Assam Trucking Company: Air Transport Command, Birth of AMC

Birth of the AMC, Air Mobility CommandAir Mobility Command was born out of the Air Transport Command or ATC, affectionately known as the Assam Trucking Company. This book explores the birth of U. S. military airlift capability through the role of the ATC in China-Burma-India, 1942-45. It is the story of "sky-born, long-haul trucking" over the lower spines of the Himalaya Mountains and dense Burmese jungles into primitive Chinese airfields behind enemy lines and the men who flew slow-moving, un-escorted, heavily-loaded transports over one of the most dangerous air routes in the world. Never in history had such an undertaking been conceived let alone attempted.Assam Trucking Company tells the amazing story of how this airlift with no template as a reference literally "got off the ground," and became an effective model for tactical airlift of logistical supply that today is the Air Mobility Command, AMC.B. F. Bates is one of the few with a link to the actual first hand accounts.Flying the HumpIt was called "flying the hump." The pilots of the ATC did it every day from extreme altitudes required to clear the Hymalayas, ice, heavy thunderstorms, strong winds and fog, to the long stretches of impenetrable tropic jungles. Bates looks at the actual records revealing the many aircrafts and crews which were lost in accomplishing this crucial victory of WW2.Every man interviewed for this record said the same thing. They were there to keep the Japanese from joining with the Germans and Italians to achieve world domination. The American soldiers of ATC were an important piece of saving the world.Lasting Impact of the ATCGeneral Tunner, who as a Major in 1942 had been involved in the planning effort for the world-wide mission of Air Transport Command, took what he had learned and honed during the Hump operations and applied them to the Berlin Airlift.The U.S. Air Force became its own military organization in 1947. ATC was redesignated as the Military Air Transport Services (MATS) and was given these responsibilities: airlift/ferrying operations, air communications, air weather service, aeromedical evacuation, photomapping and audio-visual services, air-sea rescue and recovery worldwide.Combat Cargo and Troop Carrier were reorganized under Tactical Airlift Command. "Today's Air Force owes (much) to the legacy of men and women (ATC) who made great sacrifice and accomplished a herculean effort. ... Without the lessons learned from this endeavor, the Berlin Airlift may