World War II

Fighters of famous Flying Tiger

In 1937 Japan launched a many-pronged invasion of China. Losing control of its entire eastern half, the Nationalist government relocated in Chongqing, Sichuan, with some. ministries and industries moving to Yunnan. To keep supplies coming into western China the Nationalists had a road constructed from Kunming to Dehong, the famous Burma Road, using mostly corvee labour conscripted from tribes along the route. The road followed the old Southeast Silk Route as far as Baoshan and continued to Wanding, Dehong.Goods and war materiel continued to come from British Burma over the bridge at Wanding until the Japanese overran Burma in 1942 and closed the route.

By that time the Americans were involved in the Pacific War as much as the British. New supply routes were organised out of British India. One was by land from the eastern Himalayan town of Kalimpong. From here pony and mule caravans traveled up through eastern Tibet. then into Yunnan at Deqing, thence down to Zhongdian, Lijiang and Xiaguan. From there fresh caravans carried the goods to Kunming and from the capital to Sichuan or other parts of Yunnan. The trade enriched many Khamba Tibetans as well as Naxi and Bai along the way.

The other route was by air, over that section of the eastern Himalayas called the Hump, and famous as one of the most hazardous air routes in the entire world.Much of this operation was carried out by the civilian volunteer pilots of Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers, who had a base in Kunming and whose boss was a strategic advisor to General Chiang Kai-shek. Chennault kept telling Chiang that his air unit could defend western China against any ,Japanese advance. The implication was that Chiang needn't deploy his own forces in defence, which was music to Chiang's ears, since he preferred to keep his forces intact for the post war showdown with the Communists. This attitude infuriated General Joseph Stillwell, the American responsible for the Sino-Allied defence against the Japanese.

Yet no one could deny that Chennault's Flying Tigers were men of great courage. An uncomfortably large number of transport planes crashed when buffeted by the unpredictable winds and storms of the Hump. Even in recent years ,Yunnanese farmers have discovered the remains of planes in various mountain locations in the west. And the older folks still remember the sacrifices made by American and British pilots in the war, reflected in the very friendly and favourable attitude they have nowadays towards tourists from these two countries.