Dudhkundi was originally designed for B-24 Liberator operations, but in 1943 it was selected for upgrade to accommodate the enormous B-29 Superfortress as part of the XX Bomber Command's deployment to India. Thousands of Indian laborers worked to expand and strengthen the runways, a task that took months in terrain where construction materials had to be brought in from considerable distances. The 444th Bombardment Group arrived in July 1944 after relocating from Charra Airfield, bringing with it the logistical nightmare that defined all Matterhorn operations: to reach Japan, the B-29s needed forward staging bases near Chengdu in south-central China, and every gallon of fuel and every bomb had to be flown 1,200 miles over the Himalayas to get there. The B-29s themselves hauled much of their own supply, stripped of combat gear and loaded with seven tonnes of fuel for a dangerous six-hour flight over "the Hump." Each crossing counted as a combat mission. It took six supply trips to mount a single bombing run.

From Dudhkundi and its forward base at Kwanghan Airfield near Chengdu, the 444th struck targets across a vast arc of the Pacific war: transportation centers, naval installations, and aircraft plants in Burma, China, Thailand, Japan, and Formosa. But the mission that distinguished the group came on the night of August 10-11, 1944. Fifty-six B-29s staged through British air bases in Ceylon -- present-day Sri Lanka -- and attacked the Plajdoe oil storage facilities at Palembang on the island of Sumatra in what is now Indonesia. The round trip covered 4,030 miles and lasted nineteen hours, making it the longest American air raid of the entire war. The 444th also earned a Distinguished Unit Citation for a daylight raid against the iron and steel works at Yawata, Japan, in August 1944, one of the earliest direct strikes on Japanese industrial infrastructure.

In September 1944, the 679th Bomb Squadron was inactivated to streamline the group's organization, leaving the 444th with three squadrons of ten B-29s each -- a leaner force for a campaign that was already running out of rationale. The Japanese offensive in South China in late 1944 and early 1945 threatened the forward staging bases near Chengdu, forcing the evacuation of those fields. The 444th continued flying from India, bombing targets in Thailand and mining the waters around Singapore, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff had already concluded that Operation Matterhorn was consuming too many resources for too little return. In December 1944, the decision was made to phase out the India-China B-29 operations and move the Superfortresses to newly captured bases in the Mariana Islands. On March 1, 1945, the 444th Bombardment Group departed Dudhkundi, flying south to Ceylon, southeast across the Indian Ocean to Perth, and north through New Guinea to West Field on Tinian, arriving on April 7.

With the B-29s gone, Dudhkundi became a depot for the detritus of war. The 87th Air Depot Group took command, and the airfield's new mission was unglamorous but necessary: maintaining and disposing of surplus Allied aircraft. The 80th Fighter Group arrived in May 1945 from its forward base at Myitkyina in Burma, bringing a menagerie of combat-worn planes -- P-38 Lightnings, A-36 Apaches, and modified P-40 Warhawks being withdrawn from service. The 80th left for the United States in October 1945, abandoning its aircraft and equipment in India. The B-24-equipped 7th Bombardment Group followed, also leaving its planes behind before being inactivated as a paper unit in January 1946. The last Americans departed in early 1946, and the airfield was returned to the British colonial government. Today, no structures remain. The forest that the king of Jhargram once offered has largely reclaimed the site, though traces of runways and taxiways are still visible from the air. The airfield serves as an air-to-ground firing range for the Indian Air Force's Kalaikunda Air Force Station, and small villages have grown over what were once billeting areas -- communities built on ground that once shook with the engines of Superfortresses bound for the other side of the world.