This route starts from Indian Tingjiang Airport in the west, passes through the southern foothills of Himalayas, Gaoligong Mountain, Hengduan Mountain and other mountain systems, passes through Lushui County, Nujiang, Yunnan Yi, and reaches Kunming and Chongqing in China in the east. The rolling mountains in the middle look like humps at first glance, hence the name "Hump Route".
The predecessor of the Hump Flight Brigade is the Flying Tigers led by General Chennault, that is, the 10 Aviation Brigade. These planes are all commercial airliners leased from China Airlines (note: China Airlines, CNAC, China Airlines Group, not China International Airlines).
China Airlines' aircraft are modified from Douglas DC-2, C-47, Douglas DC-3 and C-53. In order to strengthen the loading capacity of armament materials, this transport plane does not have any combat function, and its highest flying height is less than 8000 meters.
However, due to the limitation of the performance of the piston propeller of the conveyor, the conveyor has to pass through a narrow valley. On the route from Tingjiang to Yunnan, the flight altitude is mostly concentrated in 4500 meters to 6000 meters. The mountains near Chayu, Tibet at an altitude of 5,887 meters, Yulong Snow Mountain near Lijiang at an altitude of 5,596 meters, and Meili Snow Mountain in Deqin County at an altitude of 6,740 meters are all natural barriers that pilots must avoid flying over.
In addition, flying on the hump route will cause planes to crash everywhere. More than 600 planes have crashed since the hump route was opened three years ago. Among the more than 1500 people who died in the battle, there are dozens of ways of sacrifice.
In thunderstorm weather, hovering and falling in lightning and thunder.
Fly too low, hit the towering snow-capped mountains and fell.
Mixed with strong turbulence, the flight navigation function failed and fell.
Unfortunately, when I met a Japanese enemy plane, I couldn't stand it and fell.
Even if the falling plane makes a soft landing, it will cause the fuel tank to explode, and it is difficult for the crew to survive. The plane that crashed on the hump route did not connect into a line, but it formed a tragic navigation mark.
When the weather is clear, the pilot on the hump route can identify and interpret the flight path by the reflection of the aluminum wreckage of the plane that crashed on the ground. Therefore, hump pilots privately gave this route a playful but tragic name, aluminum trail.
Every pilot on the hump route knows his fate and will eventually fall down. The question is when and where.
On March 1943, 1 1, jim fox, the captain of China Airlines No.53 transport plane, Tan Xuan, the co-pilot and Wang Guoliang, the operator, entered the cabin as usual. The plane was loaded with tin ingots, wolframite and bristles. The other three planes flew from Kunming to Tingjiang Airport in Assam, India.
Fate is not always predictable in advance. Sometimes the more paradoxical and impermanent, the more ordinary it looks. According to experience, as long as the flying height is kept at 3200 meters-under thick clouds, as long as you dodge flexibly in the valley, you can pass safely.
After the plane left Kunming, it also flew over Yunnan Post. When flying over the snowy mountain pass near Pianma, the flight team encountered a strong low-altitude airflow in the northwest, and the plane was swept to the ridge of the snowy mountain pass by the airflow with a speed of 97 kilometers per hour.
Fox tried his best to slow down the plane, but this airflow still wrapped the plane 53 and flew to the depths of the Jade Gaoligong Mountain Range.
Save Private Fox.
"jim fox is not dead, he is in FoxPass!"
Because the plane 53 piloted by Fox crashed here, the hump pilot named this mountain pass "Fox Mountain Pass". Half a century later, Fletcher Hanks, a veteran of Hump Route, still believes that his comrades are still alive.
20 18 10 After I came back from Pianma Town, I went to Kunming and visited Mr. Geshua, an expert in the history of World War II. Goshua said that jim fox was only 24 years old when he crashed. He has been flying on the hump route for two years. As for the information of co-pilots Wang Guoliang and Tan Xuan, we know nothing.
Fox's plane 53 did not disappear completely after it crashed in Xueyukou. It, lying quietly in the Gaoligong jungle on the border between China and Myanmar, like an iron bird, quietly perched in the treetops. Every hump pilot flying close to the ground can see this silver iron bird with broken wings with the naked eye.
1996, 53 years after the plane disappeared, I have been trying to find Goshua who crashed and scattered on the hump route, and suddenly I received a letter from Fletcher Hanks, a hump veteran.
In the letter, Hanks attached the plane crash report issued by the US military that year:
1943 March 1 1 C-53 Aircraft
Base 53: Tingjiang
Death toll: 3.
Crew: Captain J.R. Fox
Co-pilot Thom (from China)
Telegrapher Wang (China)
China Airlines plane departs from Kunming, China, ready to return to Tingjiang. The plane crashed when it was preparing to fly over the mountain pass under the clouds that day. Obviously, the cause of the crash was low airflow. The plane crashed in the jungle 50 feet east of the peak. 3 miles south of Pima-Liuku Highway.
The area was occupied by the enemy when the plane crashed. The crew is missing and may all be killed.
Location of the plane crash: 98 41'east longitude and 25 54' north latitude.
The 80-year-old hump veteran told him that one year after the plane crash, he had explored the jungle of Gaoligong Mountain to find the crash site according to this coordinate and the approximate position of the hump pilot. The pilot on the hump route firmly believes that since the plane's naked eye is still intact, maybe Fox and three other crew members are still alive.
Hanks said in the email: "1944, 10 In June, we sent a rescue team to find the three crew members of Flight 53 ..."
1944 10 one year after the plane 53 crashed, Red Holmes and Fletcher Hanks were entrusted by jim fox's parents to lead a rescue team to explore the snowstorm pass and rescue Private Fox.
101October 2 1 day, the plane landed at Baoshan airport with the rescue team and 300 kilograms of equipment needed for this expedition. As soon as the plane landed on the uneven runway of the airport, more than 200 China people who worked as coolies at the airport came to watch the excitement. Hanks and others gave them some commemorative medals.
In order to ensure the smooth progress of the rescue operation, this time China appointed an interpreter as the liaison officer of the rescue team. Through the communication with the local people and the analysis of the rescue team, it is necessary to fly to the vicinity of "Snowstorm Pass" and "Fox Pass" in Pima by fighter plane on foot. This group of people "will continue to hike for three days, 12 hours a day, from dawn to dark."
When camping at night, you can still hear the roar of fighters in the southwest of Baoshan and the guns in the distance.
The next day, the plane flew 120 km. On the fighter plane, the rescue team saw Huitong Bridge, one of the geographical navigation marks on the hump route in the distance, and then landed in a place full of weeds.
Reid wrote in his memoirs that their daily trips are similar, the roads are getting narrower and steeper, they climb mountains in a "Z" shape every day, and most of the time they walk through the clouds.
A week after starting from Baoshan, the rescue team walked slowly in the jungle. At this time, it is less than 1 km from the "Blizzard Pass". "It was the hardest part," Reid recalled. "The path is complex, and the rescue team must strive to maintain balance so as not to fall into the cliff." When it was dark, several people finally climbed to the mountain pass at an altitude of 4200 meters.
There are only stones and hay here. Weeds are overgrown, more than one meter high. Should have cut the mountain knife to open the way, but several people don't have the right tools. At this time, overhead, China Airlines' hump route plane circled, trying to find a rescue team, but the walkie-talkie could not be contacted. Some people in the team began to have symptoms of altitude sickness, high fever and blindness. Lack of water. There is no food. Get lost. This is the status quo of the rescue team.
"I remember reading somewhere that moss on rocks can keep humidity. I found some green plants that look like moss and put them in my mouth according to the book, but they taste like sand ... "
/kloc-Depart from Baoshan in 0/2 days. The environment is too bad. The rescue team has given up the search for Fox. A few people are in danger. The urgent task is to find the way back to Pianma Town first.
Several soldiers split up and decided to locate themselves by shooting at each other. In this way, I stumbled all the way The plane that came to pick up the plane arrived at the appointed place at the appointed time. The plane circled and roared, completely unaware of what these people had experienced: the rescue team set out from Baoshan to explore and carry out rescue, and then returned to Baoshan, with a history of 19 days and 480 kilometers on foot.
When Reed and Hanks returned to the United States Army Air Transport Corps, they did not reconcile. The chief of staff no longer supports the operation. He took them to a large-scale military map and pointed to the dense numbers on it, saying that there were more than 1000 planes on the hump route and fell into the vast forest of China, Myanmar and India. Who will look for them?
Don Quixote with hunchback
Hanks won't give up looking, but he didn't expect it to take more than 50 years to find it.
In the letter Hanks sent to Goshua, Hanks recalled that in the past 50 years, he tirelessly wrote letters, made T-shirts to promote the 53rd plane, and asked NASA about the radar detection of the space shuttle to see if he could find the 53rd plane. He also made a detailed search plan, and even participated in the triathlon competition to exercise, hoping to return to the virgin forest of Piama one day to find it.
Hanks laughed at himself: "Some people say that I am a modern Don Quixote, and I will eventually be eaten by Himalayan vultures."
In fact, Fletcher Hanks was not the only Don Quixote who tried to find the cause of the plane crash. Pamela Smith is jim fox's niece. She is also one of the people who believe that Fox is still alive. She spent 20 years looking for her uncle fox. "When Flight 53 crashed, it was not as violent as people thought," Pamela explained. "It is like a wheel listening slowly."
Pamela used her connections at NASA. In 198 1, Pamela clearly saw this big silver metal bird, which still lives on Gaoligong Mountain, just like when it crashed in 1943. However, due to the political turmoil in Myanmar at that time, Pamela's plan ran aground. Flight 53 seems to have once again been forgotten by the world in the corner of the world.
Hanks always believed that the plane would see the light of day again. On a batch of T-shirts he printed, he vowed to predict: No.53 plane will find the plane in 53 years! No one understands the persistence of the old man Hanks, and I don't know why he predicted that it must be 53 years later.
1997 65438+1On October 30th, Goshua came to Pianma Town. A month ago, Goshuya got the news that in August and September last year, Burmese hunters found a suspected plane crash in the virgin forest and handed it over to the local Kachin Independence Army. 165438+1October 17 Determine the specific position of the plane according to the satellite, which is located at the China side of the China-Myanmar border137m.
But it is not easy to walk to the crash site. Goshuya recalled that before crossing back to China on foot, he had to go 27 kilometers deep into Myanmar. The slope of the mountain is over 70, so you should follow the guide at every step. If you fall behind a few steps, the person in front will disappear without a trace in the dense forest.
1 In February, Goshua pushed aside the branches of the jungle, and finally saw the No.53 plane that had been hidden for more than half a century. Goshuya later wrote that the plane was hit much harder than I expected, just like a prehistoric pterosaur bravely fighting, falling to the ground, flapping its wings to resist death and embracing eternity. Its destructive beauty and visual impact are unparalleled, even life is eclipsed. ...
The Chinese character "China Airlines" is clearly visible below the right wing of the plane. Behind the Hump Flying Brigade jointly established by China Airlines and the American Flying Tigers is a white national emblem marked with the word "Zhong".
At this time, it happened to be the 53rd year after the 53rd plane crash disappeared. The plane has been found. This is also the only plane completely found in more than 600 crashes in the history of hump air transport in World War II.
The plane on the hump route is unarmed, and the only defensive measure is "evasion". Only clouds can protect them. At this time, the pilot must constantly pull up the plane and fly above the limit altitude of 7600 meters. This exceeds the height limit of the Japanese Zero fighter.
However, hump transport planes loaded with armaments often can't fly to this height. At this time, the Flying Tigers had to push the joystick and fly low in the Gaoligong jungle. If it happens that gasoline is transported on the plane, flammable oil drums will collide with each other in severe bumps and explode at any time.
At this time, Hanks' humming ditty came to an abrupt end. At present, from the thick clouds, a Japanese Zero fighter was stabbed obliquely. Hanks stared at the Japanese pilot in the cabin in fear, and the Japanese pilot stared at him in fear. Neither of them expected to meet in a narrow way over Gaoligong Mountain.