Like Rodney Dangerfield, military airlift never gets any respect. Yet, it is the cargo planes and their crews that are often the first to respond in the event of a crisis. From George Kenney's use of troop transport in the Southwest Pacific, to the "Hump" operation over the Himalayas, the Berlin airlift, reinforcement of Khe Sanh, resupply of Israel in 1973, and the dropping of food packages in Bosnia, airlift has been a prime factor in American foreign policy. The father of airlift was William H. Tunner, and his autobiography, Over the Hump (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1964) is an excellent chronicle of this important airpower function.
Tunner begins by describing how in 1929 he was told to fly a Fokker trimotor from San Diego to Sacramento. He had never flown that type of plane before, had never seen an operator's manual, had no one available to explain the plane's systems or characteristics, had no weather forecasters around to brief him on the conditions en route, and had a Texaco road map as his only aeronautical chart. He made the flight without incident, but his cavalier attitude towards flying at the time-so well depicted by this anecdote-had a profound effect on Tunner and his subsequent career. He was a systematic, organized, and careful pilot.
During World War II, Tunner was chief of the Ferrying Division of Air Transport Command and performed so well he was selected in 1944 to take charge of the Hump airlift over the Himalayas. Although his goal was efficiency, one of his prime concerns was safety: the units he was supplying wanted their planes and equipment in one piece and in good working order. The feats performed by the C46s and C54s flying supplies into China are the stuff of legend. After cutting his teeth over the Himalayas, Tunner was the obvious choice to direct the operation of the Berlin airlift in 1948-49. Upon arriving in Germany, he found wellmeaning, hardworking, and dedicated individuals who were totally disorganized, knew little or nothing about major airlift operations, and were thus quite ineffective. He immediately brought order, installing flight schedules, precomputed flight plans, rigid air traffic control procedures, centralized weather briefings, statistical analyses to determine bottlenecks and problem areas, and strict guidelines for crews' flying times and rest schedules. The results were dramatic: tonnage rates soared and accident rates dropped. Tunner repeated such performances during the Korean War, and by the time of his retirement in 1960 as a lieutenant general, he had put the Military Air Transport Service (now Air Mobility Command) on a firm professional footing. One of his basic tenets was that airlift was different. Efficiency and safety were the keys to success, not risk taking and rugged individualism. Tunner's description of the challenges he faced in these operations and his method of dealing with them is insightful, to the point, and extremely interesting. Airlift is an often forgotten tool of peaceful airpower diplomacy, and he demonstrates this well. Missing from this account is evidence of the legendary temper Tunner was reported to have had. Nonetheless, this is an excellent book.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the US Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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