The Great Snafu Fleet

The 1st Combat Cargo Squadron, a.k.a., “The Great Snafu Fleet,” was organized in 1944 as part of the larger Air Commando project for delivering supplies by air to British and American forces in Burma using the Douglas C-47/Dakota. Initially in service there, they moved to China and spent 1945 delivering supplies and personnel for Maj Gen Claire Chennault’s 14th Air Force’s Flying Tigers and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) activities across China, often behind enemy lines.

The Second World War was a period of significant advances in aviation including transport, with almost real-time delivery of everything a modern army required, even by parachute where no ground transport existed. Just as importantly, where landing was possible, sick, injured & wounded troops could be rapidly evacuated for hospital treatment. Behind the glamorous and headline-grabbing American Flying Tigers and RAF Spitfires, American Combat Cargo and Troop Carrier squadrons flew side by side with RAF Transport squadrons, supplying British, Chinese and American forces pushing the Japanese out of Burma and China, forging a new way of war.