page_title: Kunming
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Kunming / History / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: the Flying Tigers and P-40 Warhawk in Kunming Air Base 中文: 1944年9月1日，艾伦拉森随第35照相侦查中队从印度来到同盟国中华民国，他得知中队被派往第14航空队——由陈纳德将军领导的“飞虎队”。一抵达昆明空军基地，艾伦就和他的一位战友到飞机跑道上，站在P40战斗机旁相互拍照。
context_page_description: Kunming is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, People's Republic of China. Also known as Yunnan-Fu, today it is a prefecture-level city and the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquarters of many of Yunnan's large businesses are in Kunming. It was important during World War II as a Chinese military center, American air base, and transport terminus for the Burma Road. Located in the middle of the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, Kunming is located at an altitude of 1,900 metres above sea level and at a latitude just north of the Tropic of Cancer. As of 2014, Kunming has a population of 6,626,000 with an urban population of 4,575,000, and is located at the northern edge of Dian Lake, surrounded by temples and lake-and-limestone hill landscapes.
  Kunming consists of an old, previously walled city, a modern commercial district, residential zones and university areas. The city has an astronomical observatory, and its institutions of higher learning include Yunnan University, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming University of Science and Technology, and Kunming Medical University.
context_section_description: Kunming was transformed into a modern city as a result of the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 when the invading Japanese forces caused a great number of east-coast Chinese refugees, some of whom were wealthy, to flood into the southwest of China. They brought with them dismantled industrial plants, which were then re-erected beyond the range of Japanese bombers. In addition, a number of universities and institutes of higher education were evacuated there. The increased trade and expertise quickly established Kunming as an industrial and manufacturing base for the wartime government in Chongqing.
  As China's military forces and civilians retreated outside the reach of the Japanese military forces a year prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, Kunming became a new training hub for the battered but regrouped Chinese Air Force in which Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault took command of cadet training duties in the summer of 1938. During the Second World War the city of Kunming was prepared as a National Redoubt in case the temporary capital in Chongqing fell, an elaborate system of caves to serve as offices, barracks and factories was prepared but never utilised. Kunming was to have served again in this role during the ensuing Chinese Civil War, but the Nationalist garrison switched sides and joined the Communists. Instead Taiwan would become the last redoubt and home of the Chinese Nationalist government, a role it fulfills to this day.
  When the Japanese occupied French Indochina in 1940, the links between Kunming and the west grew increasingly vital as Allied forces provided essential support by importing materials from Burma. By this time, Kunming acted as an Allied military command center, which grouped the Chinese, American, British and French forces together for operations in Southeast Asia. The Office of Strategic Services' Service Unit Detachment 101 (predecessor to the 1st Special Forces Group) was also headquartered in Kunming and whose mission was to divert and disrupt Japanese combat operations in Burma.
  Later in the war, Kunming was targeted by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force during its bombing campaigns, and when the Burma Road was lost to the Japanese, the 1st American Volunteer Group, known as the "Flying Tigers", used Kunming as a base in 1941 and 1942 to fly in supplies over the Himalayas from British bases in India in defiance of Japanese assaults. They also were tasked with defending China's lifeline to the outside world, the Burma Road and the Ledo Road, which had Kunming as a northern terminus.
  Industry became important in Kunming during World War II. The large state-owned Central Machine Works was transferred there from Hunan, while the manufacture of electrical products, copper, cement, steel, paper, and textiles expanded.
caption: The Flying Tigers and P-40 Warhawk in Kunming Air Base, 1944
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