From Hump Operation to Gold Evacuation - Chinese Gooney Bird

February 6, 1949, the 101st Transport Squadron was assigned an urgent withdrawal of gold stock from the Bank of China in Shanghai, that was the 4th of the 5 deliveries of the total 225 tons of gold reserve secretly evacuated from mainland within half year. During the 2 hours flight from Jiangwan airfield at Shanghai to Songshan airfield at Taipei, 27.7 tons of gold safely arrived Taiwan by this 9 ships formation, then all the badly-needed transports flew back to Shanghai. Right after the PLA consolidating their grip on Shanghai, an upset Mao was reported that nothing left in the empty BC building.

At the end of the upheavals of the 1945-50 Civil War which brought the Communist to power on mainland China, CAF's C-47s, along with C-46s, conducted personnel and material withdrawal to Taiwan, with their new headquarters at Jiayi AFB. Chinese Communist, after the mainland victory, turned to a policy of "bloodshed of Taiwan", and seized control of Quemoy, an islet off the coast of the mainland. The beginning of the operation (金廈戰役), was the bitter battle at Quemoy. CAF's C-47s and C-46s were fighting a nasty campaign of air supply to the Nationalist garrison on this islet. Although Communist concentrated their barrage on Quemoy's aerodrome and supply dumps, little damage was inflicted on shuttling Skytrains. Finally the defenders won the battle.

This blog section shows my Douglas DC-2, DC-3, C-47 Dakota, and Showa L2D3 charts: