United States Army Air Force operations against the Japanese in China in 1944. United States Army Air Force 1st American volunteer Group pilots look at a map. A pilot in a cockpit with a sign on the plane as it reads 'Pilot R.T. Smith' Soldiers are briefed and a man puts an insignia on the collar of a soldier. An animated map shows the transportation of supplies across the Himalayas to China. Chinese troops. Planes in flight. Aircraft take off and fly in formation. American Fighters in flight. Japanese plane burns and descends. Another plane explodes in mid air and falls. Men look at wreckage of crashed aircraft. Allied Officers confer. Animation shows location of Chinese towns. U.S. Army Air Force aircraft take off for attacking the Japanese positions. (World War II period).
A film based on getting U.S. supplies to Kunming, China from Chabua, India during World War II. An animated map links Chabua with Kunming. A USAAF (United States Army Air Forces) C-87 Liberator Express in flight over the Hump. An aerial view of the Himalayan Mountains. A USAAF C-54 Skymaster in flight. An animated representation of the content of materials carried by an aircraft over the Hump. USAAF transport planes land at Kunming in China. An animated map depicts the transportation condition over the Burma Road in January 1941 and by air over the Hump in January 1944. Dispersal of cargo and U.S. troops to various fighting fronts from Kunming. A transport aircraft takes off from Kunming. Chinese troops march. U.S. Army General Joseph Stilwell with U.S. Lieutenant General Claire Chennault in Kunming. A formation of transport planes.
A United States aircraft in flight over the Himalayas in Jorhat, India. An animated map shows places like Calcutta and Burma. Supplies are loaded onto a United States Army Air Force ( USAAF ) C-87 airplane. The aircraft in flight over the Naga Hills. Aerial views of the terrain between Jorhat and Kunming. A Chinese farmland in view. The supplies are unloaded at an airfield in Kunming, China. They are transferred to a truck parked nearby. A USAAF C-46 parked on the airfield. Drums of aviation gasoline are unloaded. The C-46 takes off.
Film opens showing road sign reading: "LEDO Mile 00.00." Scene shifts to rail lines at terminus of the Assam-Bengal railroad in the Indian Province of Assam. Surveyors are seen working in jungles. Engineers use machetes and construction machinery, like caterpillar tractors, to cut through the dense growth. Others saw and chop down trees and use explosives to clear the land. Explosives are seen detonating and tractors clearing the debris. Earth moving equipment and jack hammers being used to form a roadbed. View of two engineers setting and detonating a charge in a rock. A steam shovel loads earth into a dump truck. Road scrapers work in parallel to smooth the dirt roadbed. View of road after monsoon rains reduced one roadbed to a sea of mud and another inundated by water. To avoid these problems, rebuilding efforts begin by construction of causeways and bridges. Teams of workers lay planks for this. Closeup of worker tightening a clamp on a pontoon bridge under construction. Work gangs rolling and placing heavy logs as part of a bridge. Workers use a crane to lift segment onto a steel bridge under construction. Men bulding wooden and steel truss bridges. Aerial views from an airplane flying over various sections of the finished Ledo Road. A truck covered by a painted canvas reading: First Convoy over the Ledo Road, Pick's Pike Lifeline from India to China." Brigadier General Lewis A. Pick, Chief Engineer for the project, is seen, next, shaking hands with Lieutenant General Daniel Isom Sultan, Commander India-Burma theater, as he prepares to lead the convoy. View of the convoy starting out, led by the decorated truck. (Narrator states the road was now called, "The Stillwell Road." Views of the trucks proceeding and crossing causeways and bridges. Aerial view of the road twisting and turning across the high mountains. The convoy arriving in Kunming China greeted by Chinese troops and flags. Later, the convoy drives through the city streets of Kunming, with General Pick standing in a jeep, leading the way, and crowds of Chinese people cheering from the sidelines. In final scene, General Sultan states that the next project is a pipeline along the road.