China Exclusive: Remains of 347 expeditionary soldiers to return China

The remains of 347 expeditionary soldiers found in Myanmar will be returned to China early next month.

This is the largest collection of expeditionary soldiers' remains to be returned so far. They will arrive in the southwestern province of Yunnan on Nov. 5, Sun Chunlong, chair of Longyue Charity Foundation, told a press conference Wednesday.

The remains were found in the northern suburb of Myitkyina, during a search initiated by the Chinese NGO in April.

In 1942, China sent 100,000 expeditionary soldiers to Myanmar and India to fight the Japanese forces with the Allies. During the war, nearly half of China's troops were killed or injured.

"A Chinese general left the injured to guard tombs, with the promise that he would come back and get them after the war," Sun said. However, civil war in China made this plan all but impossible.

Liu Qiuda, son of the director of the managing bureau for the cemetery of expeditionary soldiers No. 1 Army, helped locate the cemetery. On the site where the remains were found is now a house and a middle school.

Residents of the house told Sun that when they were building the house in the 1970s they found bones, as well as bullet casings.

"We found badges belonging to expeditionary soldiers on the first day, and soon recovered buttons, bottles, photo frames, pens and even a lipstick." said Chen Liang, associate professor with the School of Cultural Heritage at Northwest University, who headed the excavation.

Veteran expeditionary soldier You Guangcai, 96, wailed when he saw the photographs of the excavation at the press conference. "Today is the hardest day for me, but worth remembering," he said.

Chen Qingjin's father left for Myanmar while Chen was still a babe-in-arms, and never returned. "My biggest wish is to kowtow in front of his remains," he said.

Li Wenguang, head of Yunnan's Shidian County, told Xinhua that a 66.7 hectare plot of land had been earmarked as a cemetery for the soldiers. "The burials will be finished by the end of next year," he said.

A memorial hall will also be built, he added, by Huitong Bridge in Shidian, along which the expeditionary soldiers left China.

Tests on dental samples have revealed that about 43 percent of the soldiers were between 20 and 25 years old when they were killed. While genetic methods found that 37 percent of the samples were from southwest China, and 22 percent from the northwest.

"This could help us locate where the dead were from, so that we will be able to find their relatives," said Li Hui, professor with the School of Life Sciences in Fudan University.

"We are going to make a DNA database for these unnamed soldiers, and look for their relatives. This work shall continue, until we find the last dead soldier," said Sun Chunlong. Endi