On October 17 –19, 2002, the SAAHF participated with the Chinese State Council Information Office, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington D. C. and the Yunan People’s Government Information Office in an exhibition of Second World War photography, titled “The Memory of History,” at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. The opening ceremonies of this event featured a symposium that was presented by the China Foundation For International and Strategic Studies and the National Committee on United States-China Relations and featured American and Chinese veterans who spoke of there war-time experiences. The symposium was followed by wreath laying ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetery.
Immediately following the events in Washington D. C., The SAAHF, with several of its Founding Board members participated with the Chinese State Council Information Office and the Yunan People’s Government Information Office in the dedication of a Bronze Bust honoring American “Hump” Pilot James R. Fox, who lost his life while flying war-time supplies into China. The ceremony was held at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, at Texas A & M University. Both events were precursors to the Summit between President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the Bush family ranch in Crawford, Texas.
CNAC Hump Pilot,
James R. Fox, Jr.
March 16, 1916 - March 11, 1943 -
On the afternoon of March 11, 1943, a China National Aviation Corporation Douglas C-53 transport, flown by James R. Fox Jr., with Co-pilot L. Thom and Radio Operator K. Wong, violently crashed into a high snow covered mountain pass on the China - Burmese border. Once again, the demonic forces of nature that exist above the daunting Himalayan Mountains, had claimed another victim on what was known as the “Hump” air route --- China’s tenuous “wartime” lifeline.
Fox and his crew had been caught by what experienced mountain airmen refer to as a “mountain wave,” an ultra-violent downdraft of air that is created when a great invisible wave of air breaks across the top of a high mountain ridge, and like a great ocean wave breaking on shore, creates a inescapable rolling undertow of air.
By the conclusion of the Second World War, the “Hump” air route would account for the loss of more than 600 transport aircraft, and claim the lives of more than 1500 American and Chinese airmen, who courageously faced its constant perils.
Fellow Himalayan explorers, Mr. Yan Jiangzheng, Director of the China Association for Expedition and Mr. Fletcher Hanks, veteran “Hump” Pilot and official historian of the China National Aviation Corporation Association. In July 1997, Fletcher Hanks joined an expedition that was led by Mr. Yan Jiangzheng and the China Association for Expedition, that traveled to the remote crash site of James R. Fox’s lost C-53 transport on the China-Burmese (Myanmar) border. The crash site is located on an 11,000 foot mountain pass, that following the loss of Fox and his crew, became known to the men who flew the “Hump,” as “Fox’s Pass.”