Guwahati, Nov 30: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu and US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti on Wednesday inaugurated ‘The Hump WWII Museum’, the 2nd museum in Asia dedicated to the fallen airmen of the Allied forces during the WWII at Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh.
The Hump, Garcetti claimed, isn’t just a museum in some remote part of India, half the world round from the US but already a world class museum.
“We come here today not just to mark history but to make history. To see the ways with which each one of us is called not just to witness the past but to do something to change the future,” said Garcetti in a ceremony to mark the occasion.
He thanked and expressed gratitude to the Indian Government, the Government of Arunachal Pradesh and the team behind the museum headed by its Director Oken Tayeng.
“This isn’t a gift only to Arunachal Pradesh or to the families whose lives will be affected when they come here but it is a gift to India and to the world,” he said.
Khandu, while welcoming the Ambassador and his entourage, said ‘The Hump’ was a tribute from the people of Arunachal Pradesh to the fallen heroes of WWII.
He said that history should not be allowed to fade away with time and expressed optimism that this museum will remind the younger generation of the daredevilry of the Allied forces who flew over the ‘Hump’ to fight against the threat to democracy and freedom.
The pilots of the Allied forces nicknamed the air-route from airfields in Assam to those in Yunnan in China ‘The Hump’ because their aircraft had to navigate deep gorges and then quickly fly over mountains rising beyond 10,000 feet. From 1942 to 1945, military aircraft transported nearly 6,50,000 tonnes of supplies like fuel, food and ammunition.
