When I was six years old, my father took me to watch a movie named Aces High. It was a movie set during WWI and depicted the heroics and tragedies of fighter pilots who fought for supremacy in the skies. The action in the blue skies mesmerised me. I saw the movie years later and the scenes where aircrafts like S.E.5, Avro 504K and Eindecker engage in deadly dogfights made me wide-eyed again.
Those were the days pilots flew without parachutes and there were scenes where they slipped out of a shattered and burning aircraft and plummeted to the ground for a horrible death. Those few scenes were rather vivid to my young eyes and I had a newfound respect for the airmen.
Commando and War comics fed my appetite for war stories. Closer to home, I learned that my uncle was dropped behind enemy lines at Singapore but was captured by the Japanese Army and was a POW until the war ended.
The Northeast was the only WWII theatre in India. Some of the bloodiest battles were fought in Kohima and Imphal, battles that changed the course of the Great War. It is in this area that the Allied forces lost over 500 planes, mostly American, between 1942 and 1945. The mountains and dense jungles of Northeast India conceal many of these fallen aircrafts and Arunachal Pradesh accounts for the maximum number of these crashes.
The jungles have held on to their secrets for over 70 years and are not about to reveal them so easily. If you want to get to these crash sites and wreckages, you will have to be prepared to spend days in the jungles in the company of leeches, wild animals on the periphery, walk for days, survive on basic rations and sleep in tents.
I wanted to get to the planes badly&hellipvery badly.
So, when my old friend Oken Tayeng, who is the go-to man in Arunachal Pradesh, mentioned the remains of a WWII B-24 plane in the jungle near his ancestral village, it had my antennas buzzing. But it would be a few years before I could make the journey.
I am based in Guwahati, from where it&rsquos a long way to Damroh in Arunachal Pradesh, where one of the planes lay. It&rsquos adventure that I sought and what better way to go looking for it than on an adventure bike Royal Enfield lent me two Himalayan bikes for the expedition. I zeroed on to the Himalayan because it suited my purpose to the &ldquoT&rdquo. I would be traversing a lot of off-road sections as well as some long stretches of tarmac and, of course, I would be carrying a fair amount of luggage.
My young friend, Praveen Kutum joined me enthusiastically (he didn&rsquot know what he was getting into and I made no effort to warn him of the hardship that awaited him).
At first light, we headed out of Guwahati and rode past lush green paddy fields stretching all the way from the highway to the base of the misty blue mountains. We kept the throttle wide open for sustained periods quite comfortably and, before the sun was too high in the sky, crossed the mighty Brahmaputra. Beyond the long and narrow Kolia Bhomora Bridge, we crossed the historic town of Tezpur and stopped for lunch at a tiny eatery, simple, no-frills food to keep you going without any fear of a rumbling stomach. At dusk, we called it a day and checked in at a hotel in North Lakhimpur.
North Lakhimpur is a busy little town and bears little resemblance to the devastation that it suffered in 1950, when it was the epicentre of the Assam earthquake. My mother, who was a young girl then, told us stories of living in fear as strong aftershocks hit the region for days on end. The river changed its course, railway tracks twisted up, houses were devoured by the earth and the stench of death was everywhere.
Thankfully, it was the fragrance of wildflowers that drifted into my nostrils in the morning as we headed out.
Before sundown, we rode into Pasighat, the oldest town in Arunachal Pradesh and home to the Adi tribe. It is a smallish town with good roads, and not overly crowded. We rode past the town, across the Siang River on the Ranaghat bridge and took a left that took us on a dirt road and dropped us on the banks of the beautiful Siang. Riding on the sandy riverbank was fun and opening the throttle wide only accentuated it. We left the river and climbed up a steep incline strewn with stones. The surface offered no traction and the Himalayan struggled a bit until we hit a slightly better surface into the trek my shoes felt soggy.
The terrible path and the enveloping jungle suddenly gave way to an amazing property called the Abor Country Camp. With no other human dwellings within a large radius, it&rsquos a perfect getaway. The generator kicked in at dusk and a few incandescent bulbs gave a surreal feel to the whole place. As a million stars shone in all their brilliance, I got a fire going and Tobang, the caretaker, regaled us with stories of his village and the forest and how some dams under construction upriver were destroying the river and the fish slowly.
The sound of the Siang below the camp lulled us into a comfortable slumber and, by the time we woke up, the sun was already quite high. After a late but sumptuous breakfast, we rode off to Damroh. They had told us that Damroh was just 80km away and, like a moron, I believed we would do it in a couple of hours. After riding a few kilometres on a beautiful road along the Siang, we took a long right-hander and, suddenly, the road disappeared There was large-scale road construction going on&hellipBulldozers, trucks, road rollers and workers with hard hats were everywhere. The fact that it had rained a couple of days earlier didn&rsquot make things easier.
After what seemed like an eternity of riding in a deep slush, we hit some hard gravel surface that made life easier. Our guide, Appir Yirang, was sitting under a large tree, waiting for us. We were late because of the road condition and Appir was bored stiff. He led us to the Yamne Abor Eco Lodge that overlooks a lush valley with a river cutting across it. Made of bamboo, cane, wood and thatch, the lodge is a great experience and Dajhu, the cook-cum-caretaker, can dish out really good stuff.
By 4 in the morning, it was time to move. A little ahead was Appir&rsquos village, and we parked our Himalayans at his house. Appir, who was an Adi, had a tr aditional stilted bamboo house, with the kitchen in the middle of a large room. At 4.30 in the morning, Appir&rsquos mother cooked rice, boiled vegetables, beef and pork for us. Although we were not used to eating so early, we managed to stuff ourselves. Appir&rsquos father was a jolly man who lent us his Belgian double-barrel gun and some cartridges (&ldquoJust in case.&rdquo). Appir&rsquos brother Amudi and brother-in-law, Milikong joined us for the trek.
Right after the village, the climb started. Two hours into the trek my shoes felt soggy. We stopped on top of a rock and when I opened my shoes, my socks were filled with blood. Leeches had had a whale of a time on me Prabin thought he was immune to leeches but when Appir calmly lifted his trousers, there were eight leeches on his leg. I will never forget the look on his face.
We didn&rsquot make very good time on the first day and so pitched camp a little early. Night comes suddenly in these parts and the jungle seems to close in. It was better to have an early dinner and sleep.
By the time we emerged from the tent next morning, Appir and Amudi had almost finished cooking. The climb got steeper and the views from the top of each hill were increasingly beautiful.
As we pitched camp at the end of a very long second day, I looked at the peak of the next mountain and asked Appir, &ldquoHow far do we have to go&rdquo In the fading light, Appir pointed his finger at the next peak, which was quite far, and said in a slow, measured tone, &ldquoYou see that peak over there...(long pause) We have to get to the third peak after that.&rdquo And he got busy setting up camp.
I gave him my best look of disbelief but kept my thoughts to myself. I had waited a long time to do this trip and wasn&rsquot going to turn back now.
The third day was treacherous to say the least. The leeches disappeared as we gained altitude but the black bears came and the trail became narrower, and at many places, was just enough for a toehold. We slashed our way through the jungle and, when we returned two days later, the vegetation had grown back just as thick.
At about 11 in the morning, we reached our campsite for the day. The wreckage lay an hour&rsquos walk away.
As we started walking towards the site after setting up camp, I started finding debris immediately. We came across the sheared wings with the star emblem of the US Air Force painted on them. Landing gears lay half buried and there were parts of the cockpit way below where we stood. There must have been a rockslide here at some point. We made our way down the rocks and found fragments of the cockpit windows, oxygen gauges, oil meters, huge engines and a lot of other parts. Under a huge rock, I spied the barrel of a gun and it took four of us to move the rock partially and pull out the gun. It turned out to be a mounted .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun. There was another one, a little further down, but the path to it was definitely dicey. The plane had 10 in all.
The B-24 Liberator must have gone down with her guns blazing. I found a whole lot of shells&mdashboth spent and live ones scattered all over the area.
We walked for another 30 minutes and arrived at the bulk of the aircraft. It was lying on an incline and must have come sliding down the hill along with the rocks. Two of the propellers that had come off during the crash had been in the same place for 70 years and the trees had grown around them The blades were bent but not broken. We couldn&rsquot locate the other two propellers.
One of the huge wheels was still attached to its position near the fuselage on the bulkhead. The Liberator is a huge four-engined bomber and even though much of its structure had disintegrated with impact, the remaining carcass was impressive.
On January 25, 1944, this B-24 Liberator took off from Kunming Airfield in China to Chabua Airfield in Dibrugarh in Assam. It was returning after dropping supplies for the besieged Chinese army of Chiang Kai-shek, who was fighting the Japanese. Supplying the armies of Chiang Kai-shek cost the Allied army a lot of good men and resources but that was the only means of checking a rampaging Japanese army. They had to be stopped from entering Northeast India by all means.
It was a freezing and stormy day and the plane was flying over the dreaded &lsquoAluminum Trail&rsquo or &lsquoThe Hump&rsquo. They had to fly over the Himalaya and this part was known for bad weather. The route was named &lsquoAluminum Trail&rsquo because more than 500 allied aircrafts, mostly American, had perished there during the war.
The B-24 never returned to Chabua that day and was never found. The eight-member crew were declared MIA and later presumed dead. That day, nine planes went down and none were found.
Flying on this route where they had to cross 4,500m-high ridges, the planes attracted ground fire and fire from Japanese Zero fighters. If the planes escaped these, they had to deal with blizzards, snowstorms and icing of the wings. They had basic instruments but often lost their way, ran out of fuel and crashed and burned.
The jungle held on to its secret from the outside world for well over half a century. Clayton Kuhles, an American businessman and a war history enthusiast, was on a visit in Myanmar and a guide mentioned to him that a local hunter had seen a plane in the forest on the Indian side. The hunter gave Kuhles the location and Tayeng organised the guides to take him to the site.
Kuhles&rsquo discovery gave hope to the relatives of the crew and the authorities have been able to retrieve some remains. If the DNA matches, they will be given a burial with military honours. The downed crew members were (Pilot) 1st Lt. William A. Swanson, (Co-Pilot) F/O Sheldon L. Chambers, (Navigator) 1st Lt. Irwin Zaetz, (Bombardier) 1st Lt. Robert E. Oxford, (Engineer) S/ Sgt. Charles D. Ginn, (Radio Operator) S/Sgt. Harry B. Queen, (Gunner) Sgt. James A. Hinson and (Gunner) Sgt. Alfred H. Gerrans, Jr.
That night, as I sat by a fire long after everyone had gone off to their tents, I realised that then the forest was much thicker than it is now. Even if any of the crew members had survived the crash, it would have been impossible to survive in a jungle teeming with wildlife and covered in snow. A lot of fine young people lost their lives in a strange land, far away from their loved ones. Even if someone survived, we won&rsquot know now.
The B-24 Liberator, with a blonde girl painted at the nose, was assigned to the 14th Air Force, 308th Bombardment Group, 425th Bombardment Squadron. This huge Liberator had flown more than 14 combat missions and had shot down four fighters. She sure lived up to her nickname&hellipHot as Hell
THE INFORMATION
GETTING THERE
THE TREK
WHERE TO STAY
WHAT TO DO