the Ferrying Command scoured the country for all available civilian fliers; bush

pilots, test pilots, crop dusters, stunt pilots, barnstormers, and pilots who

flew on personal business or for fun all became candidates. These draftees

were expected to have five hundred hours of flying experience, a requirement that soon dropped to two hundred to three hundred hours, depending

on the military’s need. If they could pass a ninety-day probation period,

they became commissioned officers. By the end of 1942, a total of 1,372

pilots had been commissioned, but the AAF’s own flight-training programs began to replace these conscripts after that date. 

Several hundred women also served, largely as the result of urgent

needs by the ATC and the philosophy that women could take over ferrying

operations to release more men for active combat assignments. Special recruitment and training procedures eventually evolved into an organization

called the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), until it was inactivated at the end of 1944. Even though not eligible for commissions, and

frequently hampered by bureaucratic shortsightedness, the WASPs performed with great professionalism. A total of 303 served as ferry pilots

within the continental United States, and their twenty-seven months of active duty involved delivery or movement of 12,650 aircraft, from bombers

and fighters to two-place trainers.

Just as civil personnel formed the nucleus of ATC’s pilot ranks, civil

aircraft performed its missions. These civil airplanes included the nation’s

most advanced transports—all of them, in fact. In mid-December 1941,

when the War Department desperately sought to expand its force of fourengine transport aircraft, the only such airplanes in military service included the eleven B–24s used by the Ferrying Command, plus one Boeing

314 Clipper flying boat purchased from Pan Am in August. The only other

large, four-engine transports available numbered fifteen, all in civil airline

service, including Pan Am’s eight additional Clippers and two Martin

M–130 flying boats. TWA had five land-based Boeing 307 Stratoliners, a

land-based transport equipped with a pressurized cabin, making it one of

the most advanced transports of the era. The government bought them all

under a national emergency decree, and parceled them out to the services.

The two Martin flying boats and five Clippers went to the Navy; the Army

received the three remaining Clippers, along with TWA’s five Stratoliners.

That gave the AAF a total of twenty four-engine aircraft—hardly enough

13
with which to fight a war. The AAF scrambled to fill the gap with many

more types adapted from civilian designs.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the Army’s air transport organization

had acquired only a few dozen airplanes under the cargo designation. In

the mid-1920s, the service purchased eleven Fokker trimotor transports,

designated C–2, along with thirteen Ford trimotors, designated C–3, C–4,

and C–9. The service also operated about two dozen Douglas Dolphin

twin-engine amphibians, useful in miscellaneous duties in the Philippines

and the Panama Canal Zone and for occasional coastal patrols. But for

two decades after World War I, little progress occurred with respect to later AAF equipment, operational experience, or coherent doctrine for largescale airlift actions.

During 1941, as U.S. planners began to think seriously about the role

of air transport in time of national emergency, no one completely grasped

the potential role of airlift as a major means of supplying military forces.

Eventually, by the late summer of 1942, the backlog of cargoes awaiting

shipment overseas brought home the importance of intercontinental air

transport. The backlog not only made it clear that many more airplanes

were needed immediately, but also underscored their potential for future

use. At that point, according to the official history of the United States Air

14

Three of the 303 ferry pilots in the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs),

an organization that delivered more than twelve thousand aircraft.

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Force in World War II, “the idea of air transport as a major instrument of

logistics [began] to take shape.”

When the United States became fully involved in World War II, aircraft of all types were drafted into military service and given new designations. They ranged from personal airplanes like the Fairchild F–24 (redesignated C–61) to twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar airline transports

(C–60 designation, plus others). The AAF also pressed into service the

sole examples of experimental long-range bombers such as the Boeing

XB–17, which made several cargo flights as the XC–105, and the larger

Douglas XB–19, which was modified to carry 123 troops or fifty-six

thousand pounds of freight but received no formal cargo designation.

These and other airplanes played useful roles, although the lion’s share of

wartime military transport duties was conducted by four types of aircraft:

the Douglas C–47 and C–54; the Curtiss C–46; and the Consolidated

C–87, a converted B–24 bomber.

DC–3/C–47

The renowned Douglas DC–3 served in larger numbers than any other

wartime transport. Its precursor, the DC–1, originated in 1931 in response

to a request from TWA, which wanted to replace trimotored airliners in

service at the time. The principal impetus came after a Fokker trimotor

went down in a Kansas wheat field killing, among others, Knute Rockne,

the famous football coach at Notre Dame University. Public antipathy toward trimotors, including conventional wood-and-fabric construction,

spurred the young Douglas company to design a new kind of all-metal

twin-engine transport. The airplane’s designers also took advantage of advanced aeronautical engineering techniques of the era, including wing

flaps, retractable gear, deicing equipment, NACA (National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics) cowling, flush riveting, stressed-skin construction, variable-pitch propellers, and state-of-the-art engines with

greater reliability and time before overhaul. The melding of all these and

other features resulted in an aircraft that soon played a key role in commercial air transportation. By 1938, it was estimated that 80 percent of all

U.S. passengers traveled in DC–3s. Designed and built for commercial

airline service but adaptable for other purposes, the DC–3 and other airliners of the same era resulted in a fleet of military transports that compiled a heroic record of wartime service.

The AAF’s initial deployment of the DC–3 type actually began with

its immediate predecessor, the DC–2, which was the production version

of the DC–1. Three variants were eventually purchased and were designated C–32, C–33, and C–39. By 1942, nearly eighty airplanes of all three

types had entered service and were capable of carrying fourteen to sixteen

passengers. The C–39s, in particular, proved their value early in the war,

evacuating large numbers of personnel from the Philippines to Australia

15
and helping to establish an aerial shuttle service from New England to

Labrador, thus supporting the demanding routes that continued across the

North Atlantic.

In the meantime, Douglas had developed the DC–3 version of its new

airliner, equipped with improved engines, aerodynamic refinements, a larger fuselage, and an optional cargo door for handling bulky shipments of air

freight. The new DC–3 entered airline service in 1936, beginning a remarkable career. The AAF took first deliveries of this type of aircraft in early

1942, with the designation C–47 Skytrain. The British military service

dubbed it the Dakota, and Allied troops around the globe affectionately referred to the airplane as the “Gooney Bird.” With Pratt & Whitney engines

of 1,200 hp each, the C–47 had a top speed of 220 mph with a maximum

range of fifteen hundred miles. Its crew typically consisted of pilot and

copilot and usually included a crew chief to oversee cargo handling. The

wartime C–47 transports discarded the roomy, twenty-one–seat interiors of

the airline version and installed bench seats along the fuselage walls to seat

thirty-two passengers or twenty-seven troops in combat gear. Hospital

transport conversions carried up to twenty-four stretcher cases, but medical

evacuations in wartime carried several dozen wounded in harried evacuation flights. The big cargo door on the port side facilitated handling of military shipments of six thousand pounds in regular operations, although the

C–47s lifted thousands more in military emergencies on shorter hops.

A nearly identical DC–3 variant, the C–53 Skytrooper, lacked the cargo door and went into service as a troop carrier equipped to haul fortytwo passengers or twenty-six fully equipped paratroopers. The AAF acquired 378 Skytroopers, and about two hundred more DC–3 types taken

from the airlines entered service as the C–48 through C–52, as well as

others. All of these shared the basic airframe of the C–47, differing only

in seating arrangements, engines, and other details. At a distance, each 

16

The C–47 Skytrain, affectionately called the Gooney Bird.

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appeared so similar that reporters and military personnel tended to lump

them all under the generic designation C–47.

The ubiquity of the Skytrain-Dakota-Gooney Bird transport, and its

ability to operate from very rough forward airstrips, made it familiar to

millions of Allied forces stationed around the world. The C–47 and its relatives not only pioneered in-theater wartime routes but also served as VIP

transports, general personnel transports, troop carriers, glider tugs, paratroop assault transports, cargo transports, airborne ambulances, air-sea

rescue craft, and special operations aircraft. Supporters of the airplane

liked to quote a remark attributed to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Four

things won the Second World War—the bazooka, the Jeep, the atom

bomb, and the C–47 Gooney Bird.” By war’s end, some thirteen thousand

C–47 variants had been delivered, plus two thousand more built under license by foreign manufacturers. The C–47 played a major role in postwar

service, remaining in operational units through the 1960s; in the late

1960s, as the AC–47 Gunship, the redoubtable Douglas transports conducted strafing missions during the war in Vietnam.

C–46

The Curtiss C–46 Commando originated in 1940 as a large, thirtysix–passenger airliner, clearly intended to leapfrog the successful Douglas

DC–3. As a bigger, potentially more productive twin-engine military

17

These rows of

gasoline tanks

were loaded onto

C–47s to resupply

frontline forces.

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transport, the C–46 was quickly taken over by military authorities at the

outbreak of World War II. The C–46 eventually served in every theater of

the war, although it became most closely associated with operations over

the “Hump” in the China-Burma-India theater. Its Pratt & Whitney engines, rated at 2,000 hp each, gave it a top speed of 260 mph. The airplane’s range of nearly three thousand miles with a combat load of sixteen

thousand pounds made it a heavily used workhorse; it also carried fifty

combat troops or thirty-three litter patients for medical evacuation. The

airplane’s size and cargo load justified a three-man crew, including pilot,

copilot, and crew chief, with an occasional cabin assistant or extra cargo

loader as needed. The C–46 entered service in 1942, and combat operations quickly resulted in a host of variants to meet rapidly changing combat conditions and specialized loads. Wartime production totaled 3,180

basic models.

Early experience with the C–46 saddled it with a poor reputation. Beset at first by hydraulic failures and related problems, it became known as

a “plumber’s nightmare.” The C–46 was temperamental to fly; its instability at slow speeds made it unsuitable for airdrop missions at low altitudes,

and loading the aircraft called for a careful distribution of weights and

balance. But despite an initial distaste for the C–46 among ATC aircrews,

it soon gained devoted adherents. Aircrews came to appreciate its big cargo doors and roomy fuselage. The C–46 had excellent visibility, comfortable seats that were adjustable, and power-assisted hydraulic controls that

eased pilot strain on long missions. Factory design changes and operational experience mitigated a spate of early complaints about engines and

pesky maintenance problems as crews integrated the C–46 into their military duties.

18

The Curtiss C–46 Commando was a heavily used workhorse in every theater

of the Second World War.

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C–87

Even before twin-engine military transports demonstrated their indispensability during World War II, the AAF took steps to acquire larger,

four-engine aircraft as cargo transports. During 1940–41, responding to

overseas tensions and the pressing requirements of Lend-Lease operations, the Army Ferrying Command took shape and decided to operate the

modified Consolidated B–24 Liberator bomber. Designated B–24A, the

airplane was stripped of bomb-bay gear and assigned to long-distance

routes, where its top speed of 300 mph and range of three thousand miles

made it a valued asset. With its high, shoulder-mounted wing, boxy fuselage shape, low ground clearance, and extended range, the Liberator

seemed a natural design for conversion into a full-time transport.

Production orders for the transport version, the C–87, quickly followed. External changes included the elimination of gun turrets and the

bombardier’s plexiglass nose position, which was covered over; the addition of seven windows cut into each side of the fuselage and a large cargo

door at the rear of the port side; and the elimination of bomb-bay doors.

The C–87 carried a five-man crew—pilot, copilot, navigator, radio operator, and crew chief—along with twenty-five passengers or a cargo of

twelve thousand pounds in certain conditions. One early variant, the

C–87A, came as an executive-style transport equipped with ten berths for

oceanic hops and other lengthy missions. There was an armed version, the

C–87B, used on flights over the Hump in China where routes brought it

close to Japanese fighter bases. The C–109 version also flew over the

Hump but was equipped with special containers to carry fuel for B–29

Superfortresses based in China. The production run for the basic C–87

model came to 291 aircraft, although a considerable number of airplanes

19

The Consolidated C–87, the transport version of the B–24 Liberator

bomber, carried a five-man crew and 25 passengers.

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underwent conversion to C–87 transport status without carrying the cargo

designation. There were also ad hoc uses. In the autumn of 1944, when

Gen. George S. Patton’s tanks outran fuel supplies in France, the AAF assigned an entire wing of B–24 Liberators from the Eighth Air Force to

carry emergency gas to Patton’s logistical centers.

C–54 and C–69

The Liberator transport served a useful purpose, but its original design as a bomber did not make it fully compatible with the growing list of

wartime personnel transport and cargo needs. In any case, the continuing

demand for bombers argued for a different set of production lines to supply a four-engine transport. Fortunately, a new Douglas airliner, the

DC–4, seemed to fit the ATC’s requirements. Like the B–24, and unlike

the “tail draggers” of the day, the DC–4 mounted tricycle landing gear,

giving it a horizontal attitude on the flight line. Original specifications for

the DC–4 originated with a proposal funded by five separate airlines in

the United States. A prototype made test flights in 1938, but only United

and American Airlines pushed development that led to the DC–4, which

first flew in 1942. 

20

The Douglas C–54, an unpressurized craft, was the largest transport mass

produced during the war.

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An unpressurized airliner, the C–54 military type appeared in many

variants. Early models carried only twenty-six passengers, but the manufacturer quickly introduced stretched versions to carry between forty and

eighty people. The C–54B, for example, typically seated fifty medical

evacuees or twenty-six stretcher cases. The C–54A represented a heavylift type, equipped with an oversized cargo door and capable of loading

fourteen thousand pounds or more, including vehicles like trucks and

road-building equipment. Later versions of the C–54 carried more than

twice the payload and could fly missions of more than forty-four hundred

miles at a cruising speed of 220 mph; the airplane boasted a top speed of

about 285 mph. Wartime production totaled 953 aircraft, the largest transport to be mass-produced during World War II. A number of executive

modifications appeared, though none so well known as the “Sacred Cow,”

equipped for the personal use of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Like the

C–47, dozens of C–54 transports soldiered on into the postwar era at Air

Force and allied bases on every continent.

Toward the end of the war, C–54 transports were joined by a different

four-engine civil airliner equipped with tricycle landing gear and built by

Lockheed. In its prewar development as the Lockheed Model 49, the Constellation emerged as a large pressurized aircraft, a feature that permitted

flights at higher altitudes where there were fewer weather problems and

where lower atmospheric drag conditions allowed for higher speeds. From

the start, the Constellation represented outstanding performance, being

capable of cruising at 300 mph, carrying more than thirty-two thousand

21

Lockheed’s C–69 Constellation was pressurized for higher altitude where

fewer weather problems and less atmospheric drag permitted faster speeds.

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pounds of cargo, and transporting sixty-four passengers over intercontinental distances. Military versions of the C–69 saw limited service, with

just twenty-two produced for the AAF and only a few available for operations by the end of the war. But the C–69 heralded the kind of speeds and

22

Igor Sikorsky was an

aeronautical engineer who

pioneered helicopter

development in the 1930s.

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This Sikorsky R–5A helicopter was stripped of all excess weight for use in

rescue missions.

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operating altitudes that became commonplace after the war. Dozens of

Constellation variants joined the service through the following years, remaining on active duty into the Vietnam War era in a variety of roles, including electronic surveillance and countermeasures.

Helicopters

The airlift experience in World War II also included the AAF’s first

operational deployment of helicopters. Brilliant Russian émigré Igor

Sikorsky had studied rotary-wing aircraft in Imperial Russia before settling in the United States after the Russian Revolution of 1917–18. Following major success with large flying boats, Sikorsky returned to helicopter development in the 1930s. The historic flight of the Sikorsky

VS–300 in 1939 is generally acknowledged to be the first use of modern,

practical helicopter design. Military interest led to a production model,

the Vought-Sikorsky R–4, introduced in 1942. Its 180-hp engine gave it a

top speed of 75 mph and a range of 130 miles. The R–4 could lift only one

passenger in addition to the pilot. The aircraft initially served as a coastalpatrol helicopter in the United States, entering service in 1943. The same

year, several helicopters were sent to Burma to see how the unusual-looking vehicle would operate in hot, humid jungle environments. The AAF

eventually received 132 models of this pioneer helicopter design.

23

The R–4 helicopter carried the pilot and one passenger on coastal patrol

duties.

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Gliders

The role of glider pilots and glider troops is often overlooked. Sixtyfive hundred glider pilots served in U.S. units, a unique group who not

only commanded aircraft but also fought as infantry after landing their

gliders. Glider pilots often became the first airborne troops to step onto

enemy-held soil, and they played a key role in preliminary assaults from

Sicily to northern Europe to the Far East. These pilots also experienced

some of the highest casualty rates in World War II. Walter Cronkite, who

became one of the most respected broadcast journalists of the postwar era,

rode into combat in a glider when he was starting his career as a war correspondent in 1944. Cronkite later characterized his experience colorfully

and succinctly: “It was a lifetime cure for constipation” (quoted in McAuliffe, June 1994).

Because parachute drops left troops dispersed over a comparatively

broad area, the appeal of gliders lay in their ability to deliver larger numbers of soldiers into a smaller perimeter as a more cohesive fighting force.

Also, gliders could carry some wheeled vehicles, mortars, and light artillery that could not be parachuted from World War II cargo transports.

Essentially, the role of glider troops was to make landings ahead of the

ground forces and take enemy strongholds by surprise. Key objectives included enemy artillery batteries, bridges, and choke points along rail or

road lines. Still, glider troops carried limited supplies, relying on the main

force to relieve them in short order. Glider pilots who survived rotated

back to their bases for subsequent missions.

America’s rush to develop gliders followed the stunning success of

the German glider assault on the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael in May

1940. Using ten gliders holding only seventy-eight combat troops, the

Germans landed within the fortress perimeter, placed demolition charges

at strategic points, and disabled most of the Belgian guns and crews in the

first few minutes of the assault. Some hours later, the Germans forced the

surrender of the fort’s 780-man garrison, at a cost to the glider troops of

six dead and twenty wounded. In 1941, the German attack on the Britishheld island of Crete appeared to drive home the new reality of large-scale

glider assaults. In fact, the Germans suffered crippling losses of glider

troops, gliders, pilots, and tow airplanes, but both Britain and the United

States continued to develop similar glider attack capability because it

seemed so tactically effective.

The crash program to create production gliders finally settled on a design submitted by the Waco Aircraft Company of Troy, Ohio, well known

for its series of high-performance private airplanes of the 1930s. Waco’s

CG–4A glider hardly resembled the nimble light airplanes that had made

the firm’s reputation. The glider had a boxy fuselage, a blunt nose, and

shoulder-mounted wings supported by struts. The fixed gear was mounted

directly to the fuselage and provided clearance of only two feet or so.

24
Waco’s design used a fabric-covered tubular steel frame, plywood flooring, and minimal instruments. Without flaps, the heavily loaded glider had

an alarming sink rate; free flight at the end of a tether demanded constant

attention; and landing amounted to a controlled crash. Normally, the

CG–4A carried up to fifteen troops, including the pilot and copilot. With

a total payload capacity of some 3,800 pounds, these gliders could transport items as large as a Jeep, a quarter-ton truck, or a 75-mm howitzer and

its crew. It had a portside door, and the front end swung up on hinges to

unload larger cargo. About 12,400 models of the CG–4A went to the AAF

along with 940 more for British forces, who named it the Hadrian.

Through a reverse Lend-Lease agreement, AAF units in Britain received

some twenty-six hundred examples of the Airspeed MK–1 Horsa, a larger

glider capable of carrying up to thirty combat troops or 7,120 pounds of

cargo. Like the Waco, the Horsa also had a breakaway tail section and a

large cargo door on the port side, just aft of the cockpit. The British craft

used a wooden frame construction that tended to collapse and spray dangerous splinters on landing impact. Pilots and troops alike favored the

CG–4A, although it had its own history of weaknesses.

The urgent need for gliders to use in training as well as for combat

meant that production was farmed out to a variety of firms, many of

which had little or no experience in aircraft construction. Ford Motor

Company produced the largest share of CG–4A gliders—more than four

thousand of them—but other suppliers reflected a disappointing crosssection of production know-how. Ford, along with Waco and Cessna, had

prior experience, in contrast to Anheuser-Busch and the Gibson Refrigerator Company, two of the larger firms involved in final production. Over

115 other contractors participated, including companies like the Steinway

Piano Company and the H. J. Heinz Pickle Company, which turned out

wing spars and wing assemblies, respectively. Ongoing quality control

problems came to a head in the summer of 1943. During an air show in

25

Gliders like this

Waco CG–4A

could transport

land vehicles,

light artillery,

and troops.

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Saint Louis, Missouri, the mayor and several other city officials, including a pair of high-ranking Air Force officers, climbed into a newly delivered CG–4A for a demonstration flight. Just after takeoff, one wing

snapped off, sending the stricken glider into a nose dive that killed the

crew and all passengers. An inquiry cited faulty workmanship for a wingroot attachment, and this led to stringent new quality controls.

The CG–4A gliders were towed by C–47 transports at speeds less

than 120 mph and had a stalling speed of about 44 mph. They were not always reliable even under tow, during which the glider pilot had constantly

to keep his craft’s tether aligned within a few degrees of the tow plane. His

diligence produced a cone of safe tethered flight for both the tower and

towee called, appropriately, “the angle of the dangle.” If caught fully

loaded in turbulent conditions, gliders were known to disintegrate,

spilling their cargoes or hapless troops to the ground far below. One surviving glider pilot remembered a harrowing landing in Germany when a

phosphorous shell set a fabric-covered wing afire. As he descended

through haze into the battle zone, he suddenly saw power lines directly

ahead, but was able to fly his glider underneath them and complete a safe

landing.

Collectively, these transports and gliders represented the heart of the

AAF and Allied airlift and airborne assault forces. That they performed

effectively in every theater, under the harshest environments of arctic cold

and desert or tropical heat, attested to their sturdy design and perhaps

even more to the efforts of the aircrews and ground personnel who kept

them flying. The transports and pilots of the ATC not only supported the

Army Air Forces wherever needed, but also became the official carriers

for the entire War Department. With the development of routes throughout the central and southern Pacific, the ATC had become a worldwide

network of awesome capability by 1945.

In addition to the special flying boats and Boeing transports acquired

at the war’s outbreak, the principal ATC transports included workhorses

such as the C–46, C–47, C–54, and C–87. On a global basis, these aircraft

carried out a wide array of assignments. Pan Am’s Clippers took President

Roosevelt across the South Atlantic to various wartime conferences with

Churchill, Stalin, and others, just as different airplanes flew dignitaries

and high-ranking officers to additional meetings on every continent. Over

the course of the war years, the ATC carried just about anything that could

be loaded aboard its aircraft. Indeed, as described in the official history,

The Army Air Forces in World War II, ATC aircraft airlifted everything

“from bulldozers to blood plasma, from college professors to Hollywood

entertainers, from high-explosive ammunition to the most delicate signal

equipment, from eminent scientists to the most obscure technician, from

heads of state to the ordinary G.I.” On return trips, the airplanes carried

strategic cargoes such as tungsten from China, cobalt from Africa, and

26
quinine from Latin America. And from every war zone came planeloads

of wounded G.I.s grateful for such rapid return to modern medical wards

in the United States.

When ATC was established in June 1942, the number of its personnel

stood at 11,000; this number had risen to 125,000 by July 1944. The ATC

aircraft fleet had reached 1,000 by the end of 1943 and surpassed 3,000

barely a year later. By July 1945, ATC transports were carrying 275,000

passengers per month, crisscrossing the globe with the regularity of passenger trains. At the same time, the ATC’s Ferrying Division continued to

fly combat airplanes to military bases at home and abroad, delivering

30,000 in 1942, 72,000 in 1943, and 108,000 in 1944. Prior to V-J Day in

August 1945, the ATC had already delivered 57,000 additional aircraft to

combat units.

AIRBORNE OPERATIONS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

When the Allies first began plans in early 1942 for the invasion of

North Africa, they made no assignments for airborne troops. Eventually,

the need to ensure air superiority over the invasion beaches became a priority, leading to a decision to insert paratroops at two airfields in western

Algeria. The task went to troopers of the 2d Battalion, 503d Parachute Infantry. The mission required a fifteen hundred-mile flight from England

to North Africa—the longest continuous sortie by any airborne forces in

World War II.

Haste in planning the operation exposed a number of serious problems in its execution. Many of the C–47 pilots were recent recruits from

commercial airlines, unfamiliar with the geography of the mission and

also untrained in the niceties of flying in formation during the night.

Many navigators arrived to join crews only a few days before the mission’s scheduled departure. Thirty-nine airplanes left their English bases

after nightfall on November 7. Despite the unfamiliar strain of formation

flying at night and through fog, thirty-two of the transports still held a

ragged position in the formation at sunrise. One diverted to Gibraltar because of engine trouble, and several others delivered their troops to

French and Spanish Morocco, where they were interned. The remaining

transports arrived over the target area, where most elected to land in a dry

lake bed miles away from the airfield objectives, and the remaining paratroops jumped into terrain between the two airfields, leaving them in a

poor tactical position. U.S. motorized units arrived at the airfields before

any paratroopers had advanced to their objectives. All in all, the first real

combat exercise for U.S. paratroopers did not transpire as intended.

During September 1943, U.S. Army and Air Force officers discussed

different plans for airborne operations at Salerno, on Italy’s western coast,

as well as possible air landings at Rome. Despite some detailed planning

27
for several possibilities, nothing materialized because of the serious logistical problems in reinforcing airborne troops far behind enemy lines and

the inability of Italian authorities to guarantee assistance for landing at

Italian airfields near Rome, where German forces remained strong.

Eventually, an emergency request from Gen. Mark Clark, who needed

reinforcements after the Salerno landings, led to action. Over successive

nights, AAF transports dropped two infantry regiments and two engineering companies at Paestum, a coastal town south of Salerno. Brig. Gen.

James M. Gavin, who led this mission, felt that the sudden presence of

U.S. troops, far from where the Germans expected them, played a key role

in stabilizing the right flank of Clark’s offensive. The second operation, at

the mountain town of Avellino, a motor-road hub twenty miles north of

the Salerno beaches, did not go nearly as well. A total of 640 troopers

jumped, and about 500 eventually reached Allied lines. High mountains

surrounding the town made it difficult to spot, and only a few pilots identified the proper drop zone. The troops became scattered over one hundred square miles. Gavin stated that “it is doubtful that [the operation] had

any decisive bearing on the outcome of the Battle of Salerno.” The isolated paratroopers proved no more than a military nuisance to German commanders.

28

Paratroopers prepare their packs and parachutes before boarding a C–47

for jumps in Sicily in July 1944.

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By the summer of 1944, after nearly two years of training and combat

experience in North Africa, American strategists approached airborne operations much more confidently. For example, for the invasion of Sicily in

July 1943, U.S. commanders assigned a reinforced 505th Parachute Infantry of the 82d Airborne Division. Their objective was the high ground

inland from the invasion beaches where Allied occupation would insulate

the southwestern Sicilian coast from enemy counterattack. A British airborne brigade planned a glider attack behind the southeastern coast in order to capture a crucial bridge, the Ponte Grande near Syracuse, and to

knock out coastal batteries facing the British invasion sector.

For each of the Allied units, confidence was misplaced. The British

force of 144 tow airplanes with gliders ran into gale-force winds that scattered the units. Only twelve gliders finally landed near their objectives;

amidst confusion about their release point, nearly half the glider force was

cut free too soon and crash-landed in the sea, drowning some 250 soldiers. The survivors somehow managed to neutralize the coastal battery

and aided friendly ground forces in taking the bridge. The U.S. paratroop

forces were also scattered by similar gale-force winds, and transport pilots

became confused as haze, dust, and smoke from the preliminary bombardment obscured vital checkpoints. Airplanes arrived over Sicily from

every direction, and 4,440 paratroopers who made the jump were scattered across the countryside. In small groups, the troopers made their way

toward the sound of artillery fire along the invasion beaches and actually

helped divert an Italian counterattack until advancing U.S. troops arrived.

On the second day, officers decided to send in 2,000 paratroopers as reinforcements, timing the mission shortly after midnight. Despite warnings

to Allied shipping and antiaircraft batteries now ashore, nervous gunners

opened fire on the low-flying C–47s. They shot down two dozen airplanes, three dozen more received heavy damage, and an estimated two

hundred casualties resulted from the confusion.

In the process of conducting these missions, the AAF had learned

harsh lessons about preliminary planning, logistics, and launching reasonably large formations of paratroop-laden transport aircraft. The service

had yet to come to terms with the realities of chaotic events such as adverse winds and poor visibility over target areas, to say nothing of triggerhappy Allied gun crews. Still, paratroopers on the ground maintained an

admirable level of fighting spirit and demonstrated an ability to recover

and assault their objective. Such lessons could be applied to much larger

and more intricate offensives in the Mediterranean and western Europe,

backed by greater numbers of transports and more experienced pilots and

staff officers.

The hard experiences of Africa, Italy, and Sicily definitely held a cumulative value. Hundreds of small technical problems had been resolved.

A core of officers acquired invaluable experience in planning airborne as29
saults and arranging appropriate logistical support for parachute troops on

the ground. Uncertainties about how to use airborne troops gave way to

realistic doctrine. “Clearly,” Gavin wrote later, “they must be employed in

mass and not in small packets.” Moving from formations of a few dozen

transports, Gavin and his cohorts were now ready to undertake actions requiring hundreds of aircraft and tens of thousands of troops. The next

phase of airborne operations lay in western Europe.

SPECIAL MISSIONS

FRANTIC

Meanwhile, within the framework of ATC requirements and airborne

assault campaigns, a variety of special operations took place. One of these

proceeded under the code name, FRANTIC. During the winter of 1943–44,

as Germany moved many factories to the east and out of range of Allied

bomber strikes, the concept of “shuttle bombing” took hold. The idea rested on bombing missions that could originate in Britain and at Allied bases

in Italy, strike German targets at long range, and then proceed to convenient airfields in the Soviet Union. Refueled and armed, the bombers

would hit German targets again on their way home. After several frustrating planning sessions, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin finally agreed to the

concept in February 1944.

In haste, the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe set up an Eastern

Command to carry out the shuttle-bomb requirements for FRANTIC. Heavy

equipment and bulky supplies went by sea to the port of Archangel, north

of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), and then to a quartet of new airfields in

the Ukraine. Additional supplies and key personnel would fly in on ATC

airplanes from U.S. bases in Iran. Delicate negotiations finally fixed a total of forty-two round-trip ATC missions to make the bases operational for

the AAF, and allowed an additional rate of two weekly support missions to

sustain the U.S. contingent. The issue of flight communications eventually

ended with a compromise, allowing U.S. crews to carry out navigation

and radio duties with a Soviet observer resident at all related communications centers.

Eventually, the ATC in support of FRANTIC delivered some 450 personnel and thirty-six thousand pounds of cargo by June 1944. The same

month, Gen. Ira Eaker made the first shuttle bombing mission with 129

B–17 bombers of the Mediterranean Air Force. Operations continued

through the middle of August 1944, by which time the original sixteen targets identified for Operation FRANTIC had been taken by the rapidly advancing Soviet offensives. A reluctant Stalin agreed to a winter intermission of operations; U.S. and Soviet advances by the spring of 1945 ended

the need for shuttle missions and the ATC flew out the last U.S. contingent

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in June 1945. Operation FRANTIC demonstrated the flexibility of airlift

equipment and personnel. It also demonstrated the political role of airlift

logistics in terms of operational support that would have been impossible

by conventional ground-based means.

CARPETBAGGER and the Balkans

Other special airlift operations involved a cloak-and-dagger environment, inserting and extracting agents behind enemy lines, as well as supplying resistance forces throughout Europe and the Balkans. Such was the

purpose of Operation CARPETBAGGER, launched in the spring of 1944. Special elements of the Eighth Air Force used a variety of equipment, including some forty models of the B–24, modified for clandestine missions over

enemy territory. The ubiquitous C–47 transports also played a major role.

All of these aircraft and crews were especially busy during 1944, supplying insurgent groups in France and northern Europe during the preparations for the Normandy invasion and during the subsequent Allied advance

out of the Normandy beachhead. During that year alone, CARPETBAGGER

sorties numbered 1,860 and accounted for some 1,000 personnel dropand-recovery missions, plus delivery of more than 20,000 containers and

111,000 packages. Other activities included more than 2,000 sorties to

drop propaganda leaflets, as well as missions to broadcast Allied radio

messages or to jam enemy radio programs.

Although virtually every special operation was judged vital, some especially important missions were flown to the Balkans. Numbers of AAF

flight crews and Allied personnel were evacuated by air from remote

airstrips. One extended series of covert missions launched from Italy during 1944–45 airlifted more than two thousand partisans from positions behind enemy lines. Using rough, clandestine landing strips, C–47 transports made 50 percent of the necessary sorties. In another case in early

1944, a trio of C–47s towed three Waco gliders loaded with British and

Soviet personnel who landed the gliders inside Yugoslavia.

THE ASSAULT ON EUROPE

OVERLORD

The huge and complex Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944,

known as Operation OVERLORD, included crucial operations of airborne

troops. The Ninth Air Force included the IX Troop Carrier Command, the

unit given the job of carrying the U.S. 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions

into combat. In the days prior to the invasion, the AAF collected over nine

hundred aircraft, mostly C–47 transports, plus some one hundred gliders.

Their objective was to secure the southern flank of the Normandy beach

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invasion sector. Loaded during the night of June 5–6, thirteen thousand

U.S. paratroopers began their flight across the English Channel, scheduled

to reach six drop zones during the early morning hours and under cover of

darkness. At the same time, several thousand British airborne troops departed for additional drop zones along the northern flank of the Normandy landing areas.

The initial wave of U.S. transports crossed the coast in good shape, although their arrival alerted German gunners and heavy antiaircraft fire affected all the transports that followed. Additionally, a shift in weather patterns generated clouds, fog, and adverse winds. Formations began to drift

and break up; confusion mounted in the darkness as dozens of airplanes

lost contact with their original formations. Analysts later concluded that

only 10 percent of the U.S. airborne forces hit their drop zones; some 50

percent of the troops parachuted one or two miles away from their intended zones. Confused and disoriented, they wasted many hours trying to

find their own units, often straggling along with whatever U.S. paratroops

they found. The confusion in the darkness was compounded by the towering hedgerows of the Normandy region. The hedgerows, impenetrable

tangles of bushes and undergrowth, lined roads and fields at a height of

five to twelve feet, making cross-country sighting and travel difficult even

in daylight.

There was one advantage in all this. For the Germans, with reports of

enemy paratroopers cascading in from all points of the compass, organizing a logical, effective counterattack against the airborne forces proved

temporarily daunting. This gave U.S. troops some additional time to try to

lash together effective combat units, but the general dispersion undermined a central tenet of airborne operations of keeping their modest

forces concentrated in one area. Of the sixty-six hundred men in the 101st

Airborne Division, only one-third were under a central command at the

end of the day.

The night operations also affected glider missions. The temperamental gliders, in the hands of comparatively inexperienced pilots, were tricky

to land in daylight on a calm day. Bringing them down safely at night, in

extremely poor visibility and on a hedgerow-carpeted terrain, appeared

unusually foolhardy. But senior officers in the Allied planning committees insisted on it, citing potentially extreme casualties from German antiaircraft fire during daylight. Despite bitter objections from officers in airborne squadrons, planners held to their decision to land the gliders at

night.

The Normandy landings involved several hundred CG–4A types and

British Horsa gliders. Invasion timetables called for glider assaults in the

predawn hours of D-Day, about five hours before the main force of

troops hit the beaches. The total complement of glider and airborne

troops came to three full airborne divisions, and their objectives involved

occupying key areas at either end of the Normandy beachhead as well as

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holding important bridges and roads to choke off early counterattacks.

All glider pilots received intensive briefings about their landing zones in

order to minimize confusion in identifying assigned objectives. When

there was light enough to see, this procedure worked well. As one glider

pilot recalled later, he felt as though he were driving to his own farm;

coming in for his landing, he recognized trees, fences, and houses.

Nonetheless, intelligence misled a number of pilots, who found that

twenty-foot-high trees marked on briefing charts turned out to be eighty

feet high. Pilots were also told to use hedgerows as a pliant barrier to

slow them down on landing, only to find that hedgerows were generally

unyielding and often covered stone walls. The dangers in landing included “Rommel’s asparagus,” long rows of twelve-foot posts, many wired to

mines, placed to rip apart gliders steering for apparently usable landing

zones.

In retrospect, the OVERLORD experience underscored the usefulness of

airborne troops and the possibilities of aerial resupply. Nonetheless, many

officers became discouraged about mounting nighttime operations, and

airborne assaults held little chance of success unless favorable weather

held and air superiority remained inviolate.

MARKET-GARDEN

Following the retreat of German units into Holland and southern Germany, the Allied commanders pondered their next moves. Field Marshal

Sir Bernard L. Montgomery argued for a bold push to outflank German

forces along the northern battle line by airlifting three airborne divisions

for attacks deep behind the enemy’s main position. By this time, Gen.

Dwight D. Eisenhower had assumed command of all Allied ground forces

on the European continent, and Montgomery had to win Eisenhower’s

support for this daring operation. Montgomery’s gambit required the airborne units to open and hold a corridor sixty-five miles long, running

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Douglas C–47s towed gliders to the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944.

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from Holland’s southern border to the city of Arnhem on the Rhine River.

With this narrow passage cleared of German troops, Montgomery proposed to launch the British Second Army on a headlong rush up the corridor, across the Rhine, and into the heartland of Germany. But to cross the

Rhine, the airborne units had to make sure they took the Arnhem bridge

intact, as well as several others along the corridor at Eindhoven and Nijmegen. Therefore, it was essential to put the Allied units down close to

their assigned bridgeheads and to keep them supplied by air until relieved

by the British Second Army as it advanced. Given the success of the Allied advance to date, the mounting logistical assets from the Channel inland, and control of the air, Montgomery eventually secured Eisenhower’s

agreement. If successful, the action could end the war in Europe within

weeks. Operation MARKET-GARDEN was set for September 1944.

Mission planners envisioned a three-day operation to airlift a total of

thirty-five thousand troops plus support equipment from England; more

than twenty thousand men were to be inserted the first day alone, along

with five hundred vehicles, 330 artillery pieces, and 590 tons of other

equipment. On the day of the offensive, some two thousand troop airplanes and six hundred gliders would take to the air, along with two thousand more airplanes—fighters and bombers—to fly top cover and to hit

German positions in the attack area.

The architects of MARKET-GARDEN knew it held high risks. Experience showed that the effectiveness of airborne troops slipped rapidly the

longer they had to hold their isolated objectives. Moreover, their firepower invariably amounted to less than that of their adversaries, especially if

the defenders could introduce heavy armor into the battle. Inserting paratroops and glider forces sixty-five miles into German territory seemed almost foolhardy. But Eisenhower and Montgomery accepted intelligence

reports that most German forces in the landing zones were inexperienced

garrison troops and other units pulled out of action elsewhere because

they had been decimated.

The components of the First Allied Airborne Army, commanded by

U.S. Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton, were battle-hardened troops who were superbly equipped, rested, at full strength, and eager to tangle with the enemy. Units of the U.S. 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions had fought at Normandy; the British 1 Airborne Division had fought through Sicily and

Italy. The 101st, under Brig. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, had the task of landing

near Eindhoven to take the city and its key bridges. Brig. Gen. James

Gavin’s 82d had similar objectives at Grave and Nijmegen. The most distant target, the bridge over the Lower Rhine and Arnhem, went to British

forces under Major General Robert Urquhart, including the British 1 Airborne and a Polish brigade. The overall tactical commander, the British

general, Frederick Browning, recognized the risks, particularly for the

British 1 Airborne. Browning, the husband of novelist Daphne du Maurier, also made a prophetic remark. Told that he needed to hold out at Arn34
hem for at least two days, Browning said that the contingent there could

probably control its position for four. “But,” he observed, “I think we

might be going a bridge too far” (Sears, 1991, pp. 215–16).

On September 17, 1944, Operation MARKET-GARDEN got under way.

The first reports looked encouraging, as early airdrops put the U.S. units

into their assigned target areas. But the timetable began to unravel at the

British end, as airborne artillery and equipment often went down wide of

their marks. Bad weather and quickly mobilized German defenders took a

heavy toll, especially on the British. Parachutists and glider troops went

into action without the margins of fire support and supplies planned for

them. Several critical bridges remained in German hands. When the sun

set three days later, Montgomery’s Second Army had failed to advance

and tenacious Allied airborne forces held only a narrow strip of territory

that ran thirty-five miles between Eindhoven and Nijmegen. Strong German resistance elsewhere had brought the Second Army to a standstill in

its attempt to relieve British airborne forces at Arnhem. Although Montgomery felt encouraged that the Arnhem bridge remained in British

hands, the battalion of British troops at one end of it had been cut off and

encircled by much stronger German forces. Two more days of aerial resupply efforts around Arnhem led to the loss of twenty-three transports,

and only a fraction of several hundred tons of supplies had fallen into Allied positions. Another operation, an attempt to drop fifteen hundred

troop reinforcements from a Polish parachute brigade, was frustrated by

strong gusts that prevented one-third of the Poles from jumping and carried most of the rest onto the wrong bank of the Rhine, where they suffered heavy losses. Airdrops of more than three thousand reinforcements

and supplies to American forces were marginally better because the two

U.S. airborne divisions had gained control of a larger area.

At the end of a week of agonizing debate and failed relief efforts,

Montgomery ordered withdrawal of all units south of the Rhine and

closed the gate on Operation MARKET-GARDEN. Overall, a postaction

analysis left little to feel good about. Of 35,000 troops committed by the

Allies, 11,583 became casualties and, of those, 9,333 were listed as killed

or missing. Of the huge flotilla of transports, air commanders reported

1,265 damaged aircraft and another 153 destroyed. In addition, Allied air

forces wrote off eighty-seven fighters and bombers. The nine days of operational effort had been bedeviled by bad weather, a major factor in the

disappointing efforts at reinforcement and resupply.

Allied air operations had accomplished little interdiction of enemy

transport and communications. Military intelligence had clearly underestimated German military capabilities and even failed to locate and identify major threats, like a Panzer division in the area. Allied efforts to coordinate communications and supply revealed significant gaps. MARKETGARDEN was a promising and audacious concept, launched with commendable expertise in marshaling a large force of transports, gliders, and

35
troops. Loading, transporting, and delivering so many airplanes and

troops onto enemy territory was no mean logistical feat. But contingency

planning to cope with the vagaries of weather and unanticipated enemy

resistance proved fallible, and a heroic effort was, in the end, undone.

Bastogne and VARSITY

Despite the bitter experience of MARKET-GARDEN, gliders successfully relieved troops cut off in enemy territory on more than one occasion.

During late December 1944, Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe commanded soldiers surrounded at Bastogne, Belgium, during the Battle of the

Bulge. McAuliffe achieved immortality for his defiant “Nuts!” in response to German demands for his surrender. Meanwhile, McAuliffe’s

battered command included five hundred badly wounded men; gas, ammunition, and rations continued to dwindle as it became questionable

whether General Patton’s relief forces could break through in time. While

Patton’s advance remained hours away, U.S. glider pilots launched a rescue mission through intense German ground fire and flak to deliver supplies and medical teams to keep the Bastogne forces in the fight. Subsequent parachute drops supplied the troops around Bastogne until relief

columns finally arrived.

One more large paratroop operation remained—Operation VARSITY,

directed at Wesel, an industrial city on the Rhine at the mouth of the

Lippe River. Field Marshal Montgomery’s main forces planned to cross

the Rhine nearby, so the Wesel area’s bridges and transport network represented a key military objective. But before Montgomery’s extensive

planning and labored execution took place in the north, units of advancing U.S. forces to the south already had taken the bridge at Remagen and

forced their way across the Rhine at other points. Operation VARSITY was

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C–46s are readied to carry paratroopers to Operation VARSITY in the

industrial city of Wesel, Germany.

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later much criticized as an unnecessary operation. Even so, its conduct

demonstrated a level of maturity in the planning and execution of airborne warfare.

The 17th Airborne Division, representing the U.S. contingent, now

boasted greater strengths in parachute platoons as well as glider companies. Planners inserted a third battalion for the glider company regiment.

There was increased firepower throughout, including glider battalions that

landed with Jeeps and 105-mm howitzers, and other units equipped with

new weapons like 57-mm and 75-mm recoilless rifles. The latter helped

resolve a significant problem in the ability of airborne units to deal with

enemy armor. Troop transports and glider pilots planned operations from

a considerable reservoir of large-action experience in the western European arena. Based on accumulated operational confidence, many tow airplanes pulled two gliders in their wake. Troop Carrier Command employed a new version of the C–46 Commando, equipped with doors on

each side of its fuselage, a feature that allowed paratroopers to jump simultaneously from both sides of the aircraft. The opportunity to unload

parachute troops over enemy territory in one-half the usual time for each

transport enhanced survival of the airplane and also enhanced the concentration of troops on landing. A number of factors influenced the decision

to jump during daylight, but the bitter memories of MARKET-GARDEN

clearly played a role in the final plan to launch a nighttime river crossing

followed by the airborne assault not long after sunrise.

VARSITY’s aerial action began during the morning of March 24, 1945.

Covered by some eight hundred fighters, 1,696 transports and 1,348 gliders flew over the landing zone, a long line of aircraft that took two and

one-half hours to complete their paratroop drops and glider deliveries.

During the day, another two thousand fighters provided air cover for resupply sorties that included 240 Liberators which dropped more than 580

tons of supplies. The initial glider landings provided assault troops with

695 vehicles and 113 pieces of artillery. Despite fierce resistance from

some German units and comparatively high casualty rates among the attacking Allied forces, most objectives were taken within a few hours. By

nightfall, British ground troops had made contact with the airborne forces

and the attack on Wesel had succeeded.

Forty-four transports and fifteen Liberators were destroyed in VARSITY operations, attempting to resupply the airborne troops. The 17th Airborne lost 159 men with 522 wounded; the British 6 Airborne listed 347

dead and 731 wounded. By comparison, two U.S. infantry divisions that

crossed the Rhine in the same operation had 44 dead and 450 wounded.

Airborne assaults remained highly vulnerable to effectively directed enemy fire. At the same time, the sight of so many airplanes in the air and the

effective concentration of airborne forces in a visibly successful attack

against an entrenched enemy position generated great enthusiasm from

Allied observers. Taking place beyond the Rhine, along with additional

37
Allied thrusts across the river, Operation VARSITY underscored the accelerating collapse of Nazi Germany and a rising confidence in victory for

the Allies in western Europe.

FLYING THE HUMP

In the process of conducting the postwar analysis of air operations,

authors of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey paid attention to

the story of airlift activities. In its study of the China-Burma-India theater,

the survey attached particular value to the airlift factor and the role of the

ATC. “The major significance, for the future, of all air operation in CBI

was the development of air transport operations,” the survey concluded.

The airlift’s success was all the more notable because of its hurried deployment and the formidable geographic region in which it operated. As

the survey observed, “the terrain of Burma and China and the absence of

land lines of communication forced all agencies in the theater to turn to

the airplane—initially as an afterthought and an emergency last-chance

measure.” The flexibility of air transportation offered planners a unique

tool “to meet the exigencies of the various situations.” Summing up, the

survey declared that “air transport operations expanded beyond the

wildest predictions of 1942—expanded because it was the one agency

which could succeed.”

Regarding the CBI theater, the military situation in 1942 appeared to

be highly unfavorable. The Imperial Japanese Army presence in China to38

The H–6 helicopter, able to land in clearings as small as 65 feet across,

evacuated wounded from jungles in the China-Burma-India theater.

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taled one million troops. The Chinese forces opposing them numbered in

the hundreds of thousands, but were critically disadvantaged by their tenuous supply line stretching hundreds of miles to the west in India. Moreover, this line to Allied support snaked through impenetrable jungles and

towering mountain passes of the Himalayas. The mountains, rising to

twenty thousand feet and more, presented a seemingly impossible operational challenge. With the cynical cockiness typical of soldiers and airmen, troops in the region reduced the Himalayas by way of semantics,

simply referring to them as “The Hump.”

Following the invasion of China in 1937, Japanese forces succeeded

in occupying or controlling virtually all of China’s Pacific coast and large

parts of the interior; the Japanese navy commanded all ocean approaches.

In the spring of 1942, Japanese units overran Burma, on India’s northern

border, cutting off the last significant land routes that supplied the struggling armies of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek in China. The United

States and its allies needed to keep China in the war because its forces

preoccupied hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops. This holding action would permit the Allies to attack Axis powers in the European and

Mediterranean theaters, at the same time building the necessary logistical

infrastructure to challenge and defeat Japan in the Far East. But for this

grand strategy to work, China had to be supplied. The loss of Burma and

of its supply lines to China precipitated an emergency situation.

General Arnold had been worrying about the fragile supply lines to

China even before the loss of Burma. During the 1930s, the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) had pioneered air routes over the Himalayas. CNAC operated with the support of the Chinese government and

the expertise of Pan American Airways. With Arnold’s support, CNAC became a contractor to operate air cargo services between India and China,

although it was clear that far more capacity was needed. Accordingly, the

Tenth Air Force, based in India, took responsibility for substantial air cargo flights and began operations over the Hump in April 1942. In two

months, the Tenth Air Force carried 196 tons of cargo, and CNAC delivered 112 tons. Summer monsoons nearly terminated flights, but the two

units were delivering one thousand tons a month by the end of the year.

This, however, was far short of the ten thousand tons required by the Chinese each month. A drastic reorganization ensued.

Staff reports analyzing early failures pointed to a variety of problems,

including shortages in aircraft and crews. Poor maintenance kept many

airplanes grounded. Operational missions dealt with foul weather, flight

at high altitudes, and spoiling forays by Japanese fighter airplanes. Moreover, Tenth Air Force commanders did not seem committed to an all-out

effort to sustain Hump operations. In October 1942, Arnold decided to put

the ATC in command of all Hump operations, and Tenth Air Force units

on Hump assignments were transferred to the ATC in December. The

ATC, with authority to handle all airlift requirements in the theater of op39
erations, brought its special experience to sort out the problems in air

transportation and cargo flying.

Heavily loaded transports began their runs to China after lifting off

from hot, muggy airfields in India’s eastern jungles, then struggled upward for altitude to clear the towering Himalayas. A direct route to Kunming, China, took four hours, at an average altitude of about sixteen thousand feet, and placed aircraft over areas within range of Japanese fighters.

The ATC crews characteristically flew a dogleg to the north to escape enemy airplanes, even though the path stretched fuel reserves to the limit and

required an operational altitude of twenty thousand feet to clear most of

the Himalayan peaks. Many fliers wound up threading their way through

available mountain passes at sixteen thousand feet, with snow-covered

ridges and pinnacles rising on either side of them. In addition to the

changeable weather high over the Himalayas, pilots flew across virtually

impenetrable jungles on both sides of the menacing mountain ranges.

Over the Indian jungles, in particular, fliers had to contend with monsoon rainstorms for six months of every year. Landing strips and runways

became muddy quagmires; fliers and ground personnel existed in a

swampy world of sodden bunks, clothes, and tents. The C–46 Commandos mounted a many-paned windscreen and, when airborne, pilots discovered that the monsoons forced water through myriad gaps around the

cockpit windows and left them as miserably soggy in the air as they were

on the ground. Sheets of driving rain and turbulence around airfields often kept operations shut down for days at a time. Early in the war, the

Japanese never expected Allied airlifts to work because of the mountains

and the tropical storms, but the pressure to deliver needed war matériel often meant flying in conditions that normally kept airplanes on the ground.

Veteran pilots explained the “CBI takeoff ” to newcomers—if you could

see the end of the runway through the rain and mist, then a takeoff was expected. At night, ATC crews sent a Jeep cruising ahead down the runway

to clear it of cows, nocturnal animals, and curious natives.

Operational efficiency began to improve with the allocation of more

airplanes and personnel, better weather forecasting, accumulated flight

experience, and additional airfields where more attention was paid to

drainage and weather resistance. The big push came in the wake of highlevel Allied conferences during the spring of 1943. These meetings established a timetable for major European offensives and also resulted in

agreements to accelerate the offensive against Japanese forces in Asia. A

major key to this last objective involved a more prominent role for the

ATC. President Roosevelt himself underscored a goal of ten thousand tons

a month for the airlift into China, where political considerations implied

heavier support of Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces.

With this factor in mind, military planners shifted workers and equipment from road construction to building airfields. By the spring of 1945,

a determined effort resulted in a total of thirteen primary bases for the

40
ATC in India and six in China. Although ATC transports carried some

equipment across the Hump to Chinese construction sites, the major factor on both sides of the Himalayas involved tens of thousands of local

workers. The labor force—men, women, and children—carried out grueling tasks almost entirely by hand. Ox carts delivered rocks; a host of

workers with crude picks reduced them to usable stone chips; hundreds

more scooped them barehanded into baskets of woven vines, then handcarried their burdens to the landing strip under construction. The stones

were compacted by primitive boulder-filled rollers pulled along by gangs

of straining laborers. News photographers recorded the throngs of workers—some one hundred thousand people—who swarmed back and forth

to complete a six thousand-foot runway near the Yangtze River in China.

Still, nobody could reduce the Himalayas in size; banish the monsoon

season; make the rough, rocky airstrips any smoother; bring down temperatures at sweltering Indian air bases; resolve the persistent shortages of

41

The window assembly on the C–46 had several panes—a configuration that

yielded excellent visibility but failed to keep out monsoon rains.

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personal supplies; or rectify the dozens of other major and minor complaints that affected morale. Despite such problems, ATC crews and personnel found ways to pursue specific goals and to gauge their achievements. As one observer said, they were “living like dogs and flying like

fiends” (Spencer, 1992). Pilots and ground crews competed against others

to see who could load the most cargo and complete the most missions.

These contests soon embraced entire units and expanded to include categories such as fewest accidents and highest number of flying hours to an

aircraft.

With gritty determination, the ATC pushed toward the goal of ten

thousand tons of cargo a month. The target was not reached until the end

of 1943, and came at the cost of many airplanes and aircrews. Many

fliers simply lacked the experience for night flying or for operating the

heavily loaded transports in hot weather and at high altitudes. Exhaustion

of the pilots remained a constant factor. During the last half of 1943,

some 150 major aircraft accidents resulted in more than 160 aircrew fatalities. Improved statistics for 1944 reflected rising operational experience, along with additional airplanes and pilots to enhance the frequency

of flights. Monthly cargo deliveries climbed to fifteen thousand tons by

the spring of 1944, and rose to more than thirty-four thousand tons by

year’s end.

Along the way, several administrative changes occurred. Brig. Gen.

William H. Tunner took over Hump operations during the summer of

1944. Aircrews had dramatically raised the tonnage and frequency of

flights, encouraged by Tunner’s predecessor, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hardin.

But there were still too many accidents, and morale remained dismally

low. Tunner’s prior success in running the huge and complex Ferrying Division of the ATC led the AAF to tap him as the man to improve delivery

rates even further.

Tunner insisted on appropriate military dress and appearance,

markedly improved meals and recreation opportunities for service members, instituted better weather forecasting, and streamlined maintenance

procedures. Though some may have groused about these changes and the

increased military protocol, Tunner had good reason for the new regulations. Shortly after arriving to take up his new duties in India, Tunner personally flew a C–46 over the Hump to China and back. During takeoff, he

saw numerous scorched areas beside the runway—grim reminders of too

many transports that had crashed and gone up in flames. His round-trip

over the Himalayas brought home the exigencies of flying in bad weather

and the vast, menacing threat to missions over such mountainous and broken terrain. His subsequent actions were all geared to reduce the accident

rate and raise morale. Tunner was not above creative demonstrations to

push his requests for additional resources back home, at one point making

sure that reporters watched an elephant used to load crates into an ATC

airplane in India.

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By the end of World War II, Tunner’s ATC Division had grown from

369 to 722 aircraft, and the number of personnel had swelled from twenty-six thousand to more than eighty-four thousand. Accelerated flight activity during the final offensives against Japanese forces in China meant

one ATC transport took off every three minutes. Early in 1945, the monthly cargo delivered to China reached forty-four thousand tons, and it

peaked at seventy-one thousand tons in July. Meanwhile, accident rates

dropped by more than 50 percent.

The record of ATC achievements in the CBI theater unquestionably

demonstrated the potential of major airlifts in modern warfare. Of all the

supplies delivered to China from 1942 through 1945, 81 percent came by

air over the Hump. Chinese forces tying up one million Japanese troops

meant that the Japanese Imperial Army had far fewer resources to oppose

the amphibious landings and other island campaigns mounted by America

and its allies in the fighting throughout the Pacific. Airlift thus emerged as

a significant new military consideration in future applications of air power.

OTHER FAR EAST MISSIONS

Operations involving airborne combat troops in the Pacific occurred

toward the end of the war and were not as large or as widely reported as

similar actions in the European theater. An exception included some of

the most colorful airborne troop units and officers who served in the CBI

theater.

Operation THURSDAY, which took place March 5–11, 1944, had the

goals of dislodging the Japanese from Burma and reopening a long section of the Ledo Road to make it possible to resupply China overland from

the Burmese town of Myitkyina. One British officer, Maj. Gen. Orde

Wingate, had already become legendary for mounting successful guerrilla

operations behind Japanese lines. An equally colorful American officer,

Col. Philip Cochran, commanded the First Air Commando Force,

equipped with 25 transports, 150 Waco CG–4A gliders, liaison aircraft,

and a number of fighters and medium bombers. Operation THURSDAY was

a three-pronged attack, with ground troops advancing on Myitkyina from

the north and west. South of the objective, the idea was to clear an operational base in the jungle behind enemy lines, use C–47 transports and

gliders to move in an Indian division, and supply them by air in the fight

against Japanese troops who would be forced to turn about to meet them.

“Broadway,” an open field with grass surrounded by jungle, became

the landing site for some 37 gliders that dropped in on March 6, 1944.

They successfully delivered more than five hundred troops, including

field engineers, and a pair of light bulldozers. By the following evening,

the advance party had secured the perimeter and graded a usable airstrip;

after sundown, more than 70 C–47 transports and additional gliders land43
ed under cover of darkness. Within a few days, about 120 transports were

landing each night, unloading cargo, and hastily flying out to make room

for the next incoming airplane. A smaller field was hacked out of the jungle not far away. By March 10, the pair of ragged airstrips had received

nine thousand personnel, five hundred thousand pounds of stores, light

field guns, antiaircraft units, and 1,283 mules along with 176 horses to

carry supplies and ammunition through dense jungles to the columns now

moving toward Myitkyina.

The advancing troops received additional supplies by airdrops from

C–47s and small liaison airplanes. The latter also flew into convenient

clearings to evacuate wounded soldiers. These rescue missions from

dense jungle spots also relied for the first time on a group of six Sikorsky

R–4 helicopters, which had been dispatched to the First Air Commando

Force as a military experiment.

General Wingate died when his B–25 flew into a hillside and exploded after takeoff from Broadway on a return flight to India. But the push

toward Myitkyina continued with Merrill’s Marauders as the first Allied

troops to reach its airstrip. Within hours, the First Commando’s gliders

made landings at Myitkyina with engineers and equipment to prepare the

strip for C–47s and other aircraft. By dusk, transports were making arrivals and departures, despite Japanese artillery shells hitting the airstrip

perimeter. In succeeding weeks the airlift provided a crucial flow of supplies, often under fire from enemy positions in the nearby jungle.

Operation THURSDAY became the most colorful airlift activity in the

Pacific-Asian arena, although several additional airborne operations occurred. During July 1944, parachute troops jumped on Numfoor Island off

the coast of New Guinea, only to find U.S. units from amphibious landings already in control of the airstrip marked as their objective. During the

December battle for Leyte in the Philippines, gun crews with a 75-mm artillery battery were dropped on a ridge to cover the advance of ground

units, but only one transport was assigned for this mission. Early in 1945,

the drive toward Manila on the island of Luzon included a drop of thirteen

hundred men who served largely as reinforcements for a rapidly moving

ground offensive.

Considerable interest focused on a subsequent parachute assault to

take the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay. “The Rock,” as veterans

called Corregidor, had long been the symbol of the U.S. military presence

in the Philippines, as well as the scene of a harrowing defense and defeat

during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941. The island measured only three and one-half miles long and one and one-half miles wide.

Given the tendency of airborne drops to scatter miles wide of the target,

plans to parachute onto Corregidor emphasized the narrow margin of error. The drop zone itself, a parade ground and golf course, was bordered

on one side by sheer cliffs dropping to the sea. The C–47s made their action runs in pairs, and the size of the drop zone required each airplane to

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make two or three passes, with six or eight troopers jumping on each pass.

Planners estimated a loss rate of 10 to 50 percent, but the target’s military

significance and symbolic value justified the effort. In February 1945, after the first one thousand men were dropped, with 25 percent casualties,

the paratroopers pinned down a number of enemy troops and provided

covering fire for amphibious assaults in their sector. The battle to secure

Corregidor took more weeks of vicious fighting. 

The final paratroop action in the Pacific campaign occurred on February 17, 1945, when a company of the 11th Airborne jumped into the

area around a large prison camp near Manila and helped liberate some

two thousand internees and military personnel who had survived harsh

captivity since the fall of the Philippines in 1942.

LEGACIES

Airborne operations resulted in some of the most dramatic missions

of the Second World War. Despite the difficulties of inserting large numbers of paratroops into a compact area and of tenuous logistics and supply,

airborne surprise attack continued to be employed throughout the conflict.

Although Allied airborne forces around Caen and Utah Beach in France

played a special role in the Normandy invasion, airborne attacks never

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Paratroopers delivered by C–46 Commandos float to the rolling Philippine

countryside in June 1945.

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seemed to be as decisive as mission planners had hoped. Nonetheless, airborne forces developed a formidable fighting reputation, not only in initial paratroop drops but also as part of the regular ground forces while

fighting continued.

Airborne assaults proved far more successful in the CBI theater,

where dense jungle and rugged terrain—plus command of the air—added

to the element of surprise for the attacking forces and blunted the defender’s ability to mount a counteroffensive. Additionally, the AAF supplied

many of the air transports that participated in combined operations with

British forces in Burma and on the Malay Peninsula. These aerial sorties

proved effective in maintaining ongoing British offensives even when

Japanese forces appeared to threaten them. But the Japanese, at the end of

a long, overland logistical tail, often faltered in the face of determined Allied airlift assets.

Statistically, the ATC emerged from the war a veritable powerhouse.

By August 1945, troop strength reached 209,201 military personnel, plus

104,667 civilians. The ATC fleet of thirty-seven hundred aircraft operated

an aerial network stretching 180,000 miles, reaching virtually everywhere

in the world. The ATC’s activities had changed intercontinental air travel

from a state of high-risk adventure to a matter of daily routine. At its peak

of operations, ATC aircraft crossed the Atlantic at an average rate of one

every thirteen minutes. In the process, the time required to cover distances

around the world shrank dramatically, from a matter of weeks to a few

days or, within a theater, to a few hours.

Before the war, American Airlines fielded one of the largest aviation

transport fleets in the United States, with about seventy-nine airplanes. In

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This C–47

Skytrain crew

carried 81-mm

mortar shells, oil,

gas, food, and

clothing to Luzon

in the Philippines.

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the postwar era the size of all airlines in the United States increased. The

experience of tracking the far-flung routes of the ATC and of building and

managing its complex infrastructure made postwar challenges seem far

less daunting. C. R. Smith’s air fleet numbered several hundred after the

war, with more elaborate commercial routes, more personnel, and more

four-engine airplanes. The airline benefited from Smith’s ATC experience, and other airlines realized similar benefits from their wartime service. The smoothly running operations of airline routes in the United

States and around the globe represented a significant legacy in terms of

well-trained managers and the many TCC and ATC fliers and navigators

who piloted civil transports on routes they had helped develop during

wartime. Highly trained mechanics, meteorologists, electronics specialists, and other personnel also found employment with the airlines. And the

many wartime airfields scraped out around the rims of the Atlantic and

Pacific Oceans could and would be used by postwar civil transports—yet

another benefit of airlift technology as it evolved during World War II.

Wartime operations certainly demonstrated the value of airlift assets.

Civil airliner designs continued to equip many squadrons during the early

postwar years, but it had become clear that the AAF needed specific kinds

of aircraft designed expressly to fulfill military airlift missions. Even before the end of World War II, aeronautical firms began addressing these

requirements with twin-engine and four-engine transports. Fairchild’s proposal for the C–82 Packet marked a new era of dedicated military trans47

The Fairchild XC–82’s clamshell rear door made loading heavy cargo easy

and parachute drops faster and safer.

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ports. Based on wartime reports, the Fairchild design tried to maximize

ease of loading and unloading both troops and bulky cargo and to facilitate the efficient delivery of paratroopers into the battlefield. To these

ends, Fairchild engineers laid out a twin-engine airplane with a central

fuselage nacelle to carry crew, cargo, and personnel. Shoulder-mounted

wings and engines provided low ground clearance for easy loading, with

twin tail booms stretching back to the tail assembly. This layout permitted

oversized, clamshell doors at the rear of the fuselage nacelle, facilitating

the loading of heavy equipment such as field guns, light tanks, and trucks

up to a weight of 11,500 pounds. As a troop carrier, the C–82 handled

forty-two equipped paratroopers, and had a range of nearly four thousand

miles with a top speed of 250 mph. The clamshell doors at the rear of the

fuselage also permitted faster, safer parachute drops. The C–82 made its

first flight in the autumn of 1944, but delivery of production models did

not occur until September 1945, after the war’s end. Nonetheless, the Packet and its more famous successor, the C–119 Flying Boxcar (or DollarNineteen), introduced in 1947, eventually set new standards for airlift operations.

A new generation of four-engine transports was planned for intercontinental airlift. The first of these—the Douglas C–74 Globemaster—aggressively advertised its intended role through its name. Work on the

Globemaster began early in the war, especially in anticipation of airlift requirements to come during the Pacific campaign. The design promised

impressive performance for its day, cruising at around 300 mph and capable of missions spanning seventy-eight hundred miles. Military specifica48

Fairchild C–82s drop parachuted howitzers for use by ground forces.

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tions called for the airplane to carry 125 combat-equipped soldiers or 115

stretchers for medical service. The C–74 was required to carry sixty thousand pounds of cargo and featured a self-contained loading system that

used an electric elevator built into the center of the airplane’s cargo deck.

The Douglas transport also housed a compartment for a galley, chef, and a

relief crew for duty on longer flights. The prototype first flew several days

after the end of World War II and the cancellation of wartime contracts resulted in a production run of only 14 aircraft. Nonetheless, the airplane’s

size and impressive capability, plus strategic needs of the Cold War era,

led to the Douglas C–124 Globemaster II. The new transport used the

wing design, tail unit, and engine installations of its predecessor, and a

production run of 448 airplanes led to several improved models capable of

hauling seventy-four thousand pounds of cargo. With radar and clamshell

doors in the nose, C–124 transports introduced a new era in versatility and

productivity.

Wartime experience and modern equipment supported many significant airlift operations in the postwar years. The Berlin Airlift of 1948–49

involved both military and civil aircraft. “Limited conflicts,” such as those

that took place in Korea (1950–53) and Vietnam (1964–74), relied heavily

on intercontinental and in-theater airlifts. Moreover, civil aviation supported national security requirements during World War II, contributing aircraft and personnel. Efforts to formalize this arrangement lagged until

1952, when the Civil Reserve Aircraft Fleet (CRAF) became a legal entity.

The program committed funds of several million dollars over the intervening years to ensure that reinforced floors and cargo decks were built into a

specified number of commercial aircraft that would be on call for the Air

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The Douglas C–124 Globemaster II missed World War II but served

strategic postwar needs.

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Force. During the Gulf War of 1990–91, some 150 CRAF aircraft served

military operations, delivering as much as 25 percent of the air cargo and

60 percent of personnel arriving by air.

As a national security asset, military airlift in the postwar era continued to demonstrate the values it pioneered during World War II.

SUGGESTED READING

Barry, Gregory, and John Batchelor. Airborne Warfare, 1918–1945. New

York: Exeter Books, 1979.

Cave, Hugh B. Wings Across the World: The Story of the Air Transport

Command. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1945.

Conley, Manuel. “Whispering Wings.” Aviation Quarterly VII (1984):

264–80.

Craven, Wesley Frank, and James Lea Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in

World War II. Vol. I, Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to

August 1942. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948. New

imprint by the Office of Air Force History, 1983.

———. The Army Air Forces in World War II. Vol. VII, Services Around

the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. New imprint by the Office of Air Force History, 1983.

Dmitri, Ivan. Flight to Everywhere. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1944.

Gavin, James M. Airborne Warfare. Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal

Press, 1947.

Hickey, Michael. Out of the Sky: A History of Airborne Warfare. New

York: Scribner’s, 1979.

La Farge, Oliver. The Eagle in the Egg. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949.

McAuliffe, Kathleen. “Crossing the Lines in Silent Wings.” Smithsonian

Magazine 25 (June 1994): 118–33.

McDonald, Charles. Airborne. New York: Ballantine, 1970.

Military Airlift Command History Office. Anything, Anywhere, Anytime:

An Illustrated History of the Military Airlift Command,

1941–1991. Scott AFB, Ill.: HQ MAC, 1991.

Mrazek, James, E. Fighting Gliders of World War II. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977.

Munson, Kenneth. Helicopters and Other Rotorcraft Since 1907. New

York: Macmillan, 1968.

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Pearcy, Arthur. DE–3. New York: Ballantine, 1975.

Sears, Stephen. “Hell’s Highway to Arnhem,” in Stephen Sears, ed., World

War II: The Best of American Heritage. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Serling, Robert J. Eagle: The History of American Airlines. New York: St.

Martin’s Press, 1985.

Spencer, Otha C. Flying the Hump: Memories of an Air War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992.

Tunner, William H. Over the Hump. New York: Duell, 1964.

U.S. Secretary of War. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Air

Operations in China, Burma, India, WWII. Washington, D.C.:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947.

Young, Warren R. The Helicopters. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books,

1982.

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