The China-Burma-India theatre of World War II was a critical but often overlooked part of that war. It was crucial to the defeat of Japanese land forces in Asia, but it also exposed the weakness of China’s nationalist regime.
The Allies, particularly the United States, wanted China to be a major pro-Western power. This goal failed with communism’s post-war conquests in China and Indochina. Once-rich Burma degenerated into a post-colonial regime known as Myanmar. Border disputes continue in northeastern India.
The region is one of the world’s harshest and most inaccessible, comprising Himalayan mountain ranges, deep river valleys and impenetrable jungle.
From 1942-45, it was the supply line from India and northern Burma for Allied support of Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces, cut off from the coastal ports by the invading Japanese.
The Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 occurred simultaneously with the seizure of British colonies in Southeast Asia, including Burma and its then-capital, Rangoon.
Writer and film-maker Caroline Alexander has written about heroic deeds in past times and remote places, including the ancient world, the Antarctic, Pacific and Xanadu. Her attraction to this inhospitable territory arose from an interest in military subjects such as shell shock and blast-induced brain injury.
The aviators in her dense and exciting Skies of Thunder had to contend with what the author describes as the worst conditions for flying. No navigational aids existed in an area the size of western Europe. Unpressurised Douglas C47s, the freight version of the Dakota DC-3 passenger plane, flew at 12-15,000 feet, well below the height of surrounding mountains.
The journey from makeshift air strips in the tea-growing hills of Assam across the “Hump” of the Himalayan foothills to Kunming in western China was fraught with danger. The planes were capable of one return trip a day, carrying a maximum of two tonnes.
Man-made threats included saboteurs adding sugar to fuel tanks and day labourers who ran in front of departing aircraft hoping the propellers would destroy bad-luck dragons. Sadly, it was often the labourers who were cut to pieces.
The scale foreshadowed the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. A total of 777,000 tonnes were flown during the four-year mission as work gangs toiled on road connections in horrendous conditions. Some 600 planes were lost and casualties reached 4000.
Military bosses in Washington questioned whether the human and material costs were worth it. “There was a sinking feeling that the epic exertions over the Hump had been wasted,” Alexander states.
The extraordinary physical challenges were matched by a dozen powerful personalities who entered and exited the stage in clashes over tactics and strategy. Chiang was detested for his equivocation towards the Allied war effort and constant demands. The British, led by Lord Mountbatten and Major General Orde Charles Wingate, were at odds with the American generals Joseph Stilwell and Claire Lee Chennault. Meanwhile, media coverage turned commando unit Merrill’s Marauders, the British guerilla Chindits and the notorious Flying Tigers into wartime legends.
Alexander’s account includes the major land battles, which finally forced the Japanese to retreat. She provides the much bigger context of the campaign, with research based on interviews, extensive travelling around locations and secondary sources, particularly the diaries and memoirs of those involved.
Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World, by Caroline Alexander (Ithaka Press, $36.99), is out now.
