Dudhkundi Airfield

Dudhkundi Airfield
Dudhkundi Airfield
Part of Twentieth Air Force; Tenth Air Force
West Bengal, India
	Dudhkundi Airfield Dudhkundi Airfield
Coordinates	22°19′21.16″N 087°06′33.62″E / 22.3225444°N 87.1093389°E
Type	Military airfield
Site information
Condition	Abandoned
Site history
Built	1942
In use	1942-1945
Battles/wars	World War II

678th Bomb Squadron 44-70108 "Sweet Thing". Notice the black paint applied to the under surface of the aircraft. This was applied to reduce reflection of Japanese searchlights when flying low-level night incendiary missions.

Dudhkundi Airfield is an abandoned airfield in India, located 12 miles (19.2 km) SE of Jhargram, in the Jhargram district in the Indian state of West Bengal.

History

During

444th Bombardment Group prior to its deployment to the Mariana Islands

.

Dudhkundi was originally designed for

B-29 Superfortress Base for the planned deployment of the United States Army Air Forces XX Bomber Command

to India. Advance Army Air Forces echelons arrived in India in December 1943 to organize the upgrading of the airfield and thousands of Indians labored to upgrade the facility for Superfortress operations. It was one of four B-29 bases established by the Americans in India.

Finally ready for use in July 1944, the

Chendu in south-central China

.

However, all the supplies of fuel, bombs, and spares needed to support operations from Kwanghan had to be flown 1,200 miles from India over "

Himalayan Mountains

), since Japanese control of the seas around the Chinese coast made seaborne supply of China impossible. Many of the supplies had to be delivered to China by the B-29s themselves. For this role, they were stripped of nearly all combat equipment and used as flying tankers and each carried seven tons of fuel for the six-hour (one-way) flight, which itself was almost at the limit of the B-29's range. The Hump route was so dangerous and difficult that each time a B-29 flew from India to China it was counted as a combat mission. It took six round-trip flights by each Superfortress to Kwanghan in order to mount one combat mission from the forward base.

Missions of the 444th flown from Dudhkundi included attacking transportation centers, naval installations, aircraft plants, and other targets in

Formosa

.

On the night August 10–11, 56 B-29s staged through British air bases in

Distinguished Unit Citation

for the mission.

In September 1944, the 679th Bomb Squadron was inactivated in order to streamline the group's organization. This left the 444th with three squadrons of ten B-29s each.

The 444th evacuated staging fields in China in January 1945 due to the Japanese offensive in South China which threatened the forward staging bases, but continued operations from India, bombing targets in Thailand and mining waters around Singapore. However, by late 1944 it was becoming apparent that B-29 operations against Japan staged out of the bases in Chengtu were far too expensive in men and materials and would have to be stopped. In December 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the decision that Operation Matterhorn would be phased out, and the B-29s would be moved to newly captured bases in the Marianas in the central Pacific.

On 1 March 1945, the 444th Bombardment Group flew south to Ceylon, then southeast across the

58th Bombardment Wing came under the command of the new XXI Bomber Command

.

With the departure of the B-29s to the Marianas, Dudhkundi Airfield was turned over to the Tenth Air Force. The 87th Air Depot Group took over command of the airfield, and the mission of the base was to be a maintenance and disposition center for surplus Allied aircraft.

The

P-40 Warhawk

(B-40) being withdrawn from combat. The 80th returned to the United States in October 1945, leaving its aircraft and equipment at the airfield.

With its departure, the

7th Bombardment Group

moved to Dudhkundi. It remained at the airfield, also leaving its aircraft and equipment in India and sending its personnel back to the United States. It was inactivated as a paper unit in January 1946.

With the last Americans leaving in early 1946, the airfield was turned over to the British colonial government.

Prior to

United States Army Air Force to build an Airfield. The postwar history of the airfield is unclear, however today it is long abandoned. No structures remain, however traces of runways and taxiways can be viewed from the air. Airfield has been converted into an air-to-ground firing range to Kalaikunda Air Force Station

. Some small villages appear to have taken over the former billeting areas.

References

This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency

Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History.
ISBN 0-89201-092-4
.

444th Bomb Group Website

History

See also

References