Srinagar, Aug. 20 -- By Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee

A Mitsubishi Ki-21 bomber sat loaded on the runway at Taihoku airfield on the afternoon of August 18, 1945. Aboard it sat Subhas Chandra Bose, bound for Dairen in Manchuria, hoping the Soviet Union might shelter his fight against the British once Japan's surrender closed off every other door.

Beside him sat a young colonel named Habib-ur-Rahman Khan, his chief of staff, a soldier raised in a village called Panjeri, tucked into the hills of the Bhimber region of Jammu and Kashmir.

Minutes after takeoff, witnesses heard a sound like a cannon shot.

The port engine had failed.

The bomber pitched, broke apart, and burst into flame on the ground below.

Rahman lived. Bose did not, at least ac...