80 Years Ago Today: The L-5 and Decisions made at the First Quebec Conference

80 years ago today, August 21,`1943, the British and American Combined Chiefs of Staff reached a unanimous decision at the QUADRANT conference in Quebec regarding the conduct of the war in the Far East. The Quadrant talks covered many other aspects of the war, memorably the timetable for the invasion of France (Operation Overlord), but among the other decisions reached was the building of a supply road from India to China, an increase in the airlift of supplies over the “Hump” from India to China, and the invasion of northern Burma to help insure the success of these objectives. One consequence of these weighty decisions was that a large number of liaison airplanes would be required, particularly of the Stinson L-1 and L-5 variety.

In addition to 40 Sentinels already on the way to the 71st Liaison Squadron, who had arrived in India during July 1943 and were initially equipped with 20 L-4 Cubs, another 50 L-5’s and 50 L-1’s were required for “Project 9”, the secret assault force later known as the First Air Commando Group. They would participate in Operation Thursday, the airborne invasion of north Burma as well as British amphibious operations along the Burmese coast. Three additional liaison squadrons, the 5th, 19th and 115th that would arrive in 1944, were assigned to General Joseph Stilwell’s forces. They required 40 Sentinels apiece (32 as T.O. strength and 8 as spares) and were supplemented by a dozen L-1’s. Another 29 L-5’s were secured for assignment to fighter, bomber and transport group HQ’s, and photo reconnaissance units. A further 78 were earmarked as replacements to cover six months of expected theater-wide attrition. Altogether, 60 L-1’s and 297 L-5’s (all observer models) were allocated to the China-Burma-India theater for operations planned through August 1944.

The Quadrant conference did not lay out plans for the following “dry season” operations in late 1944 and 1945, but another 275 L-5B and L-5C ambulance models would be sent to the CBI along with 50 L-5’s and 50 L-5B’s transferred to the British under the Lend-Lease agreement, bringing the total number of Stinson-designed liaison planes sent to that mostly-forgotten combat arena to 733, almost 75% of the total sent to the Mediterranean and European theaters combined.

Though little-remembered or discussed, the front-line evacuation and supply work done by these seven hundred-plus light planes and their pilots  by far dwarfs the accomplishments of their counterparts in other theaters of the war. Sadly, only a few of the 110 or so L-5’s that are currently flyable commemorate the CBI veterans.