1942: Using aircraft acquired from Pan American Airlines, the Army began the largest airlift in World War II. Two DC-3s airlifted gasoline and lubricating oil over the Himalaya Mountains from Dinjan in eastern India to Yunnan-yi in southern China to begin the “Hump Airlift.” A total of eight airplanes carried enough fuel and oil to refuel and service the B-25 bombers from the later “Doolittle Raid.” From December 1942, when the airlift became the ATC’s responsibility, through the close of the operation in November 1945, the airlift delivered nearly 740,000 tons of cargo. Over half of this total was transported during the last eight months of the war.
