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 the units of the United States Army Air Forces based in China. Creating an airlift presented the USAAF a considerable challenge in 1942: it had no units trained or equipped for moving cargo, and no airfields existed in India for basing the large number of transports that would be required. Flying over the Himalayas was extremely dangerous and made more difficult by a lack of reliable charts, an absence of radio navigation aids, and a dearth of information about the weather.
The task was initially given to the U.S. Tenth Air Force, and then to the USAAF's Air Transport Command (ATC). Because the USAAF had no previous airlift experience upon which to base planning, it assigned commanders to build and direct the operation who had been key figures in the founding of the ATC. In addition, another commander had extensive executive experience with civilian air carriers.
The successive organizations responsible for carrying out the mission (originally referred to as the "India-China Ferry") were: the Assam-Burma-China Command (April–July 1942) and the India-China Ferry Command (July–December 1942) of the Tenth Air Force; and the Air Transport Command's India-China Wing (December 1942-June 1944), and India-China Division (July 1944-November 1945).
The airlift began in April 1942, after the Japanese blocked the Burma Road, and continued on a daily basis from May 1942 to August 1945, when the effort began to scale down. Final operations were flown in November 1945. The Hump airlift delivered approximately 650,000 tons of materiel to China during its 42-month history. For its efforts and sacrifices, the India-China Wing of the ATC was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation on January 29, 1944, at the personal direction of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first such award made to a non-combat organization.
Read more about The Hump: Background: The China Supply Dilemma, Operations On The Low Hump and In China, Statistical Summary of Operations, Notable Hump Airlift Participants