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Retro Ledo

Retro Ledo The Second World War (ww ii) was at its peak. The Allies (England and France) were facing the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). When Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, the us joined the war on the Allied side. A month later, Japan attacked Burma (now Myanmar) at its southernmost point and by 1942, had overrun much of Burmese territory. Burma was soon to slip from the hands of the Allied command. Supplies from China could not be unloaded at strategically important Rangoon. The Allied forces badly needed another route to push wartime supplies and transport ammunition.

So the grand plan of the Ledo Road was born. 1,736 kilometres (kms) of an all-weather road (roughly the distance between Mumbai and Patna) would run from Ledo, a small colonial outpost in Assam to Kunming, capital of the Chinese province of Yunnan, cutting through mountainous forests and the marshy valleys of Kachin in Burma.

Ledo is near Margerita in Assam, famous today for its coal. Further is Digboy, where a giant oil refinery dominates the town. But in the surrounding hills, neat roads lead to spacious company mansions and a course where employers play, followed by barefoot caddies