Qionglai Air Base is a People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) located west of the city of

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

, the capital of the province of Sichuan in

Southwestern China Southwest China () is a region in the south of the People's Republic of China. Geography Southwest China is a rugged and mountainous region, transitioning between the Tibetan Plateau to the west and the Chinese coastal hills (东南丘陵) and ...

. More precisely, the facility is located approximately 3 km southwest of Wangsi Town (Wangsizhen, in Dayi County) and 2 km northeast of Sangyuan Town (Sangyuanzhen, part of

Qionglai City Qionglai () is a county-level city of Sichuan Province, Southwest China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Chengdu. It is located around from downtown Chengdu. The city is located on the western edge of the Sichuan Ba ...

), just to the east of 318 National Road. This entire area is located in the northwestern part of the Sichuan Basin, not far from the foothills of the great

Qionglai Mountains Qionglai Mountains () is a mountain range in the Sichuan Province of China. It runs in the general north-south direction, and is located mostly within the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, in the north-central part of the province. ...

. Based at the Qionglai Air Base is the 4th Transport Division - U/I Air Regiment (Y-7H). The unit flies the Xian Y-7 (NATO reporting name: Coke) twin-turboprop transport.

Xian Y-20 The Xi'an Y-20 Kunpeng () is a large military transport aircraft developed by the Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation for the People's Republic of China (PRC). The aircraft is nicknamed "Chubby Girl" () in the Chinese aviation industry becaus ...

strategic transport are also stationed at this base with the 12th Regiment. The base is under the Western Theater Command.

History

Built during World War II, the base was used by the United States Army Air Forces

462d Bombardment Group 46 may refer to: * 46 (number) * ''46'' (album), a 1983 album by Kino * "Forty Six", a song by Karma to Burn from the album '' Appalachian Incantation'', 2010 * One of the years 46 BC, AD 46 AD 46 ( XLVI) was a common year starting on Saturday ...

as an airfield to stage B-29 Superfortress bombing missions from India to attack

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

.Craven, Wesley Frank; James Lea Cate. "Vol. V: The Pacific: MATTERHORN to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945". The Army Air Forces in World War II. U.S. Office of Air Force History

/ref> It was known by the Americans under

postal romanization Postal romanization was a system of transliterating Chinese place names developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language for ...

as "Kiunglai Airfield" (often also not quite correctly transcribed as Kuinglai), or under the Wade-Giles transcription, as Chiung-Lai (A-5). It was one of four B-29 bases established by the Americans in China. From its base at Piardoba, India, the 462d Bomb Group planned to fly missions against

from airfields in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. However, all the supplies of fuel, bombs, and spares needed to support the forward bases in China had to be flown in from India over "

The Hump The Hump was the name given by Allied pilots in the Second World War to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek and t ...

" (the name given by Allied pilots to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains), since Japanese control of the seas around the Chinese coast made seaborne supply of China impossible.The Matterhorn Missions, The Air Force Association Magazine, March 2009 On June 15, from Kuinglai, the group participated in the first American Air Force attack on the Japanese Home Islands since the Doolittle raid in 1942. Raids on Japan continued until February 1945. The B-29s attacked Japanese targets in Japan,

Formosa Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is an island country located in East Asia. The main island of Taiwan, formerly known in the Western political circles, press and literature as Formosa, makes up 99% of the land area of the territorie ...

, and Manchuria. In October, the Japanese aircraft industry became the priority objective and the aircraft factory at Omura was a regular target. At the request of Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault at

Fourteenth Air Force The Fourteenth Air Force (14 AF; Air Forces Strategic) was a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). It was headquartered at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The command was responsible for the organizatio ...

, the B-29s struck the main Japanese Army supply base in China at Hankow Dec. 18. They used incendiary bombs, which destroyed the military storage area and left Hankow burning for three days. It was a preview of things to come in 1945, when the B-29s would use firebombs with devastating effect against the highly inflammable wood and paper structures in the Japanese home islands. The commander of the

XX Bomber Command The XX Bomber Command was a United States Army Air Forces bomber formation. Its last assignment was with Twentieth Air Force, based on Okinawa. It was inactivated on 16 July 1945. History The idea of basing Boeing B-29 Superfortresses in C ...

, General Curtis LeMay gained the support of Mao Zedong, the communist leader and an ally in fighting the Japanese. Mao controlled enormous areas in the north, northwest, and east. Mao, hoping for American recognition of his regime, provided assistance to downed airmen, allowed LeMay to put a radio relay station at Yenan, and improved an emergency landing field at Yenan for the use of B-29s. "General Mao offered to build airdromes for us up in the north," LeMay said. "He told me, ‘I can construct any number you wish.’ I replied that frankly we couldn't supply the ones we already had, down there in Chengtu." When the B-29 bombers were moved from India in April 1945 to the newly captured bases in the

Mariana Islands The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in Chamorro: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, betw ...

, the USAAF use of Kuinglai Airfield ended. With the departure of the Americans, the airfield was turned over to Chinese authorities.

History

See also

References

Further reading