Page 3 - DFCS NEWS MAGAZINE 2018-2

Flying the Hump with Mel Hodell (Cont’d.)
The First Strategic Airlift
Air Force records indicate that 348 planes were lost with 1,314 crew members killed, another 1,171 survived and were able to “walk out”, and 345 missing.
Mel Hodell recalls his time flying the hump. “We were the first major Air Corps air transport. We set the mark for the Berlin Airlift and the development of air transport in the years to come.
We flew over mountains and jungles with maps with white spaces that had not even been charted yet.
When Hump pilots encountered a thunderstorm or heavy weather, they flew right through it, on course, unable to climb to higher altitudes. One time in a thunderstorm, we were struck by lightning. The bolt hit the right side of the plane and shot over my right shoulder to the radio operator’s board, and when I looked around everything was sparking all over. The lightning shut down our electrical systems and we proceeded to fly without any contact. When we landed there was a big black spot where the lightning bolt had hit the plane.
Since our mission was to supply the Chinese, our return trips were flown with minimum fuel. When storms were severe and icing occurred, we used up
US Army Air Corps 1st Lt. Mel Hodell.
our gasoline rapidly to keep the engines running. Once in heavy weather and fog, I landed at my home base by looking out the tiny side window, and as we rolled down the runway the engines died for lack of fuel.
The 55-gallon drums of high-octane gasoline we carried had come across India in tropical heat, rusted and dented, so when they reached a high elevation, they sprang leaks with gasoline running on the floor of the airplane. We had to walk back to find the leaking barrel while carrying our oxygen bottles, in a thunderstorm with the plane pitching every which way, until the leaking barrel was found, then we would open the cargo door and toss the heavy barrel out. It was dangerous, and we expected to go out with the barrel if the plane pitched the wrong way. There were so many “almost bailed out times” that psychologically we began to wish it would happen, as it did to others, just to get it over with.
Once in a heavy thunderstorm, icing was bad, and we could not maintain altitude. We knew we were in an area where the mountains were higher than the plane. I was flying as co-pilot and the pilot ordered the radio operator and me to bail out. We went to the cargo door but could not get it open because the plane was enclosed in ice. So we went back to the cockpit and kept flying, trying to keep the engines running and trying to gain altitude. The ice coming off the props hit the side of the plane like machine guns. Why we didn’t crash, I will never know.”
There was a Theatre-wide policy at the time that those crew members who survived 250 hours flying the Hump received an Air medal and those who reached the magical number of 500 hours were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
“The Hump truly was a place where the DFC was awarded for combat; flights of extraordinary achievement,” Mel recalls. “If you achieved those numbers you were awarded the medals you rightly deserved.”
Congratulations to DFCS member Mel Hodell for the long overdue and most deserving award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. Thanks to him and all the “Hump” crews past and present for their outstanding and courageous service in the face of unbelievable challenges flying “the most dangerous route in the world”.
WINTER 2018 / DFCS News Magazine / 3