GREAT INCREASE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1944, Page 3

GREAT INCREASE

IN SUPPLIES TRANSPORTED » TO CHINA. ACHIEVEMENTS OF AMERICAN AIRMEN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) LONDON. January 5. More military supplies are now reaching China by air from India over the Himalayas than formerly went along the Burmg Road. Reuter’s New Delhi correspondent says that this was officially revealed when secrecy was removed regarding the 20-months’ old India-China wing of the Air Transport Command which is part of the United States Army Air Force. The movement of munitions along China's aerial lifeline has shown a phenomenal upsurge during 1943. The tonnage transported in December, 1943, was ten times that of December, 1942. American pilots are flying day and night. Many with only a minimum of preliminary training, take up huge heavily-laden and completely unarmed two or four-engined planes to 17,000 feet and over the “hump,” as they call the route over the Himalayas, along the skyline boulevard to China. They fly unescorted within easy distance of Japanese fighters—the most dangerous stretch of air line in the world.