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Leiyun CAMCO Factory

Type Factory Historical Name of Location Leiyun, Yunnan, China

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO), founded by US businessman William D. Pawley and with ties to the US aircraft manufacturing firm Curtiss-Wright, had been in China since 1933. The main assembly plant had been in Hangzhou in coastal Zhejiang Province, but through 1937 and 1938, as the Japanese advanced during the opening stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the factory moved several times southwestward, ultimately, in 1939, to the small town of Leiyun (Postal Map romanization: Loiwing) in Yunnan Province on the Chinese side of the Chinese-Burmese border. Although it was operated as a CAMCO factory, the facility was, for the most part, funded by the Chinese government. Most of the raw materials for the factory arrived from the south via the Burma Road. Only eight Hawk Model 75 (known as P-36 to US Army aviation) fighters were built through Oct 1940, and a few CW-21 fighters by the US entry into the war in Dec 1941, as the factory spent more repairing damaged aircraft than assembling new kits. The runways neighboring the factory was briefly used by the 1st American Volunteer Group, "Flying Tigers", to mount raids against Japanese positions in Thailand and Burma in late 1941 and early 1942. The Leiyun location was captured by Japanese troops in Apr 1942, but not before the equipment and personnel were moved to Bangalore, India and Kunming, China.

ww2dbaseSource: Wikipedia

Last Major Update: Jul 2013

Leiyun CAMCO Factory Interactive Map

Leiyun CAMCO Factory Timeline

26 Oct 1940 Japanese aircraft raided the CAMCO factory at Loiwing (Leiyun), China, destroying recently arrived kits of CW-21 fighters. 8 Apr 1942 The P-40E fighter saw its first combat and first victory in Asia as Flight Leader Robert Little of 1st Pursuit Squadron shot down a Ki-43 aircraft over Leiyun (Loiwing), Yunnan Province, China. 28 Mar 1944 In Yugoslavia, a battalion from SS–Volunteer-Division Prinz Eugen overran the Dalmatian villages of Dorfer Otok, Cornji, Ruda and Dolac Delnji and carried out, with horrific barbarism, in a single day the massacre of 834 people including grown men, women and children. The Germans drove the villagers into one place and then opened fire on them with machine-guns. They threw bombs among any survivors, robbed them of their possessions and afterwards burned the corpses. They also burnt down some 500 houses and plundered everything that could be looted.

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