Construction History
From the ENR Archive: August 31, 1944
Cover from ENR Archives
This 1944 cover photo shows Chinese engineers constructing a hand-made wooden bridge across the Tanai Hka River in Myanmar, what then was Burma. The bridge was a key crossing for the Ledo Road, a critical overland route for the Allies supplying Chinese forces in World War II.
Starting in Ledo, the railhead in northeast India, the road then crossed the 9,000-ft Patkai Hills in northern Myanmar and crossed the Hukawng Valley and Irrawaddy River before it linked to the former Burma Road at Mong-Yu.
Chinese and Indian laborers and American military engineers struggled to cut the route through wild jungles, deep valleys and swamp with a workforce that peaked at 30,000.
While mud, malaria and Japanese snipers took their toll, the 465-mile-long, two-lane gravel route was completed in late 1944.
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