‘Dehydrated Americans’
Thank goodness for the good old Dakota
I spent several hours recently filming a series on aircraft for the Smithsonian Channel edited by the airpower historian Dr Victoria Taylor (aka @SpitfireFilly on Twitter). The series (Number 11, I think) should be out in mid-2023. My subject was the C47, though those who know me well wouldn’t be surprised that I managed to sneak some stuff in too about the Mosquito. I am grateful to Victoria for the opportunity to appear on her programme.
I have long argued that without the C47 (known as the Dakota in British service) the war in the Far East could not have been won. The evidence for this assertion is unequivocal, not merely because of the vast numbers of aircraft involved but because of the strategic choices this aircraft in particular gave commanders. The C47 enabled the USA to create an aerial road from India to China, the famous Hump airlift. It enabled Slim to reinforce Imphal and Kohima at a critical juncture in the fight for India in 1944, and in 1945 it allowed Slim the flexibility to undertake some operational manoeuvre in his defeat of General Kimura at Mandalay. Everything about the C47 in Burma is superlative. The volumes entailed in the Hump airlift alone are crazy: over a period of about 900-days a fleet of over 600 C47s and C46s carried 650,000 tons of supplies between 1942 and 1945. With a C47 able to carry 2.5 tons, this equated to about 243 sorties every day for the entire period. It was one of the largest logistical efforts undertaken in human history, undoubtedly kept China in the war and served as a helpful test bed for the much larger Berlin Airlift which was to come a few years later. Likewise, during the advance into Burma in 1945 about 90% of IV Corps’ combat supplies (including fuel for Frank Messervy’s Sherman tanks) was delivered by air. I have written about this in my various books, including Japan’s Last Bid for Victory and A War of Empires.
Those who have flown over this part of the world will understand the challenges it offers. In the monsoon months (May through to October) the greatest difficulty is the ubiquitous cumulus clouds which spiral heavenwards. Aircraft caught up in these accumulations, which can rise from two to forty thousand feet were often violently thrown around, and sometimes destroyed, and tales were told of C47 pilots exiting particularly turbulent cloud formations to find themselves flying upside down, with others entering at one altitude to come out facing an entirely different direction and at an entirely different height. Warrant Officer Eric Forsdike of 117 Squadron RAF flew Dakota transport aircraft into both the Imphal Plain and Burma (to support the Chindits):
We always wore our parachute harness with the chute close to hand. In addition to our uniform we wore the one-piece survival suit, the numerous pockets of which contained many survival packs including pills for many purposes, such as anti-dysentery, anti-malaria and water cleansing. Also silk maps of Burma, a compass and in a body belt one hundred Burmese silver rupees. And of course we had our Smith and Wesson .38 revolver and ammunition. Also a very useful addition if we came down in the jungle was a Gurkha kukri, which is a curved sword some 12 inches long for hacking a way through the undergrowth.
The most vivid memories were the atrocious flying conditions caused by the monsoon thunder clouds sometimes enveloping the mountain tips and going up to nearly 60,000 feet. If we could not find a way between these cumuli-nimbus clouds, developing into huge mushroom shapes, we reduced speed, sunglasses on to reduce the glare of the lightning flashes which were almost continuous, and hoped for the best. It said a lot for the design and strength of the aircraft that others and I survived, but unhappily our squadron losses were considerable: the squadron lost 143 aircrew flying operations in India and Burma. Our crew was obviously a lucky one. Although the aircraft was hit a number of times, mainly from ground fire, the damage was not serious. We were also struck by lightning twice knocking out radio equipment and aerials.
I have long felt that the best way to describe the effect of the C47 on operations during the Burma Campaign is to tell it from the perspective of the men on the ground. For the troops fighting the land battle, the C47 became the difference between life and death, and success or defeat in battle. With Slim’s new box tactics in place in February 1944, the ‘Battle of the Admin Box’ at Sinzweya enabled the Commonwealth forces to turn the tide of battle. The Japanese had surrounded these positions by 11 February 1944. Air supply began immediately. During the twenty-one days of the main action over 1,600 tons of supplies (the equivalent of 640 C47 sorties) were dropped from RAF and USAAF aircraft flying round the clock from air fields in Bengal and Assam. Everything required by the troops from clothing, fuel, medical supplies, mail, rations, ammunition, rum (and even a beer ration for the wounded), fell out of the sky often from a height of only two hundred feet, either free falling or coming down under locally-made parachutes cheaply constructed from jute. Enough barbed wire was eventually dropped to wrap at least one strand around most of the British defensive positions. At midnight on 13th February Major Michael Lowry, the Officer Commanding B Company, 1st Queens, watched a large airdrop develop over the division, nervously observing the vast quantities of red Japanese tracer ammunition arcing up behind the shadows of the aircraft above. They had been eating dehydrated potatoes, sourced from the USA, for some days. One of his soldiers, Private Wiseman, who had received three sword wounds across his left arm in the skirmish six weeks before, leant over from his slit trench to observe in a stage whisper: ‘Sir, ‘ere come our reinforcements: they’re dehydrated Americans!’
Only one aircraft was lost during the entire operation, flown by Flight Lieutenant Walker, flying through a hail of ground fire to make a drop when his aircraft was brought down. Many had lucky escapes. Captain Anthony Irwin of V Force watched six silvery Zeros come in to bomb and strafe the Admin Box about four days into the siege. In the middle of the attack he was sitting with Brigadier Tom Hely (the Commander Royal Artillery for 7 Indian Division) watching the Japanese attack unfold when to his horror ‘six old D.C.s, huge, ungainly troop carriers, came into view. They had been dropping supplies on to one of the forward Brigades and were now going home.’ Both men stared transfixed at the slaughter about to unfold:
We prayed and forgot all about our own danger, for ours was remote and this before us was all too obvious. But someone must have been looking after those chaps that day, for the Jap did not see them until all but one had disappeared. Then suddenly one of the 01s spotted number six going over, and he turned from us and flew up to attack... He climbed up above him and then turned and dived, pulling up in a right hand climbing turn, so that he came under the D.C.’s tail. This was the end, when suddenly, just as the Jap was in position for the kill, a Bofors opened up and hit him smack in the belly and he went down in a sheet of flame, and the old D.C stooged off over the Range, apparently quite oblivious of the nearness of its destruction. We were all too flabbergasted even to raise a cheer.
The crews in the lumbering Dakotas were not always oblivious to the danger. Sergeant Williams was a Radio Operator in 194 Squadron, nicknamed ‘The Friendly Firm’. On a supply mission over Arakan one night from Agartala in Assam his aircraft was hit, and an engine knocked out. Once over the DZ, there was no answering reply to the light signal from the ground:
We saw tracer coming up, so the Japs had got the DZ and we aborted the drop. The next sortie was in daylight, and we located the DZ, but as our aircraft flew over Jap positions near it, it came under fire and was hit in the port engine. The pilot closed it down to avoid a fire, meanwhile the navigator and second wireless operator were busy despatching loads.
I noticed black smoke streaming past the door, and rushed up to tell the pilot. He told me to alert the crew to take up position for a crash landing. By now we were down to about 300 feet above the ground, and had lots of supplies still on board. The pilot was having trouble maintaining even that height, [so] we threw out the supplies as fast as we could. Slowly the pilot gained height, and the navigator gave him the course for home. We managed to get over the Chin Hills, and eventually made a good landing back at base.
Thank goodness for the good old Dakota!
Interestingly one of the three Australians buried at Kohima died flying a Dakota. The other two in Lockheed Hudsons.
My long-odds pick for the World Cup ;)
Nicely put.