Photo Gallery

I have enjoyed reading about IIT at Kharagpur, and was particularly interested in seeing the picture of the old Main Building. I was in the United States Air Force stationed at Kharagpur in 1945. The headquarters of the 20th Bomber Command of the 20th Air Force was located in that building and I worked in an office there. I have a picture of the building taken about the middle of April, 1945. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12 and the American flag on a flagpole in front of the building was flown at half mast. My picture shows that flag at half mast and a B-29 bomber from the Kharagpur air base is flying in the background. For a short time I was stationed at an air field at Dudkhundi where another part of the 20th Bomber Command was located. I enjoyed my stay in your fascinating land.

The scanned image is almost as good as my 52 year old print but a little the sharpness was lost in the process. The flagpole with the United States flag at half staff (recognizing the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt) is half-way between the left end of the building and the left border of the picture. The B-29 bomber (not recognizable in the scanned image) is about a half inch left of the tower and about midway of the heighth of the tower. There are five army Jeeps parked opposite the main entrance to the building, and another one alongside the building at the fourth archway to the right of the main entrance.

- Marvin Williams, Feb 4 1997

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