The Nuclear connection : Midnapur and Hiroshima

If there is a place whose values were completely forgotten or perhaps I say have been ignored , this could be this air bases , build at the time of World War II. And how many of us leaving in Midnapur are aware of that ?


Lets visit the history once again .


There are 4 little known or even forgotten airbases in Midnapur , one is obviously the kolaikunda which is still in operation . And there are some abandoned air bases in this part of the world , that holds links to the atomic attack on Japan .


This air fields are in pierdoba on the border of Bankura and west Midnapur , Duduhkundi near Jhargram in west Midnapur , Charra in Purulia ,Salboni in midnapur .


The airbases were built during the times of world war II , the primary reason was to thwart the Japanese invasion in Burma . But then story was different at that time, almost whole of the world was some how intricately related to the great political game of the war .And as Indian should not hope to be isolated from that . Do we?


The Japanese was forcing in from south east , and supported the by the Indian National Army , the south china sea was under Japanese occupation and any relief and rescue to china (where the Chang kai Shek government was fighting against the Mao-Tse Tung lead communist party ) through the sea route was impossible .


Some brisk pace construction took place at that time in this part of the world. the Ledo road which connected erstwhile Assam and china was constructed ,which was one of the most expensive road of the world at that time , and not to say about these airfields which were initially planned to host the American B-24 Liberator aircrafts , was upgraded to host the B-29 Superfortress planes in rapid pace.


How the planes came to this part of the world is also an interesting story. The Boing made B-29 Superfortress were huge aircrafts compared to its contemporaries .With 4 engines and electronic fire control installed in them, they were used to carry bulk loads, drop bombs and fire from the 4 automatic machine gun turrets . Due to the B-29's highly advanced design for its time, unlike many other World War II-era bombers, the Superfortress remained in service long after the war ended, with a few even being employed as flying television transmitters. But owing to the huge size and technologies at that time the range of the operation was limited to only about 3200kms. So crossing the Pacific wasn’t feasible .But also make sure there was no hush hush about the atomic attack on japan in early 1940’s .


The planes main target was to attack Germany from Egypt and keep the supply lines open in the 4 forward bases in china from India. So the planes flew off from Kansas,USA to Brazil through the Caribbean sea, crossed the narrowest point of Atlantic to west Africa , and then to morocco, assembled and then flew to Charra in purulia ,enroute Egypt, Iran and Pakistan .


Under operation Matterhorn, 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 (the eastern Himalayan barrier as was known to pilots that time )was so dangerous and difficult that each time a B-29 flew from India to China it was counted as a combat mission.


By the end of 1944 japan became aggressive and how can USA forget the Pearl Harbor attack. The best possible way for them was to capture a tiny island in pacific called the Mariyana islands . it was accessible from china and Tokiyo was with in range of the B-29’s , just 1500 miles away.!!! USA capture the island in june and runway construction for the supper fortress B-29 began even before the Army secured the island perimeters. And then the B-29s which completed the whole circle from USA to southAmerica to Africa to Middle East to Midnapur to China and Mariana Islands were remodeled as the Silverplate versions which carried the Nuclear bomb from Mariana island and dropped on Hirosima and Nagaski on 1945.


Phew !!


A few old Snaps























The B-29 Superfortress crossing the Hump on the way to China










Do visit the Below links , This one got nice collections of the news of air raids conducted from these air stations in various south-east Asian targets including Burma , Singapore and Japan .

And during our training days we actually got to see on e of those airstrips at salboni ..  History revisited !!

Sources:


http://www.midnapore.in/arifield/super-fort-13th-april-1945.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan

http://www.midnapore.in/arifield/index.html

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/V/AAF-V-3.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/509th_Composite_Group