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Remember...Eugene D. Hensley
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Eugene D. Hensley was born March 4, 1912, in Mt. Carbon, Fayette County, West Virginia, to David William Hensley (1881-1953) and Lottie Elizabeth Foster Hensley (1886-1957). He was known primarily as "Gene," and this is reflected in the fact that many of the documents, including military, that relate to his existence are in the name of "Gene." David and Lottie produced a large family; siblings born prior to Gene were James Edward (1903-1940), Bert Lee (1904-1971), Roy Vernon (1905-1970), Amanda Freda (1908-1983), and Mildred (1909-1941). After Gene came Kenneth Charles (1913-1977), Margaret June (1916), and Ruth Marie (1923-2000). These siblings are referenced in the 1920, 1930, and 1940 Federal Census data and family trees found on Ancestry.com. The 1940 census indicates Gene had completed two years of college and was manager of a movie theater, a fact supported by an entry on Find A Grave that states he was part owner of several Fayette and Kanawha County movie theaters. He was a member of the Montgomery Lions Club.
However, when he registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, he stated he was an employee of Montgomery Flying School. A death notice in the Charleston Gazette on December 13, 1944, notes that he had been chief flight instructor at the Kanawha Flying School. At the time, he was well known for his service in the Civil Air Patrol.
| On September 15, 1935, Gene married Sylvia Coon. Although the couple did not have any children, Gene and Sylvia were married nine years before his untimely death. |  |
Sylvia was a graduate of Sherman High School in Boone County (1932) and briefly attended New River State College (which became the West Virginia Institute of Technology). In 1943, she earned her teaching certificate from Concord College; her obituary indicates she had taught in Boone and Fayette Counties. After Gene's death, she quit teaching for several years to support the war effort, working in an ammunition plant in Maryland and in the passport division of the State Department in Washington, D.C. Later she moved to Cleveland and married L. Richard Turner, a NASA physicist; earned a degree in arts and history from Flora Stone Mather (part of Western Reserve University); and taught in Westlake School District in Ohio. In retirement, she returned to the Montgomery area. ("Sylvia Turner," Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail, 1 December 2013.)
Upon enlistment at Wright Field on June 7, 1943, Gene became a first lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. Before being sent overseas, he was stationed at Romulus, Michigan, and then assigned to the 13th Ferrying Squadron of the Air Transport Command. This legendary unit was known for its exploits flying the China-India-Burma route when all land transportation lines had been severed. History records these exploits as "Flying the Hump," one of the most dangerous missions of World War II
An article in The Quarterly Journal of Military History (MHQ), summarized below, gives a succinct overview of the importance of the "pioneering airlift operation":
When the United States entered the Pacific War in 1941, China had been in war with Japan for four years, and Japan had sealed China off from supply routes. The Sino-Japanese conflict pitted 1,250,00 Japanese against a Chinese force of three million, but the role of the Chinese was essentially to bog down the Japanese, preventing them from being effective on other fronts. President Roosevelt, however, did back Chiang Kai-shek, envisioning a key role for Chiang after the war.
The popular explanation for the Hump operation has long been that it supported the need to supply the Chinese and keep them in the war, thus pinning down the Japanese troops, and it resulted from Roosevelt's post-war plans for Chiang.
While the description of the Hump operation refers to flights "over the Himalayas," none of the routes exactly flew over the mountain range, although it clearly influenced the weather difficulties the Hump flights encountered. Winds of 115 miles per hour were typical, and pilots routinely experienced thunderstorms and heavy icing. February through April were the worst months; December and January followed. Monsoons raged during May through September, leaving October and November as the best flying season, weather-wise.
The men who flew the Hump were not highly trained for their mission nor were they experienced pilots. Stephan Wilkinson writes: "The acronym for Air Transport Command was sometimes defined as "Army of Terrified Copilots." While the early Ferry Command pilots were "skillful," they were in short supply, and new recruits preferred combat duty as opposed to flying freight. The Hump operation was considered noncombat, which meant less glory and lower pay scales. To reiterate, the ATC received the least capable trainees, and "even experienced crews got into trouble over the Hump."
In early 1943, high-up AAF officials had begun to doubt the efficacy of the Hump operation, which seemed not to be accomplishing what it set out to do. Revamping occurred and involved the introduction of aircraft more suited to the requirements of high-altitude flying. In August 1943, Brigadier General Thomas Hardin, a former TWA vice president, took over the Hump command. Hardin himself made some of the flights and demanded competence from other pilots flying the route. He improved the safety record of the operation and boosted the morale of pilots by allowed them to rotate home more quickly. However, some higher-ups in the Air Force command regarded the Hump operation as a political football, with Roosevelt supporting Chiang while others supported Mao. Ultimately, the ATC became the major source of supplies for the Twentieth Air Force, which moved it to the Marianas. According to Wilkerson, "the Hump operation showed that a substantial amount of cargo could be airlifted anywhere, under the worst flying conditions, as long as those in charge were willing to pay the price in men, aircraft, and money." (Stephan Wilkinson, "Over the Hump: World War II's Pioneering Airlift Operation--in Myth and Reality," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Autumn 2016, 44+. Gale Academic OneFile [accessed May 19, 2022], https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A459722098/AONE?u=nysl_sc_cornl&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=df370bb6.)
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Lieutenant Hensley perished in India while Flying the Hump on November 13, 1944. His remains were located and identified, and he was returned to the States for burial on February 5, 1949. A service was held the following day, and he was buried at the Montgomery Memorial Park in London, West Virginia. |
Article prepared by Patricia Richards McClure
May 2022
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
