Determined to Deliver
The Wartime Story of
No. 435 (Chinthe) Squadron
(Republished from the February 1953 issue of The Roundel)
By Flying Officer David Martin
(The author of this story, which was written during the war, was himself a pilot in the squadron concerned. He now lives in the United States, and is the author of a book on Yugoslavia.—EDITOR.)
When Wingate’s Raiders set off on their epic expedition into Burma, they chose as their emblem the Chinthe, a mythical monster, half-dog, half-lion, ferocious and eternally watchful, images of which stand guard over the Burmese pagoda.
When No. 435 R.C.A.F. (Dakota Transport) Squadron began operations in support of the 14th Army it, too, adopted the Chinthe as the squadron badge, combining it with the motto: Certi Provehendi —‘‘Determined to Deliver.”
The Chinthe Squadron more than lived up to its motto. After commencing operations in December 1944, it chalked up a record unsurpassed by any other unit in Combat Cargo Task Force in South-East Asia. The Chinthes followed the 14th Army all the way from Kawlin to Meiktila and Thazi. They flew the first transport to cross the Irrawaddy in support of the 14th Army bridgehead. Their jump-masters played a prominent role in the airborne operation against Rangoon. They flew by day and they flew by night. They flew with fighter escort and without fighter escort. They landed at airfields which were under enemy fire and at airfields whose ownership at any future moment could not be vouched for by briefing officers. They dropped on D.Z.’s (dropping-zones) no bigger than geranium pots. They braved Jap fighters and Jap ground fire to deliver their loads. But the Chinthes always delivered the goods. And they brought back their cargoes of army casualties without suffering a single loss.
The Chinthe Squadron was one of two R.C.A.F. transport squadrons (Nos. 435 and 436) which came out to India in September 1944. Its first Commanding Officer was Wing Commander T. P. Harnett, one of a group of Canadian flyers who had joined the R.A.F. in 1938. Before commencing operations, the Chinthes embarked on a programme of intensive training at Gujrat in the north of India. Particular attention was paid to paratrooping exercises. And though no one knew definitely, everyone surmised that they were being groomed for some big ‘‘do’’— perhaps even for an airborne operation against Rangoon.
In November the Chinese armies began to retreat before the hard-pressing Japs. In order to meet this critical situation, several of the American transport squadrons supplying the 14th Army were hurriedly shifted to the Chinese front. To fill the breach, the Chinthe Squadron was ordered to move up to a forward position immediately. Immediately meant immediately. By flying 28 hours out of 36, the squadron succeeded in transporting itself to its new Station at Tulihal (Assam) in little more than one day. The last remnants of aircrew and groundcrew taxied in towards midnight. By eleven o’clock the next morning, December 19th, the squadron was operational.
When the squadron’s old-timers get together, they frequently reminisce about those early days. On arriving at their new Station, the Chinthes found themselves without tents, without cots, without cooking facilities, without food, without anything. That night the groundcrew performed their daily inspection by flashlight, and with nothing more than hammer and screwdriver. They slept on the ground and they thanked Providence for inventing the K-ration.
Lack of equipment was partly compensated for by ingenuity. Beds were made by stretching gunny-sacks between bamboo poles. Showers were constructed with odd parts taken from a wrecked aircraft. A stove was built with steel plates and locally procured brick. Gradually the squadron began to take on some semblance of order.
While all this was going on, operations were being pushed at top speed. There was no surplus of air transport, and in order to keep the Army supplied, it was necessary to eke the last ounce of air tonnage out of every available aircraft. On its record day the squadron flew in 199 tons of supplies, its aircraft flying as much as 13 and 14 hours per day. Turn-around was cut down to an almost unbelievably fine limit. Frequently the Dakotas unloaded their 7,000-odd pounds of supplies and were airborne again within 10 minutes of touching down. One enthusiastic crew established an all-time record of eight minutes from air to air — that is, from touch-down to take-off.
Christmas came, and by way of celebration the squadron flew all day. Most of the cargo consisted of Christmas puddings, rum, turkeys, and mail for the 14th Army, which was then around Kawlin and Yazagio. When the day was over, the Chinthes Jumpmaster Flying Officer M. McLean checking harness of Indian paratroopers. settled down to a heartbreakingly untrimmed
Christmas dinner, the highlight of which was canned chicken, served cold; and on New Year’s the squadron again flew all day.
On 9 January 1945, the 14th Army fought its way into the town of Shwebo, an important road junction about 16 miles west of the Irrawaddy. A dropping-zone was marked out some four miles east of the town, almost within range of the Japanese guns. Now, to the layman the location of a D.Z. may seem like a fairly simple business. You merely mark the exact position on the map and then you set course. In reality in reality things were far from being so simple. Since the Army was constantly on the move, and since it was of the utmost importance that the supplies be dropped-as near the front line as possible, it was necessary for Headquarters to send in predictions to “Combat Cargo Task Force several days in advance. Often the predictions gave no more than the approximate locations. The D.Z.’s themselves’ were, generally, tiny jungle clearings, and transport aircraft frequently had to search the predicted area minutely before they discovered the white “T” and code markings of the D.Z. And, since the fortunes of war are not altogether predictable, it happened on more than one occasion that the Japs were in possession of the D.Z.’s at the time the
transport aircraft arrived over them.
On 12 January the squadron went out in force to carry out a drop on the D.Z. near Shwebo. As the aircraft came in, they joined the dropping-circuit, until there were six or seven of them wheeling over the D.Z. in a continuous circle, unloading a portion of their cargo on each trip. Squadron Leader H. L. Coons, D.F.C., was in charge of the flight. His wireless operator/ Warrant Officer R.O. Buckmaster, was in the a astro-dome, keeping a look-out for enemy aircraft.
There is something placid about a blue sky, something which makes the danger of death seem utterly unreal. Buckmaster scanned the blue sky lazily. Suddenly he stiffened, and looked hard. High up above their shoulder a tiny speck of an airplane was rapidly closing in on them. He bent down and shouted to the pilot:
“There’s a strange aircraft above us?”
“What is it?” asked Coons.
“Can’t see yet. It looks a bit like a Harvard.
He looked back again. ‘No, it isn’t a Harvard. It’s — it’s a Jap! It’s a Zero!”
Coons cut his throttles and hit for the deck. Then he opened up and headed north. A few minutes later the rep came for them. Buckmaster remained in the astro-dome: calling out distances and directions.
“He’s, closing in fast… 1,000 yards… 500 yards…”
At, 500 yards the modern fighting ‘plane is within firing range. Danger really begins at about 300 yards. The fundamental technique of evasive action in the case of large, slow, and completely defenceless aircraft like the Dakota consists first of hitting for the ground as rapidly as possible. This leaves only the upper surface of the aircraft exposed, and at the same time compels the
fighter to pull out of his dive early. The next important. thing is to wait until the enemy has closed to effective firing range, and then to do a steep turn at, slow speed towards the quarter from which he is approaching. The comparatively high-speed of the fighter? makes it impossible for him to turn, with its target and in a matter of split seconds, if the turn has been properly executed, the target aircraft will be out of the fighter’s angle of fire.
At 400 yards Coons turned his aircraft over on his wingtip, and the fighter went skidding by them. The Jap pilot executed a neat stall turn and again renewed the attack. Again Coons evaded him, though this time he came so close that Buckmaster afterwards swore he was smoking a Camel. The Zero made fours passes at the Dakota, its guns blazing each time. Bullets whizzed through the wing and fuselage. One of them hit Corporal A.M. White, a groundcrew member who had come along as “kicker”. (A “kicker” is a man who helps to chuck out the cargo.) The bullet traversed his chest laterally, ricocheting off a rib and missing his heart by several sixteenths of an inch. On the fifth pass, Coons was hugging the ground tight when the Zero came in. Again he evaded by swinging over into a steep turn. His starboard wing hit a treetop, there was a rending sound, the aircraft shuddered, and righted itself. Somehow Coons managed to break free and scoot for base. He arrived home full of holes and minus four feet of wing tip. For his coolness and courage under fire, Sqn. Ldr. Coons was awarded a Bar to his D.F.C.
Meanwhile the other Daks were hard pressed. According to counts made by ground observers, there were a dozen Zeros in the circuit diving on the defenseless transports. The next Dakota to be attacked was that of Flying Officer J. K. Ramsay. Ramsay didn’t have a chance. The Zero got him cleanly on the first pass. In a twinkling his aircraft was plunging to earth, enveloped in flames.
At such moments a pilot knows what is coming; he knows that it is only a matter of seconds before the end. It is to his eternal credit that during these last few precious seconds Ken thought of his crew and rang the bale-out bell. There wasn’t much chance for any of them. But still he rang it. Hopeless though it may have seemed, his action was probably instrumental in saving the sole
survivor of the crash, Flying Officer A. L. Thomson, the co-pilot.
The third aircraft to be attacked was piloted by Fit. Lt. R. F. Simpson, the squadron’s only English skipper. Flying Officer T. Jordan-Knox was co-pilot. As they tell the story, they had just completed their first run when they saw a Jap attacking from the port quarter. Their first thought was of their load. The bulk of it was ammunition. One Jap shell properly placed and and they were goners.
There was a blast, and then things began to happen thick and fast. LAC R. G. Evans, a groundcrew kicker, was hit in the arm. Warrant Officer D. G. Cotter received a cannon shell in his abdomen, and fell to the floor, groaning. Flying Officer A. E. Foster, who had come along for the ride, had two bullets rip through his shirt, cutting deep grooves in the flesh of his back. The ammunition caught fire, the tail caught fire, and the port engine caught fire. Foster started shoving off the burning ammunition for all he was worth. The navigator, Flying Officer L. B. Dumont, beat away at the tail fire with his bare hands until he had put it out.
There was no alternative to staying with the aircraft. Simpson picked out a jungle clearing and brought his blazing plane in for a perfect crash landing. When the Dak skidded to a halt, they evacuated as fast as their legs could carry them, taking the gravely-injured Dave Cotter with them. They made the stricken man as comfortable as possible, and, while the aircraft blazed away near them and the ammunition went off wildly in all directions, they applied what first aid they could. Cotter died in a hospital a few days later.
For his skill and courage in crash-landing under extraordinarily difficult conditions, Flt. Lt. Simpson was awarded the D.F.C.
That is the story of what happened in the air above the D.Z. on the morning of January 12th. Down below, the hard-pressed British troops watched the battle above them, choking with helpless anger. “It was terrible to watch,” said the major in charge of ground defences at the D.Z. “Your boys had been supplying us for several weeks. They’d made a damn good job of it and we’d sort of come to feel that they were our special friends. I know it’s war and I know our aircraft would have done the same thing, but it was
maddening to see those Jap fighters go for the helpless Daks. There wasn’t much we could do on the ground because we has no anti-aircraft guns with us. Our men popped away furiously with their rifles whenever a Jap seemed within range, but they had no effect. After it was all over, a Sikh Sepoy came up to me and said: “Sahib, if Canadian sahibs must lose their lives to, bring us food, then perhaps we can go on half rations.” At the time he made the suggestion, we were already on half rations.”
In view of the increased Jap fighter activity, it was decided, towards the middle of January, to start making deliveries at night. After dark the Chinthe flare-path became a scene of bustling activity. The crews were briefed, the engines were started, and the C-47’s queued up for take-off. They took off at intervals of three minutes, turning off their navigation lights as soon as they left the circuit. At that time the squadron shared its airfield with an American transport squadron. The two Units together put up thirty aircraft per night, each of which flew two sorties.
The landing field was a rough strip a few miles east of Shwebo. The runway was a bit too short for comfort, and, as often as not, they had to land downwind. But by touching down accurately within a few yards of the top end, and by applying the brake generously as soon as the tail wheel was on the ground, the Chinthe pilots pulled through without a single major accident.
At nearest point, the Japs were no more than six to eight miles from the strip — near enough to see the lights of aircraft coming in to land and to lob over the occasional mortar shell. One night, just after the Chinthes had settled down on the strip, the Japs staged a surprise attack and succeeded in capturing Army Headquarters, seven miles from the field. A contingent of Ghurkas was detailed to handle the situation. Shortly after they went into action, word came back that the Japs had been wiped out.
On January 14th, the 14th Army established a bridgehead across the Irrawaddy, near Singu, 40 miles above Mandalay. During the first few days it was touch and go. The bridgehead was a tenuous affair, covering about two square miles and surrounded on all sides by fanatically-attacking Japs. The Chinthe Squadron had the distinction of flying the first transport aircraft to cross the Irrawaddy in support of the bridgehead. The pilot of this first aircraft was Warrant Officer F. M. Smith.
Smith didn’t know the exact location of the D.Z., and he had to search for a while before finding it. No matter in which direction he flew over the D.Z., it was obvious that it would be impossible to avoid the Jap lines.
No sooner had Smith and crew entered their dropping circuit than they heard crackling and saw tracers coming up at them. It was admittedly unhealthy for an aircraft as big and slow and helpless as the Dakota to be flying through ground fire at 500 feet, the standard height for dropping. But the goods had to be delivered. Smith made three circuits, picking up a few bullets on each
trip. On the third run his groundcrew kicker, Sgt. Nick Jarjour, was wounded in the foot and arm. While another crew member applied first aid, Smith made two more runs. By this time Jarjour seemed to be in a bad way, but there was still one-quarter of the original load left — priceless cargo for the men in the hard-pressed bridgehead. Smith solved the problem by flying Jarjour back
to the field hospital at Shwebo. Then he took off again and headed for the bridgehead.
To be brave is not to be foolhardy. The D.Z. laid out by the Army was too hot for safety. Smith flew low and dropped a note to some men near the beach telling them of the difficulty he had been having and informing them that he intended to make his final drops on the beach itself instead of on the D.Z. Then he turned into his circuit and delivered the remaining quarter of his load on the narrow strip of sandy beach. He arrived home safely, with nine bullet holes and minus one crew member.
The situation around the Singu bridgehead did not improve for some time. The day after Smith’s first adventure, another of the squadron’s aircraft picked up a bellyful of bullets over the D.Z. The pilot this time was Flying Officer W. J. (‘Bill’) Rodgers; the second pilot, oddly enough, was Flight Sergeant W. B. (“Bill”) Rodgers. They made four circuits over the D.Z., dropping each
time. On the fourth trip around they were met by a hail of Japanese ground fire. Bullets pinged through the aircraft. One cut the electric control cable. Another pierced the hydraulic fluid tank. And the navigator, Flying Officer Glen Lineham, had another bullet cut through the back of his shirt without touching him.
Knowing that his aircraft had been seriously hit, Rodgers set out for base. He landed, switched the remainder of his load to another aircraft, and took off again for the Singu bridgehead. When they got back, the D.Z. markings were nowhere to be seen. It was not clear whether the Japs or our troops held the D.Z., and there was no way of finding out. Rodgers and his crew held a council of war, and decided in favour of dropping on the beach. The remainder of their load went off in three circuits without mishap.
When the fighting eased up a bit, Captain Scott, the Officer Commanding the 9th Ghurka Rifles in the bridgehead, sent a message to the Chinthes, expressing his gratitude to the crews “who continued their dropping despite the enemy action they encountered. Their efforts were greatly appreciated by all ranks,”
On the night of February 11th-12th, units of the 33rd Corps crossed the Irrawaddy near Myinmu. Knowing that the entire fate of the Burma campaign depended on their ability to confine the British to the west bank of the Irrawaddy, the Japs reacted as fiercely as they had at Singu, throwing every available unit into battle to destroy the bridgehead. Certain important units were held in reserve, however, to cope with the eventuality of another bridgehead. During the previous week the 14th Army had thrust to within distance of the great Ava bridge, the jump-master, working on signals from the pilot, to see that the troops are dropped accurately and as rapidly as possible. The importance of speed cannot be over-emphasized, because if troops are scattered over too wide an area, their concentration becomes proportionately more difficult. A good jump-master working with experienced troops gets a “stick” of twenty men off in 16 or 18 seconds, and a stick of ten in half that time. And that requires some mighty fast moving.
Before embarking on the final operation against Rangoon, the American aircraft, the Canadian jump-masters, and the British and Indian troops went through a final rehearsal. The drop was 100% successful —a rarity even for practice drops. Then, on May 1st, they took off with target Rangoon. Again the drop was 100% successful. Not one man missed the dropping zone; not a single casualty was suffered. This was something unheard of. In a letter of congratulation to the participating units, Major-General E. E. Downs, C.-in-C. of the Airborne troops, said:
“I wish to thank you for the co-operation you gave me and to say again what a magnificent effort was made by all ranks under the command of the 1st Provisional Command Group and the C.C.T.F. Group. I hope that we will have the luck to do another operation together. This one is the first I know of in this war in which paratroops were dropped 100% accurately. You and your boys have set a standard for this theatre, under poor weather conditions, which will make others who come after always strive to equal your effort.”
The men of Combat Cargo Task Force had to cope with other enemies than the Japs. For a time in February vast forest fires swept the jungles of Burma, and the Chinthes flew through dense smoke which billowed up to 15,000 feet and more, with horizontal visibility virtually nil. It was good instrument-flying practice.
The Chinthes had to fly over some of the worst jungle in the world and through what is unquestionably the worst weather in the world. In Burma the monsoons break near the end of May, and continue with fluctuating intensity until September. They are characterized by swiftly-changing weather, much rainfall, and frequent and violent thunderstorms. Over the Chin Hills the storms are especially widespread and violent. Cumulus and cumulo-nimbus clouds build up to 15,000 to 25,000 feet, and at their base they frequently envelop the hill-tops.
Ordinarily it is possible for a pilot to see cumulo-nimbus and to avoid it by flying around. In Burma, however, the matter is not quite so simple. The question which the pilot must constantly ask himself is: ‘Over — or under?” If the cloud base is above the level of the mountains in the vicinity, he is safe in flying under. If it is not, then he must try to fly above the weather. This is not always easy when the stratus reaches to 15,000 feet and the cu and cu-nim break through to 25,000 at frequent intervals. If the pilot runs into a solid front of weather with apparently no top or bottom, he may attempt to reach his destination by flying around it. The only remaining question is whether his destination will be cloud- or storm-bound on arrival,
A pilot must try to get his load through if it is reasonably possible. On the other hand, he must also think of his aircraft and his crew. And the decision — whether to return or to carry on — is sometimes hard to make. Every pilot, at one time or another, has an adventure with cu-nim. A careful weather pilot may head for what seems to be an adequate opening ahead of him, only to have the opening close in solidly as he reaches it. This is what happened to one Chinthe aircraft shortly after the monsoons broke.
Flying Officer Paul M. Houser was at the controls. The weather was solid and menacing, and they were over the Chin Hills heading out for Burma. Ahead of him “Pappy” saw an opening which seemed ample. He turned towards it. Alas, when they reached the spot where the opening had been, there was no opening! Instead they were caught in the downdraft of a cu-nim!
From 8,000 feet they were hurled down to 4,000 — and this over an area where the hill-tops run over 6,000 feet. ‘‘Pappy” opened the throttles and pointed the nose of his aircraft up as far as safety would permit, but the aircraft continued to descend at a rate of several thousand feet per minute. It required all his strength to keep the aircraft in anything that resembled a flying attitude. It pitched and rolled, dropped suddenly, shuddered, then lifted suddenly. The gyro instruments toppled. The navigator, Flying Officer G. P. Hewer, who was sitting in the second pilot’s seat, set up the gyros again. they toppled again. And again. Gradually “Pappy” managed to turn the aircraft through 180 degrees and bring her back into the clear. They returned to base with a few torn rivets and a badly warped aileron.
That night Ed Hewer wrote a letter to his father in which he told him about the incident. “I’m not telling you this to make you worry,” said Ed, ‘I’m telling you this to let you know that we are now the most careful weather crew this side of the Brahmaputra.”
On another occasion Flt. Lt. C.P. Kenworthy was flying home through rather solid weather. He entered cloud and decided to get above it. At 14,500 feet the aircraft suddenly dropped – it almost seemed as if it fell out of the sky. The crew were held down to their seats by their safety belts, but their stomachs rose to their throats. As soon as the downdraft hit him, ‘‘Chuck” cut his throttles to reduce speed. The rate of descent indicator went off the clock. Airspeed built up to 260 miles per hour. (Maximum safe diving speed for the Dakota unloaded is 230 m.p.h.). The gyros toppled. They hit 10,000 feet, still descending madly. Kenworthy and his co-pilot, Flying Officer Hugh Jenner, hauled back on their steering columns for all they were worth — 6,000 feet — 5,000 feet — and then, at 4,500 feet, their descent stopped, and they started travelling up almost as rapidly as they had travelled down. In this way they were tossed violently up and down, 5,000 feet and more at a time, until at last they broke clear at 18,000 feet. Kenworthy gave much of the credit for their escape to his co-pilot, who, with great presence of mind, kept calling out headings, airspeed, and altitude while “Chuck” was struggling with the controls.
There was one extraordinary personal adventure that had nothing to do with weather, enemy fire, engine failure or any of the normal hazards of flying. Flying Officer John Mackie was the pilot of the aircraft. He was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat while his co-pilot, Flying Officer Manly Spencer, was sitting in the first pilot’s seat. They were flying along serenely at 10,000 feet. The navigator, Flying Officer Norman Collins, came forward to give the an alteration of course. As he poked his head into he pilot’s compartment, something moved underneath the automatic pilot, which is situated in the central part of the instrument panel.
“Holy Moses!” ejaculated Collins. “You’ve got a snake riding with you!”
As he said this, a snake slithered out from behind the throttle quadrant, wrapped itself around the Spencer’s right rudder pedal, and looked up at him questioningly.
Spenser froze. This was the wisest thing to do, although, during the first few seconds at least, wisdom had little to do with his freezing. For a minute that seemed like an aeon, Spencer sat there looking down at the snake, while the snake looked up at him from the rudder pedal with its cold unblinking eyes.
‘Take over while I get out of here,” he said quietly to Mackie. In the second pilot’s seat Mackie was safely out of range. He took the controls and Spencer eased himself slowly out of his seat, his eyes fixed all the time on the rudder pedal.
At this point, Collins, who had been rummaging about for a suitable weapon, came forward with a large jungle-knife. He reached gingerly around behind the rudder pedal and slashed at the snake. He slashed some half-a-dozen times before the snake relaxed its hold on the pedal and fell to the floor, coiling and twisting in its death agonies.
When the crew arrived home, they were informed that the stowaway was a Russell’s viper, one of the most aggressive and deadly snakes in India. How the serpent succeeded in climbing up into the fuselage is something that has never been figured out.
With the Japs driven out of Burma, things became much quieter for the Chinthes. For some weeks in June and July, most of their work consisted of freighting rice for the communities of North Burma, where the food situation was acute as a result of the ravages of war. Some of the rice was landed at airfields. Much of it was dropped at unheard-of little villages like Atankawng, Launkaung, Htawgaw, etc., on D.Z.’s set up by the Army Civil Affairs Officer in charge of local food distribution. The work in itself was undramatic, apart from the adventures of monsoon flying. Nevertheless, but for the transport squadrons, there would have been starvation in North Burma.
On the eve of their departure for England, the Chinthes were called upon to carry out one of their most trying assignments. Southeast of Toungoo, several groups of British guerrillas were fighting desperately against surrounding Japanese forces. In this remote region the fighting went on for several weeks after the official cease-fire, and the Japs, because of their numerical superiority, were able to make things very hot for the British guerrilla bands. When the transport squadrons supplying the guerrillas were called away on other duties, the Chinthes were asked to fill the breach. Altogether three detachments of aircraft were sent to Toungoo, each detachment operating full-time for four or five days before returning to base.
Pilots who had been accustomed to bad weather and difficult D.Z.’s reported afterwards that, of all the flying they had done in Burma, their operations from Toungoo were the trickiest. The beleaguered guerrillas laid out tiny D.Z.’s on the mountain-sides, D.Z,’s that would have been difficult to find even in the best of circumstances. With the mountains covered in almost continuous cloud, it was a real test of skill, persistence, and courage. Knowing that the clouds concealed 7,000-foot mountains, pilots wove their way through little openings, searched the mountain slopes for the elusive D.Z.’s, and four times out of five they succeeded in getting their loads through.
After the second detachment had returned to base, the following message was received from the Senior Army Liaison Officer at Toungoo:
“To all members of the Chinthe Squadron Detachment. You have in four days broken all previous records. T.A.C.H.Q. are grateful beyond words for your efforts. Field reports are slow to arrive, but those so far received report excellent drops. Canucks, we wish you a good trip home and happy landings.”
When operations ceased at Tulihal in the last days of August 1945, the Chinthes had completed just over eight months of service with Combat Cargo Task Force. For those who can cope with the astronomical, we offer the following figures. During its eight months of operations, the squadron flew 29,873 hours on 16,592 sorties, averaging almost 120 hours per day throughout the whole period. Its aircraft consumed over 1,760,000 gallons of gasoline and covered more than 4,000,000 miles. The average Dakota flew
seven hours and covered 980 miles per day, which was very close to what was considered the absolute optimum for an operational transport squadron. The cargo delivered totaled 27,460 tons, in addition to which 14,440 passengers and 851 casualties were carried.
Only those who know something about the problem of aircraft maintenance will be able fully to appreciate the meaning of these figures and the magnitude of the debt owed to the groundcrew, too often forgotten when narrating the drama of the Air Force. Working under the most difficult conditions, they chalked up a maintenance record which the best-equipped station would consider creditable. With their meagre equipment they performed wonders. Engine changes, normally a job for repair depots and not for station maintenance, were carried out in half a day and less. Serviceability during the crucial months was kept up around the 90 per cent mark — a truly amazing figure for a tropical station. And on one day, having been challenged by a certain pilot who offered to buy beers all round if they could do it, they actually succeeded in having the station’s entire complement of aircraft simultaneously serviceable. They shared all the hardships of life in the Far East with the aircrew whose craft they serviced. And when they travelled as kickers, as they often did, they shared the dangers of flying as well. Their work on the ground was routine, tedious, exacting. But without their efforts the fine showing of the squadron would have been unattainable.
After V-] Day, which the Chinthes celebrated at the estate of the Maharajah of Manipur, the squadron prepared to fly back from Burma to Britain, Late in August the first wave of Dakotas left Tulihal, followed at intervals by other groups, until the last departed on September 11th, Their homeward course took them via Alipore, Maharajpore, Karachi, Masirah, Aden, Wadi Halfa, Lydda, El Adem, El Aouina, and Istres, to Down Ampney, England. Since the end of August, a training unit had been at work at this station to prepare crews for replacement of those due for repatriation. When No. 435 Sqn. arrived at Down Ampney, Wing Cdr. C. C. N. McVeigh, A.F.C., the commander of the training unit, succeeded Wing Cdr. Harnett as C.O. of the squadron.
Teamed in a wing with two other R.C.A.F. squadrons (Nos. 436 and 437), the Chinthe unit embarked on a new phase of transport work, carrying supplies and personnel to and from many places on the continent. Istres, Ghent, Brussels, Naples, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, and Buckeburg were the principal ports of call. These operations continued for seven months. Then, on March 3lst, 1946, No. 435 Squadron was officially disbanded overseas, and the 25 Dakotas were flown home to Canada.
Within a few months, the squadron number was revived by the redesignation of No. 164 Transport Squadron, R.C.A.F., as No. 435, on August 1st, 1946. From their new base at Edmonton, the Chinthes embarked upon another tour of transport operations, and in the past six years have added fresh laurels to those won in two overseas theatres.
Canada may well be proud of its Chinthe Squadron and cherish the memory of those Chinthemen who gave their lives while carrying the means of battle to the Army in Burma.
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