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GUWAHATI
A museum dedicated to fallen airmen flying for the Allied forces during World War II was inaugurated in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday.
The Hump WWII Museum at Pasighat, headquarters of the East Siang district, has been named after a treacherous air route between north-eastern Assam and Yunnan in China. Some 650 aircraft crashed from 1942-45 on this route.
‘Making history’
“We come here today not just to mark history but to make history. To see the ways with which each one of us is called not just to witness the past but to do something to change the future,” Eric Garcetti, the US Ambassador to India said after inaugurating the museum with Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu.
“This is not a gift only to Arunachal Pradesh or to the families whose lives will be affected when they come here but a gift to India and to the world,” he said.
Mr Khandu said The Hump was a tribute from the people of his State to the fallen heroes of WWII.
“The museum will remind the younger generation of the bravery of the Allied pilots who flew over The Hump to fight against the threat to democracy and freedom,” he said, urging Mr Garcetti to facilitate the exploration of some 30 locations in Arunachal Pradesh where remnants of WWII aircraft are still believed to exist.
He also lauded the efforts of Oken Tayeng, director of the museum, and his team in making The Hump a reality.
The pilots of the Allied forces flying from airfields in Assam to those in Yunnan nicknamed the route ‘The Hump’ because their aircraft had to navigate deep gorges and mountains rising beyond 10,000 feet.
Hundreds of remains
From 1942 to 1945, military aircraft transported nearly 6,50,000 tonnes of supplies like fuel, food, and ammunition. Some 650 aircraft crashed while negotiating the terrain and extreme weather conditions.
In 2016-17, the US Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) deployed a team for 30 days in search of remains of unaccounted-for American airmen. The remains of about 400 US airmen are believed to be located in the Himalayan mountains in the northeast, particularly in Arunachal Pradesh.
The Hump air route passes over Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tibet, Myanmar, and Yunnan (China).
In 1942, when the Japanese Army blocked the 1,150 km Burma Road, a mountain highway connecting Lashio in present-day Myanmar and Kunming in China, the US-led allied forces had to undertake one of the biggest airlifts in aviation history.
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