Over the course of the last four years, I have made a series of journeys traveling the length of The Ledo-Burma Road – also known as The Stilwell Road.  The road starts in the town of Ledo in India’s north-eastern state of Assam, crosses northern Myanmar and ends in Kunming in the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan.

This project developed from a desire to pay tribute to the sacrifice of those who laboured through the jungles of South Asia, and to understand how the population of the present day are now using the road. I had heard of US Army General Joseph ‘Vinegar Joe” Stilwell as a fearless commander of troops in World War II in the Asian Theatre, and the more I read about him the more I wished to journey along the road which bore his name.

Named by Chinese Nationalist Leader Chiang Kai-shek after Stilwell, who commanded US and Chinese troops in Myanmar, the road was built during World War II to deliver arms and supplies to the Chinese regime as an alternative to using an air route called ‘The Hump’, which involved Allied Forces flying from Ledo in India over the eastern Himalayas to Kunming.

Faced with natural barriers of malarial-infested jungles fuelled by monsoon rains, mountain ranges topped by stony peaks, and inhabited by predators large and small and the dangers of continual enemy attacks, the reality of this enterprise was that soldiers and civilians alike endured horrific daily conditions as they forged the route. It was eventually dubbed ‘A Man A Mile Road’. At home we’d amassed a mini-library on the region, and the more I read about the area the more I became fascinated with the region, not only in the period of World War II but in the present day.

I believe the current political context and the road are intertwined, its entrenched history of allied action and otherwise conflict. Throughout the war, Chiang and Roosevelt’s good relationship was tempered by suspicion. China’s eastern shore had been dominated for many years by foreign powers since the late 19th century, and despite Roosevelt’s long history of trading in China, many in the Congress felt that Chiang was taking weapons and funding under false pretences, for use after the war. Roosevelt even bowed to pressure from Chiang to dismiss Stilwell from his command of Chinese troops in China Burma India Theatre. Japan also dominated Manchuria from 1905 onwards and made deep incursions into Chinese territory in WWII.

Bring this history into the present day, where China is the economic powerhouse on which the US import market is arguably reliant. Indeed, China now holds cash reserves in US dollars and flexes its muscles in the islands and atolls of the east China Sea. Japan is set to abandon its pacifist constitution. The US has marines stationed in Darwin, Australia. All of the diplomacy which led to the Allied Forces being victorious in Asia maybe perhaps at risk if expansionist policies of all are not tempered. Though there are seemingly no concrete plans for the road to be reinstated from the Indian side – due to tensions with China claiming the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as their territory – it is possible that the three countries may be linked by a more southerly route in the future, from the Indian state of Manipur through to Mandalay and then onto Yunnan.

Due to border restrictions it is no longer possible to cross the national borders through which the road travels. So, starting in late 2010, I made different trips to the three countries involved – India, Myanmar and China. I have just concluded the final section of travel between Muse on the Myanmar/Chinese border and Pangsau Pass on the Myanmar/India border.

The final section which we undertook – I was accompanied as ever by my long-suffering wife – as passengers on tiny Chinese 125cc scooters, along the hilly jungle track between Namyun village and Pangsau Pass in northern Myanmar. This six-hour journey was the highlight of the trip, not only because it ended our odyssey along the Stilwell Road, but for the enthusiasm of the young men who piloted us through the heavily rutted muddy track. Theirs was symbolic of the drive and determination of those men and women who built The Stilwell Road, and surely the most fitting of tributes.

Britain’s war-time leader Winston Churchill had famously said “ an immense, laborious task, unlikely to be finished until the need for it has passed”. January 2015 saw the 70th anniversary of the completion of the first journey along the Stilwell Road, during which the main architect of the road, Lt. Gen. Lewis A Pick, led the convoy from Ledo to Kunming.

Images and words by Findlay Kember