THE TOUGHEST JOB     The Ledo Road was built by U.S. Army Engineers and native labor during World War II from the tea plantation province of Assam in India, through the mountains and jungle of northern Burma, to a junction with the Burma Road.  It went over tough mountain terrain, across monsoon fed swamps and through the thickest jungle.  General Lewis A. Pick, who commanded the road building effort, called it the toughest job ever given to U.S. Army Engineers in wartime.  Its purpose was to re-establish the land supply route to China that had been blocked by the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942.  Construction began 16 December 1942 and the completed road was officially opened 20 May 1945.  An estimated 147,000 tons of supplies were carried over the road by the end of the war.     The usefulness of the Ledo Road was debated both before its construction and after its completion.  Even as it progressed into Burma, military planners had their doubts about whether it could be completed in time or even at all.  As it neared completion and until well after the war ended, many pointed out that it never lived-up to the original estimates of capacity as a supply line.     Overlooked is the fact that it was decided not to build the road to the original specification of a double-track (two-lane) road over its entire length, the fact that it was never assigned the originally planned number of truck transport companies, and the fact that it actually assisted the airlift operation over The Hump to which it was constantly compared.     As the road was built it served as a combat highway enabling the reconquest of Burma, serviced a pipeline that paralleled it to carry fuel all the way to China, and allowed safer more southerly routes for airlift flights to China.  The accomplishment of building the Ledo Road stands as a testament to the men responsible and the American spirit that made it possible.  NEXT PAGE