Qionglai Air Base is a

People's Liberation Army Air Force The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular armed forces of the Peo ...

(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 Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

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 Dayi County () is a county of Sichuan Province, China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Chengdu, the provincial capital. It is Chengdu City's westernmost division, bordering the prefecture-level divisions of Ya'an ...

) 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 The Sichuan Basin (), formerly transliterated as the Szechwan Basin, sometimes called the Red Basin, is a lowland region in southwestern China. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is drained by the upper Yangtze River and its tributa ...

, 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 The Xian Y-7 () is a twin turboprop transport/passenger aircraft built in China. It is based on the Soviet-designed Antonov An-24 series. Development China imported the Antonov An-24 from early in its production run and also negotiated licenses ...

(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 The Western Theater Command ()is one of the five theater commands of the People's Liberation Army, founded on 1 February 2016. Its jurisdiction includes Sichuan, Tibet, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Chongqing. Guizhou ...

History

Built during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the base was used by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

462d Bombardment Group as an airfield to stage

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...

bombing missions from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

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 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 an ...

" (the name given by Allied pilots to the eastern end of the

Himalayan Mountains The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

), 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 The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, was an air raid on 18 April 1942 by the United States on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on Honshu during World War II. It was the first American air operation to strike the Japa ...

in 1942. Raids on Japan continued until February 1945. The B-29s attacked Japanese targets in Japan, Formosa, and

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

. 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 Claire Lee Chennault (September 6, 1893 – July 27, 1958) was an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the "Flying Tigers" and the Chinese Air Force in World War II. Chennault was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fighter ...

at Fourteenth Air Force, 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 ...

, General

Curtis LeMay Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was an American Air Force general who implemented a controversial strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. He later served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air ...

gained the support of

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

, 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 Yan'an (; ), alternatively spelled as Yenan is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi province, China, bordering Shanxi to the east and Gansu to the west. It administers several counties, including Zhidan (formerly Bao'an) ...

, 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 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