Panda Girl: China-India-Burma

In 1941, Victor Dance knew little of the world outside his family's dryland farm in Montana until he joined the Army Air Corps. A world at war took a farm boy and turned him into the Aircraft Commander of a heavy bomber. This story is based on true life events recorded by airmen and the girls, real and imagined, who gave them hope and the desire to survive. No more than boys of eighteen to twenty-five years of age flew massive machines on dangerous missions against impossible odds over unforgiving territory against a brutal enemy.

Romance was not left at home. An intricate part of a soldier's life in dreams, memories and the occasional encounter, female allure surfaced in many ways. The author deftly intertwines the mundane life of Army Bases in remote far-off India with frightening times flying bombing runs deep into Japanese-held Burma, trips over the terrifying Himilayan Mountains hauling fuel into China, and the girls who flew with them.

The CBI (China, Burma, India) Theater of WWII received little recognition during World War II. War with the Nazis in Germany and the Japanese in the Pacific was well known. Not only had Japan declared war on America but it had an ongoing effort to conquer China as well. The United States and its Allies vowed to stop them from overrunning China.

Japan’s assault on China came on the continent’s eastern coast as well as from Burma to the south. As the Japanese pushed north toward China’s southern border, US and Allied forces struggled to hold them back. Supplies for the Allies were shipped in from northern India by truck and rail. Eventually, the Japanese cut off those supply lines which set off one of the greatest airlifts in history. Supplies, men, and fuel had to be transported by air over the highest and most dangerous mountains in the world, the Himalayas.

The China Airlift became known as “The Hump” to those brave aviators who risked their lives to cross it. More than seven hundred aircraft crashed or were shot down, and over twelve hundred airmen died. Allied and civilian passengers also died. This story is a tribute to those young men and women, and to those who lived to tell the tale.