It took one very long year for this army of workers -- the lives of 1,100 Americans and scores of locals were lost in the entire effort -- to bulldoze their way from Ledo to Shingbwiyang, a distance of 166 kilometres, through rain forests and rising through 4,500 feet along the Patkai range and through Pangsau Pass (nicknamed Hell Pass).
From Shingbwiyang they valiantly pushed on another 582 amazing km, over 165 rivers and waterways, through rains/the cold, using crews of elephants as well as bulldozers to have the road join the old Burma road at Mong-Yu by late 1944, effectively completing the project.
This gave the Allied forces a clear road -- 61 km in India, 1,033 km in Myanmar and 632 km in China -- that extended from Kunming in China all the way down to Burma via Assam.
Photograph: An old map (clickable) showing the Ledo Road. Photograph: Courtesy, the US Army Center of Military History
Also read: Tibet-Burma: The world's double standards
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