When the victorius airman had left for the forward airfields or for their near and distant homes, villagers from Kumbhirgram paid frequent and profitable visits to this group of buildings. Not a door or a window or even a stray piece of glass or wire now lies within yards of these vacant damp structures.

During the past five monsoons, nature has succeeded in recladding the surrounding jungle left naked by roads and encampments used by airmen to win war. Except for a tiny piece of soiled plaster on the doorway of one of these buildings, which has miraculously escaped the notice of weather-gods and village folks, it would be hard for a visitor now to imagine that Kumbhirgram could have been one of the busiest wartime air-stations in the East. A vertical row of seventeen, quite legible, stencilled numbers appears on the plastered doorway, as if it were a page from past history carefully preserved.

Among these multi-figure numbers there are two digits, nine and seven, that stands for a fighter squadron of Hurricanes and a Vultee-Vengeance dive-bomber squadron of the Indian Air Force which were based at Kumbhirgram airforce camp, alongside fifteen squadrons of the other Allies.

History repeated itself when five months ago a detachment of IAF Tempest and Dakota flights came to the camp exactly from where, five years earlier, two Indian squadrons had carried out many sorties to make the Arakan skies safe.

A company strong of the Assam Regiment came to Kumbhirgram two weeks before the detachment arrived. With their "dahs" and "kukris", the men set about clearing the intriguing mass of undergrowth that thickly covered every inch of earth. Bambooes were chopped off and sliced to build new bashas and re-condition the existing ones. By a skill for improvisation inherited from the war days, a comfortable technical area and a domestic camp, fully furnished with makeshift bamboo articles, were all brought into being. An IAF signal party which had arrived at the same time, established a wireless link with other parts of India. A network of telephone lines and electric wires linked up and lighted every corner of the camp and gave it the look of a neat little civilised, busy township. In less than two weeks, out of Nature's peaceful chaos there emerged a man-made noisy order.

Once the stage was set, Dakotas and Tempests came and landed at the airfield. The dispersal area was earmarked and the tents for Offices and flights pitched. Meteorological and Servicing sections were established. Wind-sack was put up and a control tower, oxygen plant, MI room, fuel supply points, a mobile canteen and other essential ancillaries that make an Air Force function, were got going.

Next morning the Detachment Commander W/Cdr V Siri Hari drove in a be-flagged jeep and alighted close to a newly-erected 20 feet mast, around which Officers and airmen stood to attention and saluted.