Civil Air Transport
Civil Air Transport (CAT) (IATA: CT, ICAO: CAT, and Callsign: Mandarin) was a CIA-owned airline that supported United States covert operation throughout East and Southeast Asia. During the Cold War, missions consisted in assistance to Free World allies according to the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949.
Origins
CAT was created by General Claire L. Chennault and Whiting Willauer in 1946 as Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA) Air Transport. Using surplus World War II aircraft, CAT airlifted supplies and food into war-ravaged China. Many of its first pilots were veterans of Chennault's fighter groups, popularly known as Flying Tigers.
By 1950 the airline was facing financial difficulties. The CIA formed a private Delaware corporation called Airdale Corporation, which formed a subsidiary called CAT, Inc. The subsidiary corporation purchased nominal shares of the Civil Air Transport. CAT maintained a civilian appearance by flying scheduled passenger flights while simultaneously using other aircraft in its fleet to fly covert missions.
With the spread of communism throughout Southeast Asia, CAT’s mission changed.
Operations
Chinese Civil War
During the Chinese Civil War, under contract with the Chinese Nationalist government and later the Central Intelligence Agency, CAT flew supplies and ammunition into China to assist Kuomintang forces on the Chinese mainland. With the defeat of the Kuomintang in 1949, CAT helped to evacuate thousands of Chinese to the island of Taiwan.
Korean War
During the Korean War, CAT airlifted thousands of tons of war materials to supply United States military operations, including support of Kuomintang holdouts based in Burma. On 29 November 1952, a CAT C-47 left Seoul on a mission to collect an anti-Communist Chinese agent in the Manchurian foothills, using a "pole and line" technique. The mission appears to have been compromised and Chinese forces were waiting for them. Approaching low over the ground, it was set upon by small-arms fire and crash-landed near the town of Antu in China's Jilin province . The pilots, Robert Snoddy and Norman Schwartz were killed during the crash and subsequent fire, and were buried nearby. The two CIA officers, John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau survived and were immediately taken prisoner by Chinese forces, who were waiting for the flight. Downey and Fecteau were held by China and regularly interrogated for nearly twenty years. Fecteau was released unexpectedly following Nixon's visit to China in 1972, but Downey was only released after Washington publicly acknowledged their spy mission in 1973.
At the time, the families of the pilots were told that they crashed into the Sea of Japan on a routine flight to Tokyo, in order to keep the CIA's covert actions in China secret. In 2001, China allowed the US Defence Department's Prisoner of War and Missing in Action (POW/MIA) office to conduct a recovery effort for the bodies of the pilots. In 2005, the POW/MIA office announced that it had identified the remains of Robert Snoddy using DNA analysis. Schwartz's remains have not been successfully recovered.
First Indochina War
CAT transported supplies and troops for French operations during the First Indochina War as early as Operation Castor in November 1953 [1].
At the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, CAT supplied the French garrison by parachuting troops and supplies with French-marked covert USAF C-119. Seven CAT pilots out of the thirty seven involved in the battle received the honorific title of Legion of Honor during a special ceremony at the French Embassy in Washington on February 24th 2005. [2]
Two CAT pilots were killed in action during the siege of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, they were the very first American casualties of the upcoming Vietnam War. [3]
Vietnam War
In 1959 it was reorganized as Air America, which supported covert operations throughout Indochina during the Second Indochina War, particularly in Laos.
Notes
See also
External links
- The CAT / Air America Archive
- Air America web site
- BBC News: Search for 'spy' pilots in China
- National League of POW/MIA Families
- Two CIA Prisoners in China, 1952–73
- Presentation of the Insignia of Knights of the Legion of Honor to seven CAT pilots at Dien Bien Phu (French Embassy in the United States web site)
- Annals of the Flying Tigers
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