"The Hump Airline" in the Second World War was an all-weather
airline cut in 1943 to 1945 by the US Air Forces and the "Flying
Tigers" to help China out of the blockade of Japanese troops, which
linked Kunming, Yunnan Province in China and Assam in northeastern
India, over the eastern ranges of the Himalayas, the most imposing
mountains in the world. The pilots and other crewmembers nicknamed
the line "the Hump", as the shape of the air route looked like a
hump.
"The Hump" was perhaps the most dangerous airline ever through
the aviation history. It opened up a 500-mile air-range through one
of the most perilous regions in the world, where turbulences and
mountaintops posed great risks to the pilots, not to mention that
they had watch out for the interceptions of Japanese planes and
unexpected bad weather (both were common over there at that time).
With the effect of turbulences, flying over "the Hump" was like
jolting on the back of a camel, and the nickname of the airline
attributed to this unusual phenomenon, too.
With the sacrifice of the lives of 1,579 American pilots and
other crewmembers, and loss of 468 aircrafts, "the Hump" took up
81% of the transportation of strategic supplies in those three
years, and helped China to gain the final victory that eventually
supported the international anti-fascist war.
Sixty-one years have passed, but memories of "the Hump" will
never fade. Recently, an airport still under construction in
Tengchong, Yunnan Province, an important base of "the Hump", was
named after it to commemorate the legendary.
"The Hump Airport" will be completed and put to use in 2008.
With the handling capacity of 480 thousand passengers, it will
surely bring a prime era to local tourism, which is famous for
various natural landscapes, including nature reserves and hot
springs.
?
(Chinanews.cn September 27, 2006 )
