INDIA: Nearly six decades after the second World War, the US has asked for India's help in recovering the remains of 416 American pilots who died flying supply missions across the Himalayas to the Allied troops battling the advancing Japanese.
The Pentagon's Deputy Assistant Secretary Jerry Jennings recently held discussions with senior Indian defence and foreign ministry officials in New Delhi as part of a worldwide effort by Washington to secure the remains of US servicemen who died in the second World War in order to return them to their families.
According to second World War records, over 500 US aircraft and 1,200 crew members remain listed as "missing" in the China-Burma-India sector. The region is referred to as "The Hump " and the 416 fliers reported missing on the Indian side were the ones who undertook daring drops across the remote area to keep Allied units fighting the advancing Japanese in the Burmese jungles and surrounding precipitous mountains, supplied with war fighting equipment.
The capture of the Burma Road by the Japanese forced the US airmen to fly hundreds of missions a day from eastern India some 550 miles across rugged Himalayan terrain. They dropped bulldozers, jeeps, gasoline and other supplies, often in dangerous weather, while running the gauntlet of Japanese fire.
The US supply missions significantly helped the Allies defeat the Japanese in the crucial Battle of Kohima in 1944 that psychologically turned the tide against the seemingly invincible enemy who had already overrun south-east Asia and had India, the "jewel in the British Crown", in their sight.
Over 4,000 Japanese and an equal number of Allied soldiers died in the Kohima fight and the countless battles that followed until the Japanese surrendered in 1945.
