HEADQUARTERS TENTH AIR FORCE

PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE

U. S. ARMY

APO 216

HQ., TENTH AIR FORCE IN CHINA - Veteran of the India Burma campaign against the Japs, the United =States Tenth Army Air Force is now operating against the Japs in China.

With a three and one half year record of unceasingly pounding the Japs in Burma, the Tenth U. S. Army Air Force, played a major role in driving the enemy from his former stronghold. Under the guiding hand of Texas-born Major General Howard C. Davidson, the Tenth in 42 months, grew from a small defensive organization to a potent striking arm capable of dealing powerful air blows at the Japs.

Organized on February 12, 1942, at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, the Tenth started to hit the Japs three months later with its headquarters then at New Delhi, India. As the crescendo of operations increased with the passing months, the Tenth moved in rapid succession from luxurious Delhi to Calcutta to Assam and thence into the rainy, steaming jungles of Burma. Accompanying these moves was the constant stepping up of offensive strikes at the enemy throughout Burma.

In more than three and one half years of continuous operation against the Nipponese, the planes and crews of Davidson’s Tenth have flown more than 100,000 tactical sorties as well as many thousands of missions with Troop Carrier and Combat Cargo C-47’s and the liaison “jeep” planes. Ever increasing in power and aggressiveness, the Tenth, in the las ten months of 1944, dropped more than one and a half more bomb tonnage and flew more than twice as many tactical sorties as they did in the first 26 months of attacks on the enemy. The first seven months of 1945 saw this figure increase as the 10th continue to press home the attack.

The primary objective of the Allied forces in northern Burma was to open the land route to China. Toward this end the Tenth Air Force contributed heavily. Its fighter planes blasted Nip defenses all along the road from Assam to the China border, its bombers hit strategic lines of communications, supply and troop concentrations and important strong-points, and its transports carried into Burma the necessities of total war, always insuring forward troops of a completely adequate supply stock

Its engineers carved airfields out of the jungle to insure further air cover, its air warning system has protected the troops fighting their way to the opening of the road to China and its liaison plans successfully overcame some of the roughest flying conditions in the world to evacuate wounded, serve as artillery spotters, courier important personages from one point to another, and, in general, to serve the fires in any way possible.

In aerial combat, over the entire three and one half year period, the Tenth has knocked out three Jap planes for every one AAF aircraft lost since the since the first meeting of the foe. This does not include the many Jap fighters and bombers destroyed on the ground by the Tenth’s aircraft. As Jap air strength continued to dwindle, less and less opposition was sent aloft so that the opportunities for knocking the enemy out of the air correspondingly lessened. The ration destroyed in the air and on the ground zoomed to 6 to 1 by the time the Burma campaign ended for the Tenth.

Originally composed of men from numerous battlefields through the world, the Tenth has been, in order, commanded by Maj. Gen Lewis H. Brereton, Maj. Gen. Clayton S. Bissel, and General Davidson. General Brereton commanded the air force through its early days of organization, days which saw former AVG pilots, plus crews which manned Lt. Gen. James H. (Jimmy) Doolittle’s Tokyo-raiders, and crews from the desperate days of the Philippines and Java joining the infant Tenth. Leaving the Tenth to organize the Ninth Air Force, General Brereton was succeeded by General Bissel under whose leadership the Tenth Air Force inaugurate the world-famed “hump” run into China. Planes of the Tenth and of the China National Airways Corporation pave the way for the route which was turned over to the ATC at a later date. For many months the Tenth, together with the 14th Air Force, furnished fighter protection to the transports flying the mountainous route into China. This was continued until the throat of Jap air attacks we reduced to a minimum.

Returning to Washington to fill an important post, Gen Bissel was succeeded in August 1943, by the then Brig. Gen. Howard C. Davidson who was soon after elevated to Major General. Gen. Davidson had been in command at Wheeler Field, Hawaii, when the December 7th attack by the Japs was made and, since that “day of infamy”, has been constantly leading air assaults against the Japs.

A West Pointer, class of 1913, he became a pilot in 1916, one of the first 30 in the army. He served in France during World War 1 and later became Chief of Training and operations of the AAF. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he stayed on to aid in the planning of the USAAF’s role in the Battle of Midway.

Operations of the Tenth during most of 1943 and the early part of 1944 are best described in part by the “Official Guide to the Army Air Forces”, published untie guidance of General Henry H. Arnold, Commanding General of the AAF. The guide relates:

“Targets of the Tenth have included dock and shipping facilities at Rangoon, Moulmein, and Akyab, storage facilities at Lashio and Henzada, rail junctions at Rangoon, Mandalay, and Sagaing. It has attacked nearly 150 enemy targets, has prevented the enemy’s use of rail facilities in Burma, and has sunk and appreciable amount of shipping.”

It was in March 1944 that the big part of the Tenth Air Force’s offensive began to be felt by the Jap in Burma. Then the Nip air force was capable of sporadic terror raids on Calcutta, huge warehouse for Allied forces in India, Burma and China; it was capable of attacking vital American and British installations in the Araken, in Assam, and in India proper, it was capable of throwing up comparatively strong defenses against aAllied air thrusts; in short it was a strong arm in the Jap was machine in Burma.

Then in March the Allied forces under Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, began the long, arduous task of retaking Burma. At that time headquarters of Davidson’s Tenth were in Calcutta while his fighting units were scattered the length of India’s long easter frontier. There was the 80th Fighter Group, famed as the “Burma Banshees”; the renown 7th Bombardment Group, just transferring from B-17’s to the then newer B-24’s; a handful of C-47’s to be used for routine hops from one end of the long supply line to the other, a P-51 fighter group scattered along the front, and the 459th Fighter Squadron flying the deadly P-33 Lightning.

As the Stilwell drive in the North began to gather momentum, the need for heavy artillery became more and more apparent. However, the jungle and mountains ruled out the use of heavier field pieces, so, with high hopes, Gen. Davidson dispatched the 80th Group to be used as the “flying artillery”.

The following months for him out in his choice as the “Banshees” developed dive-bombing techniques to a perfection probably unequalled in air force circles. The 80th, then flying P-40’s, coordinated its attacks with Stilwell’s advances down the old Ledo Road into the Hukwang Valley then east to Myitkyina where it played an outstanding role in the reduction of the Nip garrison at “Mitch”. Here dive-bombing techniques reached hit highest pitch. Captain Owen R. Allred, of Cedar City, Iowa, became the leading exponent of close, pin point dive-bombing in the Tenth.

On a mission one day to eliminate a stubborn Jap defensive position, Allred dropped bombs within 50 yards of the advancing Allied troops, eliminating the Jap pocket, and did not hit Allied soldiers. This and other similar feats game way to the famed “Ding How Allred” slogan which the Chinese troops in the Myitkyina sector would use whenever the P-40’s would roar overhead. Here, too, were flown what were possibly the shortest missions of the war. Six minute flights were not uncommon and one pilot flew two offensive bombing sorties within 20 minutes.

At the time the Myitkyina campaign was at its peak, far to the South the Tenth’s 459th Fighter Squadron under the command of colorful Verl Dean Louhring, of Leavenworth, Kansas, was, with increasing regularity, helping to eliminate the Japanese Air Force in Burma. A series of long range airfield sweeps which often caught the Nips with their pants down gradually sealed the doom of the JAF. Hammering big Nip bases at Anisakan, near Mandalay; Shwebo, northwest of the big river port; Heho, located deep in Central Burma; and Mingaladon, near Rangoon, the 459th, known as the “Twin Dragons”, destroyed, in 70 days, 119 Jap aircraft, for which they received the Unit Citation from theater Commander Lt. Gen. Dan I. Sultan.

The latest figures show Nip planes destroyed in the air numbered 75, 69 were destroyed on the ground plus 24 probables and 71 damaged. Leading “aces” of this unit were Captain Walter F. =Duke, Leonardtown, Md., missing in action, and Major Hampton E. Boggs, Oklahoma City, Okla.

As the tactical air war in Burma continued though the summer of 1944 strategic air strikes were made against the enemy lines of communications in Burma. B-24’s of the 7th Group, B-25’s of the 12th Bomb Group, the latter transferred to the Tenth from the Italian theater, and B-25’s of the 490th squadron, famed as the “Burma Bridgbusters”, delivered the heavy blows. Road and rail bridges, docks, marshaling yards, pinpoint supply dumps, and troop concentrations, all vital to the Nip war machine, were methodically blasted.

By June of 1944 the war in north Burma had reached such a peak that General Davidson moved his headquarters to Assam, at the time less than an hour’s flying time from Jap fighter bases. Now came a new phase in the Burma air war.

As the Allied columns penetrated deeper into the wilds of north Burma, supply by ground became increasingly difficult. The Tenth soon found a solution to the problem in the famous “Biscuit-bombers”, the C-47’s of the Troop Carrier and Combat Cargo Groups. These big, twin-engined Douglas transports, world known as the pets of the commercial air lines, became pin-point supply droppers. Flying singly or in formation, most of the time at tree-top level, these planes and crew developed the supply drop to perfection.

Not only did they supply the from line troops with food and clothing, arms, and ammunition, but they also carried forward aviation engineers with the tools and personnel necessary to carve out of the jungle more bases from which the transports and fighters of Gen. Davidson’s command could operate. When the strip at Myitkyina fell into Allied hands these C-47’s flew in a steady stream along an aerial highway int the city from the big supply bases in Assam. The planes landed and took off, often under aerial attack, with ever increasing regularity until, at the peak point of operations, the little dirt strip was handling more traffic per day than some of the biggest airports in the United States.

Shortly after the fall of Myitkyina, General Davidson again moved his headquarters, establishing them along the rubble of Myitkyina’s environs. From here he threw his fighters, for the most part now the high speed P-47’s at the harassed Jap. The Thunderbolts chased the Nips down the Irrawaddy Valley to Bhamo, where the fighters coordinated their attacks with the Chinese to drive the enemy out of the city.

From Bhamo the Chinese and American troops began to drive east and south towards the Burma Road and its terminus of Lashio. At the same time the British 26th Division under Maj. Gen. Francis W. Festing, started its push through the difficult terrain of Central Burma toward an eventual linkup with the 14th British Army pushing southeast from embattled Imphal.

In twin spearheads the Tenth led the advance of the Chinese and Americans in the East and of the British in the West. Nahmkan, Hsenwi, Lasio and Hsipaw were all targets of the Air Force as the Allies pushed relentlessly towards the opening of the land route to China. In the West the British advanced south from Katha toward Mogok and Mongmit. All the while the hard flying P-47’s, augmented by the speedy P-38’s of other Tenth Air Force Fighter units, attacked Jap positions. So effective were line of communication strikes that the enemy was forced to abandon vital equipment due to a huge bridge less trap created by the Tenth. At Lashio, with its formidable defenses, the Japs were unable to make any kind of stand due to lack of equipment, and the Chinese walked into the city virtually unopposed.

The culmination of the Allied campaign in north Burma was realized at the little border town of Mase on January 28th. Here leaders of the ground and air forces of the United States, China and Britain gathered to pay tribute to the gallant work done by the integrated Allied forces. Pushing eastward from India had been the Chinese Expeditionary Forces, the Mars Task force, under General Sultan’s Northern Combat Area Command, and the Tenth Air Force. From China pushing westward had been the Chinese National Army with whose drive the 14th Air Force had coordinated numerous strikes.

The job of the Tenth Air Force has been one studded with difficulties. Not only did the Japs offer stubborn, and oft-times fanatical, resistance but eh treacherous Burma terrain and weather also had to be considered. Toward this end numerous small organizations were used to combat the forces of nature. Isolated hills became strong American points as weather observation and Signal Corps air warning posts were established.

Air jungle rescue units of the Tenth further contributed to the successful war against nature. Planes of Air-Jungle Rescue flew deep into the interior of Burma to bring back, not only downed Allied airmen, but also to rescue injured or sick members of the scattered hill outposts.

Anti-aircraft units were constantly in forward areas ready to repulse the Japs in the event of air attacks. Often ack-ack batteries served as infantry-type troops to fight infiltrating Japs. At Meiktila, in Central Burma, Tenth Air Force ack-ack held strongpoints in a defense box for 22 days.

In summing up the activities of the Tenth Air Force throughout the successful campaign in Burma it is revealed that, from the beginning from the march back into Burma in early 1944 until the present, air based of the Tenth have moved more than 350 miles from northeast India to points deep in the heart of Burma.

Fighters still blast Nip defense posts, bombers still hit battered enemy lines of communication, transports still fly-in the big proportion of supplies to the forward areas; in short, there remains a war in Burma but it is being rapidly drawn to a successful conclusion and, as it has done throughout the entire three and one half year campaign, the 10th Air Force continues to contribute heavily to the success of the fighting.

History: Headquarters Tenth Air Force

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