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| Date: | Saturday 27 January 1940 |
| Time: | evening |
| Type: |  de Havilland DH.89A Dragon Rapide |
| Owner/operator: | China National Aviation Corporation |
| Registration: | 38 |
| MSN: | 6444 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0 |
| Other fatalities: | 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Sanhupa Airfield, Chungking -
 China
|
| Phase: | Standing |
| Nature: | Passenger |
| Departure airport: | Sanhupa Airfield, Chungking |
| Sanhupa Airfield, Chungking |
c/no.6444: CofA 6583 issued 11.5.39 to China National Aviation Corporation; delivered via Far East Flying Training School Ltd, Hong Kong; given number 38.
Burnt out in a fire in the Eurasia hangar at Sanhupa Airfield, Chungking 27.1.40 during air raid. As reported in an Australian newspaper (The Evening News (Rockhampton, Qld.) Tue 25 Jun 1940 Page 1):
JAP AIR RAID ON CHUNGKING
Anglo-French Consulates Demolished
NEW YORK, Monday.
A Chungking message says that four direct hits from a fleet of 126 bombers demolished the British and
French Consulates, killing six Chinese in the French Consulate.
HONG KONG, Monday
The French and British Consulates were completely demolished. All the foreigners escaped, reaching the dug
outs a few seconds to spare, but six Chinese coolies were killed".
Because it was built on a Yangtze sandbar, all the buildings on the island were temporary, so they could be moved uphill and inland on short notice — floods submerged the island every summer, usually to a depth of thirty feet, swooshing a 12-knot current over its top. In the middle 1930s, an army of coolies had ferried locally quarried stone slabs to the island and jigsaw puzzling them into a 2,150-foot runway that could survive the floods. It also proved to be nearly-bomb proof — the Japanese started attacking Chungking in 1939, and their raids continued for three years. They never knocked it out of action.
Sources:
1. https://www.ab-ix.co.uk/pdfs/dh89.pdf
2. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/dh/p064.html
3. The Evening News (Rockhampton, Qld.) Tue 25 Jun 1940 Page 1 JAP AIR RAID ON CHUNGKING: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/198743044
4. https://gregcrouch.com/2011/the-chungking-airport-1938
5. http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/sino-japanese-1940.htm
6. https://pacificwrecks.com/airfield/china/chungking/index.html
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Chongqing#Raids
Location
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 27-Sep-2008 01:00 | ASN archive | Added |
| 27-Dec-2011 12:17 | Anon. | Updated [Aircraft type, ] |
| 01-Jan-2012 21:35 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Date, Registration, Cn, Operator, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Other fatalities, Location, Country, Phase, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative, ] |
| 18-Mar-2019 20:43 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative, ] |
| 15-Mar-2025 21:38 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Time, Source, Narrative, Category, ] |
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