Hailakandi Airfield

The airfield was the home of the 1st Air Commando Group, being formed at the base in March 1944. The unit was a United States Army Air Forces group of fighters, bombers, transports, military gliders and small planes operating in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II. They were part of the U.S. Tenth Air Force providing close air support for the British Fourteenth Army in the Burma Campaign.

The Air Commando Groups was born out of a simple need. That need was to support via light airplanes the evacuation and resupply requirements of British Long Range Patrol (LRP) groups, or Chindits, as they were affectionately called. Carrying the lethal firepower of both bombers and fighters combined with the logistical tentacles of a gamut of transports, gliders, and light aircraft, this organization would reach deep behind enemy lines to do battle.

Once formed, the unit moved Asansol Airfield on 20 May 1944 and the airfield was used for non-combat operations for the remainder of the war.

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.