The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

C O M M I T M E N T S T O C H I N A
Similarly, misunderstanding developed regarding the movement of
P-40's for the 23d Group. In the absence of exact information as to
the rate of their progress across Africa, the W a r Department was in-
clined to assume that unreported planes had reached India, when
many were stopped along the way, some of them wrecked beyond
repair and others requiring a major overhaul before they could con-
tinue. Even when a plane had arrived at Karachi, its engine was
probably burned out and would have to be replaced-at a time when
aircraft engines were almost as scarce as the aircraft themselves.27
Exact figures for this early period are virtually impossible to estab-
lish. But the whole story can be put in a capsule: in June, General
Brereton left for the Middle East with virtually the entire striking
force of the Tenth; in so doing, he took out the approximate equiva-
lent of the tiny force of which he had assumed command four months
before; and in the interval it had been possible to conduct operations
only on the most meager scale.
In March, the impending loss of all Burma and the threat to India
itself had resulted in the selection of Karachi as a port of entry and
a center for the preparation of incoming organizations. Located on
the western side of India, it was free, for the moment at least, from
the threat of enemy interference and was advantageously situated
with reference to air and water routes upon which operations in the
CBI would be chiefly dependent. T o General Brady was assigned the
responsibility for establishing there a reception, classification, and
training center that eventually, together with the installations of the
Air Transport Command, became one of the major centers of AAF
activity in the East.* 2 8 Brig. Gen. Raymond Wheeler, of the Services
of Supply, came there from Iran to undertake, while preparing plans
for theater supply, improvement in the docking and storage facilities
of a port hitherto not fully de~eloped.'~Meanwhile, the several hun-
dred AAF personnel who had recently arrived from Australia gave
their attention to the completion of a partially prepared British en-
campment for their own occupancy and to the inauguration of a
training program. There was plenty to do, but morale inevitably
reached an unusually low ebb. A thousand miles from the battle in
Burma, their handful of planes was held in anticipation of enemy
moves which might include attacks on the western ports of India;
yet there were not enough aircraft even for training. Pilots and crews
* See above, pp. 333, 340.
495