Over the next year this road -- constructed under inhuman conditions with superhuman effort -- proved its worth, allowing 35,000 tonnes of material to be transported into China along with some 5,000 vehicles.
Post World War II the road was not maintained. And with the border between India and China closed, access to Myanmar restricted from India and Assam plagued by insurgency, it was a road going nowhere.
Photograph: A US Army soldier and a Chinese soldier place their respective flags on a jeep just before the first truck convoy in almost three years crossed the China border en route from Ledo, India, to Kunming, China, during World War II. Photograph: Courtesy, the US National Archives and Records Administration (http://www.archives.gov)
Also read: An Indian who served in Burma
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