Odisha Remembers Amarda Road Crash

Mayurbhanj: A memorial service was held at Amarda Road Airstrip on Friday for the 14 airmen who had died in a crash in Mayurbhanj on July 26, 1945.

War historian Anil Dhir has requested the governments of Odisha and West Bengal to erect small memorials for these airmen at Amarda Road and the crash site.

He has also requested for opening a sealed underground bunker, which may hold relics of the period.

The setting up of a Peace Museum was mooted last year and Dhir had contacted the British, Australian, Dutch and USA authorities for material to be displayed there. “The response has been very positive. A book on the history of the base and the crash would be released on the next commemoration day,” he sad.

The historian said the base has huge tourism potential as people from Japan, Britain, America and other countries visit the war memorials in the North-East every year.

“The airstrip is an important piece of history connected to the World War-II and has a lot of significance as it was a secret base,” he said.

Gandhian Aditya Patnaik, social activist Dr Biswajit Mohanty and staff of the Gandhi Eye Hospital at Rangamatia, locals including school children, paid homage to the dead airmen by laying wreaths.

Very few people know that the skies of Odisha had seen two aircraft collide mid-air leading to the death of 14 airmen.

On the July 26, 1945, two British Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator four-engine bombers collided at low altitude. The aircraft were based at the Amarda Road airfield and were part of a six-plane contingent from the Air Fighting Training Unit engaged in a formation flying exercise.

As many as 14 airmen – six British, three American, one each Canadian, Dutch, New Zealander, Australian and an Indian – died in the crash.

“The Rasgovindpur Airstrip had a short but secret illustrious history which has never been made public. It had the longest runway in Asia, more than 3.5 km long. The total runways, taxiways, aprons, etc. were more than 60 km. Today all is forgotten, no details of the activities that happened here between 1943 and 1945 exist, not even in government and military records,” said Dhir.

The station came into existence during the war as a forward airfield against the Japanese conquest of Burma.

The large strip served as a landing ground for planes and also as a training space during special bombing missions. The Amarda Road airstrip, as it was called in war terminology, spreads across an area of nearly 900 acres. Built in the 1940’s at a cost of Rs 3 crore, it was eventually abandoned after the war. It was named as the Amarda Road Airfield due to the nearby Amarda Road railway station.

Even today, seven decades after the base was made, one can still see the remains of the airfield, the 11,000 feet concrete runway still intact, though the buildings that once cluttered the edges are gone.

The offices, hangars, mechanic sheds and plaster walled barracks with thatched roofs have been ripped down.

Instead, local women dry laundry and farmers their grain on the warm tarmac. The cows and goats crop weeds along the runway edges. The story of this crash and the victim had been lost in history.

Patnaik had promised to give ample space in the Gandhi Gurukul at the airbase for setting up a small museum which will highlight the importance of the airbase during World War-II.

Mohanty said the Odisha government should understand the importance of this historical airfield and promote it as a destination.

Ankit Kotecha, who is a Pilot with Spice jet, also attended the memorial service.