Newspaper Report
Plane Crashed Carrying POWS
Flight 66 of 117 Squadron RAF Dakota left Rangoon Mingladoon on the 8th September 1945 for Saigon to evacuate British Prisoners of War in the area who had been prisoners under the Japanese for three and a half years, all were suffering from starvation and tropical diseases.
On arrival the plane, loaded with 24 POW’s and the RAF crew of four, took off on the return flight, landing at Bangkok to refuel.
It is then reported that about 1pm on that day villagers to the village of Nuaunggangle about 13 mile north west of Moulmein in Burma and about 150 miles south east of the final destination of Rangoon heard an aircraft out at sea, followed by an explosion. The same evening at high tide they found various articles washed ashore and the next day at low tide saw the wreckage scattered over a sandbank. Several bodies which were unidentified were recovered but no trace of survivors were found.
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