MANOJ SINHA
Ramgarh, March 31: The Ramgarh Chinese cemetery was founded in 1943. It is a permanent home to the heroes of the armed forces of the Republic of China who sacrificed their lives and died with heroes in a combined operation with the British and American forces to build the China India Highway. They successfully prevented the Japanese forces from occupying India and did not allow them to join the German forces in the middle-east.
The cemetery is spread over 7.25 acres of land and is only 4 km away from the famous Shubhash Chowk of Ramgarh town. It is in Jemara village and only 1 km from Ramgarh-Barkakana Road.
A total of 667 officers and soldiers are buried here and 40 of them have tombstones carved with inscriptions. The identities of others have unfortunately been lost with time.
On the south side are the Chinese martyrs led by General Lo Cho-Ying, commanding general of the Chinese 1st expeditionary force, and the west side honours the dead heroes led by General Cheng Tung- Kuo.
Right at the centre of the cemetery is a two-floored Buddha Temple. The memorial tablet for fallen soldiers of Chinese expeditionary forces in India and Burma is enshrined and worshipped on the first floor while the statue of Buddha is worshipped on the second floor.
From the centre of the monuments, four cement pavements extend outward to form a cross. The main gate is four columns of memorial archways made of reinforced concrete.
The renovation work of this old cemetery was performed by ANS Business Enterprises of Calcutta. It was kicked off on 27th July 2011 and completed after three and half months with an expenditure cost of around Rs 1 crore.
9th December 2011, was a historic day for the Cemetery of Chinese expedition forces founded in 1943 during the Second World War. The cemetery was once again inaugurated by then Taiwanese ambassador of
India Wen- Chyi Ong. He was accompanied by Lt. Gen. of Taiwan Hsiung, Haiang- Thai, Information director Ho Nai- chi, David Hsu, Col. Tony Chen and other dignitaries from India and Taiwan.
