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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 2187.PDF
DECEMBER 25TH, 1947 FLIGHT 707 Top : At Multan, as a Dakota captain taxies in, he can see the - waiting refugees on the airfield, some of whom are already queueing up to board the Siher City Wayfarer. Left : Dakotas lined up at Palam awaiting early morning instructions, bottom : Refugees packed into a stripped Dakota. Operational Side of the Greatest Air Evacuation : B.O.A.C. and Seven Charter Companies Operate Success- fully under Field Conditions THE recent transfer by air of refugees into and out ofIndia passed almost unnoticed. It was the largestair evacuation that has ever been attempted, and the success of the operation was acknowledged officially by ' Lord Mountbatten, and by both Mr. Nehru and Mr. Jinnah. 41,500 passengers were carried between October 20th and November 30th. Technically also, the operation was highly successful. The Governments of India and Pakistan required officials and key men in the transport organizations to be transferred from one Dominion into the other in order to reorganize surface transport and so ease the bottlenecks of mass evacuation. Since communications were almost at a stand- still, the Governments requested B.O.A.C. to transport by air, officials and their families from outlying districts in Pakistan, into India and in the opposite direction. Air Commodore H. G. Brackley undertook the organiza- tion, and the Corporation placed at his disposal six Dakotas. Charter companies were asked to co-operate, with the result that twenty Dakotas and one Wayfarer were made avail- able. Scottish Aviation provided six, Westminster Airwaystwo, Air Contractors two, Air Transport (Charter) (C.I.) two, Sivewright one, Kearsley Airways one, and Silver CityAirways one Wayfarer. All the charter companies were expected to be as self-supporting as possible and no servic-ing details were to be left to chance, since it was known that facilities would be "meagre. All B.O.A.C. staging posts on the route to India werewarned to assist aircraft in making a quick transit flight. At Palam (Delhi), which was to be the forward base, therewere scarcely any facilities for maintenance, messing or flying control. The arrangement with the Government ofIndia was that each day the Controller of Operations would state how many aircraft were available, and the Govern-ment would then direct to which district the aircraft should fly to pick up passengers. Organization and direction ofthe passengers was therefore to be the responsibility of the Government. The twenty-one aircraft carried from England 170 air and ground crew, and the first vital problem was to organize
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