Instantly bombs and bullets fell from the sky like hails, the 80-year-old recounted how the government hospital in his village was attacked from the sky by the Japanese force on March 28, 1944.
The hospital and its adjacent doctor s quarters are believed to be the only structures in Mizoram that still bear the scars of the World War-II.
According to R L Buatsaiha, a headmaster of government-run Oriental Middle School in the village, six Japanese jet fighters attacked the hospital towards the end of the Second World War for reasons unknown till today. Buatsaiha (63) has documented the terrifying incident by interviewing people who had witnessed the aerial attacks.
Most of the persons whom he had interviewed have now passed away. Six bombs were dropped, which meant that each jet fighter dropped a bomb. Going by the empty cartridges recovered from the site in the aftermath of the attacks, the jet fighters also swept the place with machine guns, Buatsaiha said.
However, luckily no one died in the attack despite the fact that there were five patients lying on the hospital beds at the time of the attack, he said. The hospital s quarters was damaged beyond repair. Luckily, the doctor was on a holiday at that time, otherwise, he could surely have died, said Buatsaiha.
Till recently, the ground near the hospital had still had holes following the bombings. But, the holes have now been filled with soil by the owners of the land. The bullet holes in the hospital and the doctor s quarters are the only remaining testimony to the forgotten attack during the Second World War, Buatsaiha said.
No one knows why the Japanese wanted to attack the hospital, that reportedly bore no Red Cross mark.
A British army officer was coming to North Vanlaiphai a few days before the attack. That was what most of the persons whom I had interviewed believed as the cause of the Japanese attacks, the school headmaster said.
The British army officer was staying at a bungalow at a nearby village, they said. People of North Vanlaiphai wanted to preserve the hospital as one of the state s heritage. The building, commissioned in 1913, itself is a heritage as it is one of the oldest buildings built during the British time.
The government should declare it a heritage building, he said. Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) Mizoram chapter, the source said, has not taken any step to preserve the building which currently serves as a primary health centre manned by a single doctor and a few nurses.
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