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

C O M M I T M E N T S TO C H I N A
carpenters, ditch diggers, and at whatever other tasks needed to be
done. There was work for all at Agra; and this, plus the evident
progress made, prevented development of morale problems com-
parable to those existing earlier at Karachi.79
T h e service command would serve both India and China. T o assist
in carrying out this large mission, the 59th Materiel Squadron (soon
redesignated 59th Service Squadron) was divided into small base units
to serve the needs of combat stations. T h e unit's headquarters was
located at Allahabad, selected as base for the heavy bombers, and
there, too, was stationed Base Unit Number One. Other base units
were assigned to Kunming, Agra, Dinjan and Chabua, Chakulia, and
Bangalore, the latter being the location of Hindustan Aircraft, Ltd.,
which was to be changed over by agreement with the British from a
manufacturing plant to a repair and overhaul depot for American-
made aircraft." During May additional personnel for the service com-
mand arrived and received assignments. On 2 3 May, Lt. Col. Daniel
F. Callahan was made chief, maintenance and repair division, and the
following day Col. Robert C. Oliver reported to become chief of
staff to General Adler, Hood taking the assignment as chief, supply
division. No headquarters and headquarters squadron was created,
personnel normally constituting such an organization being assigned
to the Tenth Air Force and detailed to duty with the service
By late June, Adler's infant command was beginning to function in
the routine fields of receipt, storage and issue, distribution, mainte-
nance, repair, overhaul, and salvage. Other duties requiring attention
were local procurement, manufacture of certain items, and various
responsibilities in connection with maintenance and repair work,
which by that time had begun at the Hindustan plant at Bangalore. T h e
command suffered with other organizations the common difficulties
of the theater a t this time-poor communications, shortage of motor
vehicles, dependence upon unskilled or semiskilled native labor, and
always the weather.82
T h e combat force of the Tenth proper was still limited to a hand-
ful of heavy bombers, some of them badly worn. Its combat opera-
tions continued, therefore, on the scale set by its earlier missions to
Burma. Turning on 2 5 May from its effort to assure the neutralization
of Myitkyina airfield, it struck again that night with five B-17's at
targets in the Rangoon area. One of the planes was forced to turn
509