Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten with the Royal Engineers who built the first Chindwin bridge at Kalewa, 1944 (c)

Photograph, World War Two (1941-1945), Far East, 1944 (c).

In early December 1944 the engineers of 11th Division were tasked with establishing a bridgehead across the River Chindwin in Burma. After the Japanese had been driven back from the river they constructed what was then the longest floating 'Bailey Bridge' in the world during 28 hours of continuous assembly. This was despite regular Japanese air-raids. The pre-fabricated bridge parts had been ferried across the Brahmaputra and transported by train to the railhead at Dimapur. Here they were loaded on lorries for the 300 mile journey over mountain roads to Kalewa.

From an album of 190 photographs relating to the 11th East African Division and the King's African Rifles.