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Dudhkundi Airfield.png) .png) | |
|---|---|
| Part of Twentieth Air Force Tenth Air Force | |
| West Bengal, India | |
| Site information | |
| Type | Military airfield |
| Condition | Abandoned |
| Location | |
  Dudhkundi Airfield  Dudhkundi Airfield | |
| Coordinates | 22°19′21.16″N087°06′33.62″E / 22.3225444°N 87.1093389°E /22.3225444; 87.1093389 |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1942 |
| In use | 1942-1945 |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Dudhkundi Airfield is an abandoned airfield inIndia, located 12 miles (19.2 km) SE ofJhargram, in theJhargram district in the Indian state ofWest Bengal.
DuringWorld War II, the airfield hosted theUnited States Army Air Force444th Bombardment Group prior to its deployment to theMariana Islands.
Dudhkundi was originally designed forB-24 Liberator use. In 1943 it was designated as aB-29 Superfortress Base for the planned deployment of theUnited States Army Air ForcesXX 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, the444th Bombardment Group moved to Dudhkundi fromCharra Airfield. The 444th was part of theOperation Matterhorn project of XX Bomber Command, the bombing of theJapanese Home Islands. In order to reach Japan, the B-29s of the group needed to stage operations fromKwanghan Airfield (A-3), a forward base just to the southwest ofChendu in south-centralChina.
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 "The Hump" (the name given by Allied pilots to the eastern end of theHimalayan 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 inBurma,China,Thailand,Japan, andFormosa.
On the night August 10–11, 56 B-29s staged through British air bases inCeylon (now known is Sri Lanka) attacked the Plajdoe oil storage facilities atPalembang onSumatra in present-day Indonesia. This involved a 4030-mile, 19-hour mission from Ceylon to Sumatra, the longest American air raid of the war. The 444th conducted a daylight raid against iron and steel works atYawata, Japan, in August 1944, being awarded aDistinguished 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 inThailand and mining waters aroundSingapore. 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 theIndian Ocean toPerth inWestern Australia. Flying north throughNew Guinea, it reached its new home atWest Field,Tinian, in theMariana Islands on 7 April where it and its parent58th Bombardment Wing came under the command of the newXXI Bomber Command.
With the departure of the B-29s to the Marianas, Dudhkundi Airfield was turned over to theTenth 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.
The80th Fighter Group moved in on 24 May from its primitive base atMyitkyina,Burma, with a mixture ofP-38 Lightnings,A-36 Apaches and dive-bomber modifiedP-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, theB-24 Liberator equipped7th 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 toWorld War II,Dudhkundi was a forest belonging to the king ofJhargram who rendered it to theUnited 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 toKalaikunda Air Force Station. Some small villages appear to have taken over the former billeting areas.
This article incorporatespublic domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency
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