This commemorates the men who flew the Hump, the air route over the Himalayas in World War II's China-Burma-India theater. That air lane was approximately five hundred miles of unpredictable weather and treacherous winds stretching from India, over Burma, to supply the Allied Forces in China. From December 1942 to V-J day in 1945, some 721,700 tons of supplies were carried over the Himalayas in more than 150,000 individual missions. The air forces in the CBI were anything but an armada. The dependable C-47 was too small and too slow, so in came the C-46 Curtiss Commando. Although it would eventually become known as the transport that conquered the Hump, some of its initial nicknames were the Pregnant Whale, the Plumber's Nightmare, and, more ominously, the Flying Coffin, because it was easy prey for attacking enemy fighters. It eventually proved its worth, but the loss of life was significant. Thousands of men died and hundreds of aircraft were lost over the Hump and I did not want their accomplishments to be forgotten. They did their jobs with courage and skill, despite unbelievable odds. - CK