They had established an air supply route, known as the Hump, over the Himalayas to Kunming in the Chinese province of Yunnan.

Britain pointed the way towards developing long-range strategic air supply routes from North America to the UK and onward to bases in the Middle East.

The U.S. sent a mission to Lhasa led by Captain Ilya Tolstoy to study the possibility of an air supply route crossing Tibetan territory.

It had been cut off when Japanese invaded Burma in 1942, leaving available only the air supply route over "The Hump", from Assam, India, over the eastern end of the Himalayas.

With Allied navies dominating the sea lanes, a vast air supply route was organized between Tunisia and Sicily, I./JG 53 being one of the units organizing escort for the slow transport Junkers Ju-52 aircraft.

The airfield was a primary transport base on the Chinese side of "the Hump" air supply route over the Himalayan Mountains, which was used by Air Transport Command for the transhipment of supplies from airfields in the Assam Valley of India.