U.S. to search for missing WW2 airmen in India

By Simon Denyer

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - In honor of the crouching, naked blonde painted on its nose, its pilot had named his bomber the "Hot as Hell".

But it was a freezing and stormy day as the American B-24 Liberator made its way across the Himalayas on Jan 25, 1944, flying what was known as "the Hump", perhaps the most dangerous route in air transport history.

It was one of nine American planes that went down that day as they tried to resupply China's besieged army in the city of Kunming, desperately trying to hold out against the invading Japanese during World War Two.

Many of the wrecks have never been found.

The Hot as Hell's crew of eight were listed as Missing in Action and later presumed dead. Its fate was a mystery the crewmen's families lived with for 60 years.

That is until Clayton Kuhles, an Arizona businessmen who spends his free time trekking through the mountains of northeastern India in search of World War Two plane wrecks, found the debris of the plane in thick jungle on December 2006.

Kuhles has found the remains of nine planes in the remote state of Arunachal Pradesh in the past five years, doggedly logging his discoveries, informing American military authorities and posting them on his website (www.miarecoveries.org).

Now, after determined lobbying from relatives of the dead airmen, the U.S. military is finally swinging into action.

This month it announced it was in discussions with the Indian government to conduct a joint operation to search for some of the planes and bring the airmen's remains home.

"We were very, very happy to see that," said Gary Zaetz, nephew of the Hot as Hell's Navigator First Lieutenant Irwin Zaetz. "We would like them to do it some time this year."

ALUMINIUM TRAIL

By the end of the war, 650,000 tonnes of gasoline, munitions and other supplies were flown over the Hump, from northeastern India across Burma to Kunming. On a single day in August 1945, more than a thousand round-trips were made across the mountains, carrying a payload of more than 5,000 tonnes.

With just a map, a compass and a radio signal to navigate by, the route, passing over 4,500 meter (15,000-foot) ridges, was so hazardous airmen also nicknamed it "the Aluminum Trail".

Many planes suffered from icing, some ran out of fuel, others lost their way in storms and simply crashed into the mountains. Rescue missions were mounted but with sketchy results.

The U.S. Department of Defense says than more than 500 U.S. aircraft and 1,200 crewmembers are still missing in the China-Burma-India theatre from World War Two, with 416 Americans missing in India alone.