Yangkai Airfield (羊街机场) is a former
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 ...
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 ...
airfield in China. Its location was then south of
Yangjiezhen (羊街镇),
Xundian County; after administrative changes, it is now at Longyuan village (龙院村),
Songming County
Songming County () is a County (People's Republic of China), county under the jurisdiction of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, China. It is famous for the Yanglin Fat Liquor and the Dian Opera.
Administrative divisions
Songming County is ...
.
History
The airfield, located approximately 33 miles northeast of Kunming, was the home of the B-24 Liberators of 373rd Bombardment Squadron (308th Bombardment Group), from 20 Mar 43 to Sep 44, when it moved to Luliang, China. The 373rd participated in attacks on airfields, coalyards, docks and warehouses, oil refineries and fuel dumps; as well as attacking shipping in the East and South Seas, the Formosa Strait and the Gulf of Tonkin.
The
B-25 Mitchell
The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Major General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. Used by many Allied air forces, the B-25 served in ...
-equipped
341st Bombardment Group, was based at Yangkai from Jan 1944 to Sep 1945. Units of the 341st (11th Bombardment Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Squadron, 491st Bombardment Squadron) flew missions from Yangkai, Kweilin (Guilin) and Liuchow (Liuzhou) against targets in Japanese-occupied China, Burma, Thailand and French Indochina. Primarily targets were Japanese river shipping, road convoys, airfields and other targets of opportunity, as well as sea sweeps over the offshore shipping lanes following the China coast and also attacked Japanese targets on Hainan Island. The Group's crews became quite proficient at destroying bridges in using their variation on 'Skip' and 'Glide' bombing. The 11th and 22nd had converted to A-26 Invaders for their final missions from Yangkai in late July and early August 1945.
[Group and individual Squadron records, 1944-45.]
Yangkai was also used by
Air Transport Command
Air Transport Command (ATC) was a United States Air Force unit that was created during World War II as the strategic airlift component of the United States Army Air Forces.
It had two main missions, the first being the delivery of supplies and ...
as a supply hub in South China and also as a terminal for air shipments (Station 14, India, China Wing) 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 ...
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 Americans closed their facilities at the airfield in early 1946.
References
* Maurer, Maurer. Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Office of Air Force History, 1983.
Airfields & Seaplane Anchorages ChinaUSAFHRA Document Search - Yangkai
External links
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Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in China