They didn't really coincide. Having gone out by ship to Bombay, then train across India, they picked up aircraft at Gauhati, Assam, eastern India, then slowly progressed right across Burma, through Akyab, Mandalay, Rangoon, and ultimately ending in Bangkok. The Hump was to the north of that. They were principally handling supplies to the ground troops. The "British" army progressing forward was British officers but otherwise wholly Indian NCOs and men.1 ton of rice in a 5-ton rice bag. Overhead the army DZ, tight orbit at 1,000 feet, open the freight door, several Indian RAF men in the back, completely unsecured (!) started booting the bag slowly over the door lip, bit more, bit more, WHAM, gone. Pilot had to suddenly catch the changed CofG. Back round again for the next bag. They didn't land - 30 sorties in Halifax bombers from the UK beforehand had given some experience of that.

Otherwise worked all his career in the bank ("ah, bank, good with figures, navigator then"). They didn't have enough navigators so the DC3s would fly in loose formation with them at the front. I think it was a highlight of his, otherwise not much travelled, life, and I heard enough about the operation that I think I could fly my PA28 G-WHBM today VFR from Mandalay down to Rangoon without charts - basically just follow the big Irrrawady River. After liberation they did some of the UK POW repatriation flights from the camps as far as Calcutta, where long haul 4-engine types took over to return to the UK. That was pretty much kept to himself. Apparently came home (by sea again), got his old office suits out of the cupboard, walked that afternoon into the bank, some greetings (the old senior management didn't quite know what to say), tidied his old desk, and got the day's paperwork out. Burned all his RAF uniforms at the bottom of the garden at the weekend.

And people are whinging today in the UK and elsewhere about a shortage of toilet paper ...