Ledo Road

Ledo Road, 770 km. (478 mi.) long India–China supply road and oil pipeline built through the mountainous area of northern Burma. It ran from Ledo (situated in India near the northern border with Burma) to Myitkyina in northern Burma, then Bhamo, and finally to Muse where it connected with the Burma Road that had been built to Kunming in China. It took 17,000 Allied engineers and $148 million to build it, and was one of the major engineering feats of the war. Construction started in December 1942 at the insistence of the USA, which was eager to support Chiang Kai-shek's forces fighting the Japanese in China (see China incident), whose supplies were by then restricted to the tonnage being flown in by the Hump air route. Lt-General Stilwell's Northern Combat Area Command offensive between October 1943 and August 1944 cleared the Japanese from northern Burma (see Burma campaign), but it soon became apparent that the road would not be ready in time to be of much strategic use. It was completed in January 1945 when its name was changed by Chiang Kai-shek to the Stilwell Road. See also logistics.