China will open a civil airport in Tengchong county in southwestern Yunnan Province, where the Flying Tigers, a band of U.S. fighter pilots, helped defend China against the Japanese invasion during World War II.
The Camel Peak Airport will open before the end of next year to commemorate the Tigers and the famous Camel Peak Aviation Route across the Himalayas, the so-called "death route" through which urgently needed military supplies were delivered more than 60 years ago.
The site of the airport was in Camel Peak Village, about 12 kilometers from Tengchong county seat, said Zhang Weijian, a top official of the county at Sunday's forum on exchanges between China and South Asia.
Jointly funded by Yunnan Airport Group, Yunnan Guanfang Group and the Tengchong county government, the 433-million-yuan (58 million U.S. dollars) regional airport would be able to handle 480,000 passengers a year, Zhang said.
Last year, the county received 2.45 million tourists and reported about 900 million yuan (120 million dollars) of tourism income.
Local authorities also plan to build a park at Camel Peak to commemorate the Chinese soldiers and members of the Flying Tigers with a peace gate, a friendship monument, a memorial wall and memorials to wartime figures.
The Tigers were a band of volunteer U.S. military men sent in secret to Asia by President Franklin D. Roosevelt before the United States entered World War II. They joined an air force organized for China by Claire Lee Chennault, a retired U.S. Army colonel.
An estimated 1,500 Flying Tigers members and 900 Chinese airmen who fought along with them reportedly died in the war.
From December 1941 to September 1945, the Flying Tigers shot down 2,600 Japanese military aircraft, destroyed 44 warships and killed an estimated 66,700 Japanese soldiers.
Source: Xinhua
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