XT-811  Douglas DC-3                                       (c/n  18947)

                              

                                  Actually, in my private life, I have a "Chinese connection" inasmuch as I lived in Taiwan and Hong
                                  Kong for most of the decade of the 1970s.  (My wife is Chinese)  My late father-in-law, C.F. Chang
                                  served with the Chinese (Nationalist) Air Force during WW II, and was later with both CAT and
                                  China Airlines.  Despite this "connection",  I have very few photographs of CAT aircraft.  The above,
                                  from a family scrapbook, shows a CAT DC-3 and C-46 at Kai Tek, Hong Kong in 1948.  On
                                  11 October 1949, CAT evacuated itself from Canton to Hong Kong.  It, along with the Nationalist
                                  Kuomintang government, then moved to Taiwan.  In a wrangle involving much international law and
                                  intrigue, the entire fleets of Central Air Transport and the other Chinese airline, China National Aviation
                                  Corporation were "awarded" to a new airline, Civil Air Transport.   This was actually a CIA-run oper-
                                  ation akin to, although earlier than, Air America, of Vietnam War fame.  On 20 October, 1954, this
                                  DC-3, having by then been re-registered B-811, was under charter by 'Sea Supply', (another CIA
                                  operation).  Whilst practicing paratroop drops near Hua Hin, the wingtip struck the sea in the Gulf of
                                  Siam during a low bank.   It sank and was written off.