The details are scarce, but four feet under the clear waters of the Malikha River in northern Myanmar is the apparent wreckage of a World War Two plane discovered days ago.
Facebook account “Sin Bay Yt Thomas” posted a video on October 17 of a man treading lightly along what may be the fuselage, one hand holding a boat for balance. Locals say sand erosion and flooding have revealed the aircraft.
Found near Manno village in Machanbaw township, Kachin state the wreckage was visited on October 18 by local officials who are reportedly planning to recover it.
An elderly villager recalled seeing a plane crash in 1942 in the area, which is part of Putao district, reported 7Day News Daily.
Scores of Allied plans crashed in northern Burma during the war while flying supplies from India to China. Crossing the 10,000-foot peaks of the Naga Hills and the 20,000-foot peaks of the Himalayan Santsung Range of southwest China, pilots had to contend with Japanese fighter aircraft out of Myitkyina and anti-aircraft ground fire.
Freak winds would smash the aircraft and bouts of turbulence over the mountains were so forceful that they sometimes flipped the plane upside down, causing crews to dub the airlift run “Operation Vomit.”
Nearly 600 planes crashed along the route, known as “the Hump,” partly because pilots lacked the navigational technology that exists today.
“Hump pilots—some of whom flew the route three times daily—began to joke that they could puck their way from India to Kunming by following ‘The Aluminium Trail’ of crashed aircraft along the ground,” wrote author Donovan Webster in “The Burma Road,” his non-fiction account of the China-Burma-India Theatre.
Check out a video of the discovery below.
Posted by Sin Bay Yt Thomas on Saturday, October 17, 2020
