The Nanshan/Ruli airfield near Loiwing

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The WW2 revetments at Nanshan / Suili airfield

In 2015 I posting much new information about the airfield at Loiwing, on the China-Burma border, where Bill Pawley assembled warplanes and Claire Chennault based his Flying Tigers after they were run out of Burma. Here's the most recent treasure, spotted by Lieuwe Montsma, a Netherlander who lives in Yunnan province. He zeroed in on the Google Earth images we were discussing, and he actually found the revetments from 70-plus years ago, still visible in the farmers' fields. I'd love to hear from anyone who has a theory of why they're still extant. Were they made of concrete? Did the farmers find them useful to protect a field from the wind? (The inset shows the same revetments in 1944, from a USAAF reconnaissance photo of what was then a Japanese field.)

Meanwhile, Min Wang in Canada sen6 along this translation of an item in the Yunnan Museum archives:

"In July 1939, Loiwing Central Aviation Manufactur[ing] Company started production. Test fly [runwawy] of Loiwing CAMCO completed at the same time. In May 1939,the Government Aviation Committee [was] also ordered to build another airport near Loiwing, called Nanshan Airport. Loiwing and Nanshan straight-line distance was only few kilometers. (Nanshan Airport was also called Field of Ruili Flying.) Nanshan Airport was completed in October 1941. The main runway was 1900 meters long, 300 meters wide; [the secondary] runway was 1200 meters long and 100 meters wide. Had 38 aircraft shelters ... open on three sides. Good drainage, underground oil [tanks], warehouse, etc... In the war against Japanese aggression, it was the second largest airport in Yunnan."

A nice bit of multi-national research by Min Wang (Canada), Lieuwe Montsma (China), Hak Hakanson (Thailand), Matt Poole (USA), and others.

And here's a contemporary photo of P-40s taking off from what is identified as "Leiyun" airfield, almost certainly representing AVG Tomahawks in the spring of 1942, operating out of Nanshan.

For more about the CAMCO and AVG airfields, go here and and here .

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