Bhubaneswar, July 27 : A memorial service was held at the Amarda Road Airstrip at Rasgovindpur, in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district on Wednesday for the fourteen airmen who had died in a crash here on July 26, 1945.
Historian Anil Dhir, Gandhian Aditya Patnaik, Dr Biswajit Mohanty, Morada MLA Rajkishore Das, Air Commodore Ran Singh the Air Officer Commanding of Kalaikunda Air Station and the Staff of the Gandhi Eye Hospital at Rangamatia, locals including school children paid homage to the airmen who have been forgotten in history. Wreaths were laid on the photos of these airmen.
Very few people know that the skies of Odisha had seen the crash of two aircraft which had collided against each other and resulted in the deaths of 14 airmen. On 26, July 1945 two British Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator four-engine bombers collided at low altitudes.
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.
Fourteen airmen – the crews of the two aircraft died in the crash. They were of different nationalities – British, American, Dutch, New Zealander, Australian and one Indian.
Dhir said 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.
The station, Dhir said, came into existence during the war as a forward airfield against the Japanese conquest of Burma.
The large strip served its purpose well as a landing ground for planes and also as a training space for 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 1940s at a cost of Rs 3 crore it was eventually abandoned after the war. It was named 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, their 11000 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 farm 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.
Air Commodore Ran Singh said that it was a unique occasion for the IAF to join such a ceremony.
Dhir has requested the government of Odisha and West Bengal to erect small memorials for these airmen at Amarda Road and the crash site.
He has also requested to open up the sealed underground bunker which may hold relics of the period.
Aditya Patnaik proposed that he would 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.
The setting up of a Peace Museum was mooted last year and Dhir has contacted the British, Australian, Dutch and USA authorities for material to be displayed at the Museum and the response has been very positive.
Anil Dhir also said that a book on the history of the base and crash would be released on the next commemoration day.
Dr Biswajit Mohanty said the airstrip is an important piece of history connected to World War II and has a lot of significance as it was a secret base.
Morada MLA Rajkishore Das said the abandoned airbase would soon be made operational for UDAAN flights or for other aviation-related ventures.
He also promised that all help would be extended for setting up the museum at the base.
