Figure 1.--Here we see one of the hundred thoudands of Chinese peasants put to work building B-29 bases. Many were children--virtully all of which were boys. A major task was breaking rocks open to create a gravel bed for the runways. The mazing aspect of this isthe chinese got the bassbuilt as fast as the Indianswho had havy equipment, concrete, and sasphalt.

The constrution of the ai bases in China was one of the most amazing construction projects of the War. Some 300,000 Chinese peasants were conscripted and 75,000 contract workers. 【 Romanus & Sunderland 1956, p. 115.】 Some estimates are as high as 500,000 pesants. 【Atkinson】 In India heavy equipment could be brought in by sea to help build the bases there. Concrete and asphat were avaiialble. None of this was availble in war-ravaged China. Heavy equioment could not be flown in over The Hump. But China had people, highly motivated to resist the Japanese. So what the Chinese did was to break up rocks, all done by hand, to create the basic bed of the runways. This was a huge, labor-intensive operation because of the length of the runways needed by the B-29s. Than clay and sand waspcked on top to create a smooth surface. You might think that all of this would take for ever, but because of the huge work force, the Chinese air strips were completed in about the same time as the Indian runways using heavy equipment. All of this was paid for by the United States. The United States paid China $210 million (equivalent to $2,900 million in 2023 dollars)--although this amount included payment for other works. 【Cate, p. 70.】 Unfortunately the workers were not paid directly to the workers and many did not get the pay promised or in some cases virtually nothing, creating enormouse reseentment. Therunways were fully functioal. The enginnering supervised by American specilists was sound, but thee was problem -- the amount of dust kicked up by not having concretee/asphlt paving. This severely hampered B-29 flight operations.

Sources

Atkinson, Brooks. "Hand labor built B-29 base in China; 300,000 to 500,000 peasants were conscripted for gigantic task on airfields local materials used pay was so low families had to help -- Profiteers caused big leap in prices," < New York Times> (June 17, 1944).

Cate, James. "The Twentieth Air Force and Matterhorn" in Wesley Frank Craven and James Cate, eds. The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945 The Army Air Forces in World War II. Vol. V. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 3–178.

Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland. (1959). Time Runs Out in CBI (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1959).

Created: 11:25 PM 6/26/2025
Last updated: 11:25 PM 6/26/2025