 In 1943, French Morocco, President Roosevelt arrived for the important Casablanca Conference. Prime Minister Churchill and the President were making far-reaching military decisions. With the combined chiefs of staff, they planned global operations. Generals Marshall and Arnold had to build up the United Kingdom base in the face of Nazi plans to infest the Atlantic with submarines. Remembering how their U-boats in 1917 had brought England to our knees, enemy leaders were proud of their 1943 plans for a network of sub-pens. Dr. Totes engineers now built them with 12-foot concrete tops to make the U-boat nest safe from the Allies' heaviest bombs. The enemy had launched a monstrous U-boat program. 300 by 1942, 900 by 1944. This was to be ruthless undersea warfare, masterminded by Admiral Carl Dunitz. Back in the United States, our new fighters like the P-47s were being shipped to England. Fighter aircraft had become so vital in the war against the Axis, they were given high priorities. Because of the submarine menace, Allied navies escorted all convoys. By torpedoing the freighters, the enemy tried to cut our lend-lease lifeline. Air subs roaming the North Atlantic in the first half of 1942 had sunk 506 Allied ships. Threatened was the security of Great Britain and our build-up for the air war in Europe. Victorious German submarines were organized in wolf packs. Confronted with this desperate emergency, the U.S. Navy called on the army air forces to assist them in the fight. Our long-range depth bomb-carrying B-24s were the answer. The ultimate workhorse of our counter-attack on the U-boats was the radar-equipped liberator. These land-based planes were matched against a sneaking killer, operated almost unimpeded along the vital shipping lanes. Plenty of good hunting, first for them, but after May 1943, for us. Most of us in the first bomber command and later in the 25 squadrons of the anti-submarine command patrolled wide areas ahead of the convoys. On the deck, we searched immense stretches of the Atlantic hunting for Nazi periscopes, whose crash-dialed bombs were clearing the North Atlantic of the Nazi U-boat threat. In those summer months of 1943, the anti-submarine command of the army air forces did a vital job. American fighter planes and badly needed supplies got through. But in the Far East, on another front, supplies were only trickling through. General Arnold and Allied Brass faced the fact that General Chinook's 14th Air Force had to be supplied. Some of his bomber operations had almost ceased. Following Casablanca decisions, Arnold ordered General Bissell, who helped the ATC India China Wing, increase the airlift over the Himalayas. We called it flying the hump. Later over Calcutta, India, we got an idea of how much our sky wagons were slated to carry. There was plenty, tons of food and medicine, tons of gasoline and bombs, shiploads of them every day. Even this was only a fraction of what would come. First, while still created, supplies moved over land by train due north about 800 miles. This was the slow part of the long journey. Then near the border of Tibet, our supplies were parceled out to several airfields, like Chabwa, largest of the hump terminals. Here too, although there was plenty of manpower, the transfer methods were primitive. Until more ordnance equipment arrived, the natives helped fight the war with their bare hands. Some of these bombs weighed half a ton. Over a year of operation by the 10th Air Force, we had grown from a squadron of 10 borrowed transports to a fleet of 140 high-altitude C-46s and 47s. By 1943, hump commander General Edward Alexander began to set records for troops, supplies and equipment being lifted over the hump. Stretching before us were 500 miles of rough duty. Before it was over, the treacherous hump had cost us 250 transports, 250 cargoes, and 800 airmen. A high price to pay for the privilege to fly over the highest mountains in the world flew continuously, some of the time through Jap fighters and treacherous weather. The clouds made pretty pictures, but at 20,000 feet they could mean ice and death. No emergency landing fields among saw-toothed five-mile-high peaks for us aerial truck drivers. Flying without fighter cover, it was always good to hear we were on the beam and minutes from landing had come in China. In December of 1943, the India-China wing carried slightly over 6,000 tons. Before the war's end, ATC had airlifted more than one million tons of supplies and one million troops over the hump. With the help of Army Airways' communication system, flights eventually averaged one plane every minute and a half. Peak airlift was reached in July 1945, 71,000 tons in one month, including a fleet of jeeps. Every four tons of gasoline delivered used three and a half tons to get them there. Despite the hazards and hardships, despite the costs, the Army Air Forces had conquered the hump. In the dismal and dreary Aleutian islands off Alaska, it was a different sort of war. Around us was the deep, spongy tundra of dead grass and muck. Over us, fog, sleet and rain for days on end. In spite of it, our 11th Air Force under General Bruce Butler not only protected Alaska from Jap advance, but also struck offensive blows at the enemy. We had a single fighter group of 100 planes, including P-38s. Our force was built around a handful of pilots experienced in Alaskan flying. Colonel Jack Chinalt, son of the 14th Air Force Commander, led a fighter squadron. Our strength at this time for the entire Alaska Aleutian area was only 226 operational planes, but was with us. On 8 April, the weather cleared and we set out to crush the Nip Thrust at Atu, most distant of the island chain. We also helped the box in Kiska, the second enemy held island, forcing the Japanese to withdraw. But it feels we waded into the enemy, guarding the northern approach to America. In the Pacific, the word went out. General Nathan Twining and his crew were lost on a routine flight. We set up everything that could fly, but the South Pacific had thousands of miles of ocean. Chances of finding the commanding general of the 13th Air Force were slim. Then on the morning of January 31st, five days and six nights after ditching, two rubber rafts were sighted. Now the question was, how many had survived exposure in the Coral Sea? The search plane radioed the base. Immediately, two Navy Catalina flying boats were ordered out to make contact with the search planes, which directed them to the rafts. After being fished out of the drain, the survivors were rushed back to the nearest base where medical aid awaited them. Although cramped for 130 hours in the small rafts with very little food and hardly any water, their morale stayed high, thanks to General Twining. All 15 aboard the Lost B-17 had survived a rugged experience. Twining and his crew were part of a small army of men whose lives had been saved by the Air Sea Rescue Services of the Army and Navy. General Twining rejoined our theater commander, General Millard Harmon, in planning new operations up the Solomon Island chain. We had fresh B-24s, and in July we were able to launch our 37-day campaign to Jap-held Munda Field on New Georgia Island. Some of us had taken off from hard-won Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, which American men had bought and paid for with their lives. The blow we were about to deliver to Munda we hoped would make their sacrifices worthwhile. We were finally nearing the island. As soon as we made our approaches to Munda, jungle-hopping medium bombers went after the Jap-beared Droman and its defenses. 171 aircraft dropped 145 tons of bombs in a half hour. It was the heaviest air bombardment yet cooked up in the South Pacific in one day. By the time resistance had ended, the enemy had lost 350 aircraft. In only nine days, the Allies rushed the strip into operating condition. P-40s were the first to land, followed by heavy bombers which could easily be carried on the coral runways. Warhawks helped protect the bases. We rapidly built it into a key for the Solomon Islands. In a few weeks, traffic exceeded that of any field in the South Pacific, reaching the peak of 564 aircraft in one day. The Munda campaign had shown the success of a new tactic, bypassing heavily defended enemy points and gaining air superiority behind them. General MacArthur described the island-hopping campaign as a series of battles for airfields. In the South Pacific, as elsewhere in all global operations, the Allies had proved the might of air power. Air power had helped clear submarines from the Atlantic. Air power had conquered the hump. Air power had made Pacific island-hopping possible. Later chapters will show these daring tactics applied to smashing the axis itself as more men and weapons were added to the mighty arsenal of the United States Air Force.