Agartala, Sept 5 (TIWN) A team of US officials accompanied by officials of India’s External and Home affairs ministry now conducting an on the spot study in northeast India’s Tripura to find out the remains of soldiers and US military aircraft, crashed during World War II, officials said here Thursday.

“Six officials of American government arrived here Wednesday as an advance party to locate the remains of soldiers and US military aircraft at Dhumachara tribal village in mountainous Longtharai Valley under Dhalai District,” an official of Tripura’s home department said.

The official said : “After holding an hour-long meeting with the officials of Tripura government in Agartala, the US officials have rushed to the area (120 km north of Agartala) to locate the spots and remains, if any. They would also talk to the local villagers to help them to find out the remains of soldiers and aircraft.”

In the meeting the US officials have present a power point presentation about their plan to protect the remains of soldiers and US military aircraft, if found.

The US officials are accompanied by India’s External affairs ministry’s under secretary Amit Kumar Mishra and home ministry’s sector officer P.K.Rout.

“Before moving to the remote village (Dhumachara), the US and Indian officials held meetings at Ambassa with the district magistrate of Dhalai District Abhishek Singh and deputy inspector general of police Sourav Tripathi. During the next two-three days they would collect detail information about the remains of US soldiers and aircraft,” the official said adding that then a team of experts would come to the area to excavate the remains, if any.

Some fragments of a US military aircraft, used during World War II, had been recovered in northern Tripura’s Longtharai Valley in January last year 66 years after it crashed.

Indian para-military Assam Rifles officials had told reporters earlier that some remnants of an American aircraft, C-47B, which crashed during World War II, were recovered by a team of 34th Battalion of the Assam Rifles.

The Assam Rifles official had said : “A series of search operations had been launched since September last year to find out the crash site in the thick and dense forests of all three hill ridges of northern Tripura -- Baramura, Atharamura and Longtharai. Finally, our troopers achieved success in first week of January.”

The official had said that during World War II (1939-1945), the Allied forces lost hundreds of aircraft and a large number of soldiers in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theatre of operations.

“The majority of Allied crashes were caused by inhospitable weather, mechanical failure or navigational errors. The American Joint Prisoners of War and Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC) had identified 16 known crash sites in northeast India where Allied forces aircraft had crashed during World War II,” an Assam Rifles official had said.

“On May 17, 1946, the ill-fated C-47B aircraft crashed in Tripura along with 11 members, due to heavy storm conditions while transporting the remains of Allied POW (Prisoners of War) from Yangon (erstwhile capital of Burma now Myanmar) to Calcutta,” the official had said.

According to the official the 34 Battalion Assam Rifles under the aegis of the para-military’s 21 sector headquarters in Agartala was tasked to find out the details of the aforesaid aircraft and accordingly launched the hunt.

He said that the mission was very difficult due to the inconvenient terrain of the area and since the aircraft had crashed 66 years ago. Besides, the ecology had changed a lot over a period of time.

“Dense forests and inhospitable topography made search operations even more cumbersome. The propeller of the said aircraft was also recovered,” the official said, adding that elderly locals faintly remember the crash and aided Assam Rifles troopers to find out the crash site as also the graves where the crew and soldiers had been laid to rest.

Meanwhile, several myths about the crash of the aircraft are still popular among local tribesmen in the mountainous northern Tripura.

“Late novelist Bimal Sinha, also the former Tripura health minister, in his novel ‘Karachi theke Longtharai’ (Karachi to Longtharai) had explicated many tales about the crash of Allied fores’ aircraft in Tripura,” writers in Tripura said.

“During World War II, the Agartala airport was used by the United States Air Force. In 1942-43, the 10th Air Force and the 4th Combat Cargo Group (CCG) flew C-46 Commando transport aircraft over Burma, now Myanmar,” said an official publication of the Tripura government.

It added, “The Agartala airport was also used as a supply point from which the US Air Force units air-dropped packets of supplies and ammunition to the advancing Allied forces on the ground.”

“The 4th CCG operated from the airport during December 1944 and January 1945 when the unit moved to Chittagong, now in southeast Bangladesh.”

A senior Tripura police official said that an American passenger, David Campbell, had survived the crash, but died subsequently. Campbell’s younger brother Tony Campbell, who later learnt about the crash and his brother’s death from American army records and other sources. He had visited Tripura in the mid-nineties when insurgency was at its height in the northeastern state. Campbell could not visited the villages in north Tripura due to security reasons. 

Campbell after returning to America took up the issue with the US government, which subsequently informed the matter to the Indian government.

The Campbell family have been, for the past many years, persuading both the US and Indian governments to look into the matter and lastly, the US has sent their official team to study the matter on the spot before taking appropriate steps.

Earlier Report from USA 

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Discovery-of-c47-43-48308 on November 5, 2009 at North Tripura

The discovery of the C-47 has been reported to JPAC and DPMO.  We are currently working with these agencies and others to promote the recovery of this crash site.  An investigation and recovery of a crash site is a lengthy process.  The area must be secured and clearance must be granted by the Government of India before the U.S. will be allowed to send the proper military personnel to conduct an investigation and determine the possibility of a recovery mission to the site.  It may take years for JPAC to conduct the recovery of the crash site. It is our hope that they may give this mission high priority in their recovery efforts due to the possibility of bringing home up to fifty sets of remains.