This 1944 cover photo shows Chinese engineers building a handmade wooden bridge over the Tanai Hka River in Myanmar, then Burma. The bridge was a key passage for the Ledo Highway, a critical land route for the Allies supplying Chinese forces in World War II.
Beginning at Ledo, the railhead in northeastern India, the road crossed the 9,000-foot Patkai Hills of northern Myanmar and traversed the Hukawng Valley and the Irrawaddy River before linking up with the old Burma road to Mong-Yu.
Chinese and Indian laborers and US military engineers struggled to cut the route through wild jungles, deep valleys and swamp with a workforce that peaked at 30,000.
While mud, malaria and Japanese snipers took their toll, the 465-mile long two-lane gravel road was completed in late 1944.
