An oxygen breather tank used by pilots during the World War-II by United States Air Force found in North Lakhimpur in a private collector’s home in 1984 still awaiting a response from the authorities concerned.
The aluminum metal made tank with ribbed body believed to be a part of USAF’s B-17 bomber aircraft which was crashed deep inside the jungles of present day Arunachal Pradesh during its regular missions from either Lilabari or Mohanbari airfields.
According to Hussain, who has been preserving the tank for thirty four years, a wreckage of a WW-II aircraft had been laying in a place called Borhill in Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh, 20 kms north of Kakoi Reserve Forest in Lakhimpur district.
He said that the aircraft was laying there in dilapidated condition for a long period of time and people removed many of its parts to be sold as scraps.
Milap Hussain, who had been to that place trekking says that many parts of the crashed aircraft have been lying spread in a wider area inside the jungle and two more wreckages of crashed aircrafts are also there nearby.
He referred to the visiting US JAPAC team of POW (Prisoner of War) and MIA (Missing in Action), who were in Sivasagar district in 2014 to travel to Lakhimpur to trace the aircrafts. But no such team has ever visited Lakhimpur district so far.
It may be recalled that during the Kunming operation in the height of the World War-II in 1942, the USAF conducted regular missions to Japan occupied China and Burma from Mohanbari, Rowriah (Jorhat) and Lilabari (North Lakhimpur) and many of its aircraft crashed in Assam and other parts of present day Arunachal Prdaseh, Nagaland and Manipur.