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Saturday, January 14, 2012

WW II wreckage found in Tripura - Assam Rifles jawans discover airplane crash site after monthlong search

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120115/jsp/frontpage/story_15007650.jsp

WW II wreckage found in Tripura

- Assam Rifles jawans discover airplane crash site after monthlong search

Agartala, Jan. 14: The Assam Rifles have discovered the crash site and a propeller of an American plane, which had crashed in the dense jungles of Tripura during World War II, after a monthlong search.

An Assam Rifles release issued late last evening stated that officers and jawans of 34 Battalion of Assam Rifles had recently discovered the crash site and the propeller of the plane in Birmonipara area after more than a monthlong search in December 2011 and January 2012.

The release said the American plane (C-47-B) had taken off from Rangoon airport in Burma (now Myanmar) with 11 "war criminals" and some other passengers for Calcutta on May 17, 1946 but had crashed in the dense jungles near Birmonipara village under Gandacherra subdivision in Dhalai district of Tripura. All the passengers and crew had died. The bodies were buried and a cemetery was built in the area.

Sources said the cemetery was located near Birmonipara village and the crash site and the propeller were found within 3km of the cemetery.

Throwing light on some events related to the crash, police sources said an American passenger David Campbell had succumbed to his injuries a few days after the crash. His younger brother Tony Campbell, who came to know of the crash and his brother's death from American army records and the Internet, had come to Tripura in the mid-nineties when insurgency was at its height in the state.

"He wanted to visit the spot but was prevented from doing so by the police on the ground that the place was a hotbed of militancy and he might be kidnapped or killed," a senior police officer said.

Tony Campbell returned to the US and took up the issue with his government, which then drew the attention of the Indian government to the matter. But there was no further progress in the matter though the cemetery remained in place, the officer added.

Police sources said the area falls under the jurisdiction of Assam Rifles and its jawans posted there might have come across the cemetery. Thereafter, they could have launched a search in the nearby areas, leading to the discovery of the site and the propeller.

However, Maj. M. Nagesh of Assam Rifles said they had launched the search under orders from their headquarters.

World War II had continued for six years from September 1, 1939 to the unconditional surrender of Japan in August 1945 in the wake of the atomic bomb blasts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 respectively.

During this period, hundreds of planes went down in Southeast Asia, including the dense jungles of the Northeast.

In January 2004, Kartik Roy, a farmer of Krishnapur village under Gandacherra subdivision, had discovered pieces of wreckage of another American plane, Schrader USA, AN-b/2-1, while digging the land behind his house. Village elders had said three British passengers had managed to survive the crash with slight injuries and had been escorted by villagers to the sub-divisional town of Amarpur from where they had reached Agartala and returned home. The exact date of the crash was never known but veteran officials of the state administration said it could not be later than 1947. They also said that in 1941, when World War II was in full swing, British authorities had built three small airports in Agartala, Kamalpur and Kailasahar.

In another incident, a Pakistani Viscount plane flying from Karachi to Dhaka via Sylhet had landed at Agartala airport briefly in April 1953. When it resumed its journey towards Sylhet, the aircraft was caught in a storm and despite frantic efforts to land in Kamalpur or Kailasahar airports, it crashed in the dense jungles of Dhalai district. Altogether 34 passengers died on the spot. A woman passenger died a day later but not before disclosing to an indigenous cultivator of Dhoomacherra village, Kartik Debbarma, that the plane had been carrying a large quantity of gold. Kartik launched a frantic search alone in the jungle and recovered a large quantity of gold but never disclosed its location to anyone. But as fate would have it, Kartik lost the entire amount of money he had obtained by selling the gold in gambling and drinking and died within two years. Local people still believe that a large quantity of gold and the wreckage of the Viscount plane lie buried in the jungle.


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