J Lippard Sylhet and Imphal

Sylhet was really a small village near the airfield, which few of us ever visited. The field had been built and used by the British before our arrival. All the building on the base including our living quarters were constructed of bamboo with thatch roofs and floors. This was monsoon season and it rained almost constantly and we were told that a nearby weather station had just recorded over four hundred (400) inches of rain in a recent year. It seemed that most natives were living on floating rafts. The weather restricted our vision but not enough to keep us from flying. Our most troubling concern was water condensing in the fuel systems which stopped an engine once it reached the carburetor. It go so bad that after taxiing to the end of runway before take-off we were required to stop and empty the fuel bowl. This was not always satisfactory because, even then we would occasionally lose an engine due to the condensed water.

During this rainy season shortly after arriving at the base, I was one of a group of two complete crews being ferried to another field to pick up two of our planes that had been modified for us. Just before leaving the ground on the take-off run the plane lost an engine. The field was too short for us to stop on the runway and our ground speed was too slow to attempt take-off, so the pilots retracted the wheels and we stopped in a rice paddy after going over a couple of water dikes. None aboard were injured on this the first of many planes we would be losing before our tour of duty was over.

(Ed. note-Several more planes were lost due to water in the fuel during the Monsoons No matter how diligently the crews worked to prevent this, the sheer amount of water was too much to cope with.) (Another phenomenon caused by the rain was the effect it had on the steel-mat runways. As the Plane started it's take-off roll, the weight and forward motion of the plane would cause the steel-mat to bunch up ahead of the wheels and act like a brake some times slowing the plane to the point where take-off had to be aborted, Edited by Herb Patton, 4th ComCar Sqd. R/O)

Lt. James F. Lippard (From original manuscript made available by James F. Lippards widow, Clara Lippard, which was written after his retirement.)

I am looking for former members of the 3rd Combat Cargo Group, 1st, Combat Cargo Group, 2nd Combat Cargo Group and the 4th Combat Cargo Group. In fact I would like to hear from anyone who flew over the Hump during WW II, or flew any Combat Cargo Missions at any time (Berlin Air-Lift, Korea, etc.)

Please e-mail comment, suggestions, corrections,etc to: bill@comcar.org

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