September 15, 2004
A joint Chinese-US Himalayan search group has found the eerie wreckage of a World War Two plane, including a lock of the pilot's red hair, but otherwise no human remains.
The plane was found near a cliff along the wartime "Hump" supply route in Danniang, Tibet, after days of tough reconnaissance, the Xinhua news agency said in a report.
"Items including a necklace, a parachute, an oxygen mask, an earplug, a safety belt, torch fragments and a lock of the pilot's red hair, were found," it said, quoting Ju Jianhua of the joint search group.
The Danniang wreckage was originally reported by two local hunters in 1999. During a trip in 2000 to pinpoint its location, a Chinese group found another wreck.
In a joint search in 2002 with China, the United States brought back the second plane wreck but abandoned the Danniang search.
Opened in 1942, the 500 mile (800 km) Hump route began in the southern Indian state of Assam, passed over the Himalayas, and reached the southwest Chinese province of Sichuan.
US planes based in China's southwestern province of Yunnan made airlifts over the Hump to supply the Chinese war effort against Japanese invaders.
A total of 650,000 tonnes of goods were transported via the route over more than three years, "contributing greatly to China's then weak logistic system and to the final victory in the fight against the Japanese invasion", Xinhua said.
Before the route was closed in 1945, the US Air Force had lost 468 planes and 1,579 crew members because of the harsh climate and terrain, Xinhua said.
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