Curtiss C-46D Commando

This aircraft has 35 camels on its side designating 35 missions over the Hump*. It served with the Air Force Reserve after World War II, and finally served in Japan both with the U.S. and Japanese armed forces. It was flown back to the U.S. in 1970 and later was donated to the Museum in 1983.



*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 needed. 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. : Wikipedia