Led by Cheshire, Conn., resident Richard Abbate, a group of reenactors travel the East Coast showing how the U.S. First Air Commando Group's camp in India might have looked during World War II. The building pictured has a thatched roof and bamboo walls.

During a recent air show in Reading, Penn., spectators walk through a reproduction of a World War II-era American military encampment, venturing through a small makeshift camp, including a building with thatched roof and bamboo walls. Many audience-goers assume the camp is modeled after one in the Pacific used during the Americans' storied island-hopping military campaign against the Japanese.

"When we tell them that they're actually in India, we tend to get a lot of puzzled reactions," said Cheshire resident Richard Abbate, who has long sought to shed more light on American military involvement in India during World War II.

While clashes like the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Invasion of Normandy and the Battle of Iwo Jima have enjoyed storied histories and significant attention from contemporary historians and researchers, other theaters of the war, often critical to the success of the Allies in the conflict, have found a much sparser modern-day audience.

The First Air Commando Group, a World War II-era U.S. Army Air Force battalion based in India, is one of those military divisions whose war efforts has been largely been buried in the history books, Abbate said.

Abbate has made it his mission to shed some light on the battalion and raise awareness about its critical work in the war.

Richard Abbate

"So many people don't even realize American troops were based in India during the war," Abbate said. "When I saw what [the First Air Commando Group] accomplished, I really felt they deserved more attention."

And so Abbate, 64, has turned to collecting mementos and props, including uniforms and weapons, from the war's China, Burma and India theater and staging reenactments across the Northeast dedicated to telling the story of the First Air Commando Group's work.

Established in 1943 by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide greater air support to the British in their Burma campaign, the First Air Commando Group worked alongside British, Indian and Chinese soldiers to weaken the Japanese and head off their advances on the Asian continent.

In 1942, Singapore and Burma, both then defended by the British and Chinese, were invaded by the Japanese. The Japanese cut off a critical route stretching from India to China that the Allies used to traffic supplies into China to aid soldiers there. Japan planned to use its position in Burma to stage an invasion of India, which was then governed by the British.

With both China and Japan heavily mired in war with each other at the time, the Western Allies were keen to keep Chinese resistance viable because Chinese involvement meant Japan had to divert a significant amount of its supplies and over a million of its soldiers to battling on that front of the war, depriving it of critical resources needed to fight the Western Allies. 

Based in the Assam state of India, the First Air Commando Group assisted British and Indian forces in a military engagement called "Operation Thursday" in which the Allies slipped behind Japanese lines in Burma to establish a military outpost and airstrip. The move was designed to break up, attack and confuse Japanese forces and provide air cover for the Allies.  The operation was largely successful, hampering Japanese advances and helping squash Japan's plans to invade India.

A recreation of the First Air Commando Group base in India.

"No question, [the First Air Commando Group] was a very successful model," Abbate said. "They accomplished virtually everything they set out to do."

Born in 1945 at the conclusion of the war, Abbate said he has always had an interest in military history. His father worked as an aviation ordnance man in the World War II. Stationed in South America, he helped prepare military aircraft before they were flown into service in Europe.

"World War II was always a part of my childhood," Abbate said.

And while a back injury prevented him from being drafted into Vietnam, Abbate obtained a pilot's license and now serves in the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol.

A former endurance race car driver, Abbate said his interest in military history began to pique when he entered his 30s.

"When I stopped thinking so much about cars and girls, I realized I had a real fascination in veterans and their stories," he said.

He attended an air show in western New York featuring military reenactments with his father in 1991, which he said encouraged him to explore launching his own group.

"I just thought it was such a wonderful thing, honoring veterans and their service, in that way," he said.

In staging reenactments today, Abbate said he strives to be as accurate as possible in reflecting the lives of the soldiers and the conditions they endured.

He noted that a bamboo hut he created for reenactments includes fake vermin in the thatched roof, because many veterans recounted to him that several rats and snakes burrowed homes for themselves in the hut's thick thatched roofs. Many alarmed soldiers awoke at night to find snakes falling onto their bodies from the roof above.

Today, a core group of about 15 to 20 military history enthusiasts join Abbate in staging military enactments several times a year, where they work to provide a glimpse into the lives of U.S. soldiers based in India in World War II. Abbate said chronicling the conditions soldiers faced is critical in helping Americans understand the magnitude of their sacrifices.

"It's a forgotten theater of the war and a forgotten military unit," he said. "That's unfortunate, because they accomplished some remarkable things."