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Burma Memoir, 1924-48
by
Alwyn Henry Seppings
by
Alwyn Henry Seppings
1/18
Forward
In preparing this personal memoir, I have had no recourse to archives or bibliography relating to the British Administration of Burma, having left the United Kingdom in 1960. What is recounted in this memoir is based solely on what is committed to memory, some notes left by my late father and scribbled captions to family photographs and army papers.
Family connections with Burma
While my grandfather, Edmund Henry, was the first member of the family to establish himself in Burma in 1890, there was an earlier forebear who “accidentally” stepped foot on that territory some thirty years earlier. To retrospect briefly, my great grandfather John Milligen (2nd) was serving with a British Military Garrison in Madras, in July 1830, when he married a Sarah Cogswell, the daughter of a fellow serviceman. They produced two male offspring, Nicholas and William, one of whom was the parish priest of the town of Cawnpore, India and was reportedly murdered, along with other British residents during the Indian mutiny of 1857. The second son was a senior officer in the East India Fleet patrolling the Bay of Bengal (a note on Admiralty-headed paper lodged with St. Alfege’s Church, Greenwich, bears reference to an Admiral Seppings) and whose ship was wrecked on the island of Cheduva, off the west coast of Burma, but he survived the disaster and integrated with the islanders. This but of family history was authenticated by my brother, Carlyle Edmund, who, while serving as Deputy Inspector General with the Burma Police, located a group on the island during a tour in 1946 and fund that they still carry the family name and are quite different from the rest of the settlers in that they are light-haired and fair-complexioned.
Returning to John Milligen (2nd,) he re-married, in February 1863, an Irish widow, Margaret Johnson and returned to Greenwich where he raised a family of three children: John Milligen (3rd) Mary Margaret and Edmund Henry, my grandfather, who was born in September 1864. Edmund Henry’s interests lay with administrative work in the medical services and after having gained experience in this profession he decided upon colonial service and chose Burma, arriving in Rangoon in March 1890. He had a letter of introduction to Rangoon Central Hospital and was offered a post of Registrar of the Medical Council, later to be promoted to Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals, which post he held till his death in 1934.
In July 1893, Edmund Henry married a Burmese lady, Ma San Mi, a descendant from the Siamese royal dynasty of Chakra which still rules Thailand to this day. The marriage produced three children: Edith, Millicent and Henry Lockyer, my father, born on December 24th 1895. In June 1902 my grandmother died from childbirth, the infant being stillborn and seeing that he was unable to tend his offspring, my grandfather (who never re-married) dispersed them among his own family, Henry Lockyer being sent to his step-uncle, Joe, in Greenwich. When he had turned ten years he returned to his father in Rangoon, went through schooling and later entered Rangoon University where he obtained a science degree. In August 1913 Henry was sent to Edinburgh University for further education and though his father wanted him to take up medicine he was more bent on civil engineering and proved his worth by acquiring his degree in 1917. Like his father, Henry decided upon colonial service and returned to Rangoon and was assigned to the Burma Railways. After obtaining his charter with the Burma Service of Engineers, he transferred to the Public Works Department in February 1919 in the grade of Sub-divisional Engineer. In 1934 he was promoted to Class 1 in the B.S.E., the first officer to attain
Forward
In preparing this personal memoir, I have had no recourse to archives or bibliography relating to the British Administration of Burma, having left the United Kingdom in 1960. What is recounted in this memoir is based solely on what is committed to memory, some notes left by my late father and scribbled captions to family photographs and army papers.
Family connections with Burma
While my grandfather, Edmund Henry, was the first member of the family to establish himself in Burma in 1890, there was an earlier forebear who “accidentally” stepped foot on that territory some thirty years earlier. To retrospect briefly, my great grandfather John Milligen (2nd) was serving with a British Military Garrison in Madras, in July 1830, when he married a Sarah Cogswell, the daughter of a fellow serviceman. They produced two male offspring, Nicholas and William, one of whom was the parish priest of the town of Cawnpore, India and was reportedly murdered, along with other British residents during the Indian mutiny of 1857. The second son was a senior officer in the East India Fleet patrolling the Bay of Bengal (a note on Admiralty-headed paper lodged with St. Alfege’s Church, Greenwich, bears reference to an Admiral Seppings) and whose ship was wrecked on the island of Cheduva, off the west coast of Burma, but he survived the disaster and integrated with the islanders. This but of family history was authenticated by my brother, Carlyle Edmund, who, while serving as Deputy Inspector General with the Burma Police, located a group on the island during a tour in 1946 and fund that they still carry the family name and are quite different from the rest of the settlers in that they are light-haired and fair-complexioned.
Returning to John Milligen (2nd,) he re-married, in February 1863, an Irish widow, Margaret Johnson and returned to Greenwich where he raised a family of three children: John Milligen (3rd) Mary Margaret and Edmund Henry, my grandfather, who was born in September 1864. Edmund Henry’s interests lay with administrative work in the medical services and after having gained experience in this profession he decided upon colonial service and chose Burma, arriving in Rangoon in March 1890. He had a letter of introduction to Rangoon Central Hospital and was offered a post of Registrar of the Medical Council, later to be promoted to Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals, which post he held till his death in 1934.
In July 1893, Edmund Henry married a Burmese lady, Ma San Mi, a descendant from the Siamese royal dynasty of Chakra which still rules Thailand to this day. The marriage produced three children: Edith, Millicent and Henry Lockyer, my father, born on December 24th 1895. In June 1902 my grandmother died from childbirth, the infant being stillborn and seeing that he was unable to tend his offspring, my grandfather (who never re-married) dispersed them among his own family, Henry Lockyer being sent to his step-uncle, Joe, in Greenwich. When he had turned ten years he returned to his father in Rangoon, went through schooling and later entered Rangoon University where he obtained a science degree. In August 1913 Henry was sent to Edinburgh University for further education and though his father wanted him to take up medicine he was more bent on civil engineering and proved his worth by acquiring his degree in 1917. Like his father, Henry decided upon colonial service and returned to Rangoon and was assigned to the Burma Railways. After obtaining his charter with the Burma Service of Engineers, he transferred to the Public Works Department in February 1919 in the grade of Sub-divisional Engineer. In 1934 he was promoted to Class 1 in the B.S.E., the first officer to attain
2/18
this grade. Two years later he was appointed Executive Engineer and in another two years he was promoted to Superintending Engineer, the highest divisional appointment in the P.W.D.
While with the Burma Railways, Henry Lockyer met and married Edna May Blazey, the daughter of a military man. Five children were born, all in Burma: Nesta May (1918,) Phyllis Maud (1919,) Carlyle Edmund (1921,) Alwyn Henry (1924) and Joy Mary (1930.) I, Alwyn Henry was baptised in the parish of Minbu, a small town on the west bank of the Irrawaddy river, by Rev’d. Brian Caldecott from Mitcham.
General lifestyle of the British community in Burma
The British community comprised the “desk” officers, the large contingent of civil servants at the Secretariat in Rangoon who handled the affairs of the country under the supreme rule of the British Governor. Sir Harcourt Butler was the then Governor of Burma, 1924. Then came the “field” officers from the Civil Affairs Service, the Indian Civil Service and the Burma Service of Engineers. The remaining British population was employees from various English and Scottish companies: some names that come to mind are Steel Brothers, Macgregor’s, Bombay-Burmah Trading Corpn., Findlay’s, Shell and Burmah Oil and the two major banks, National Bank of India and the Chartered Bank of India and China. The field officers ran the public works, railways, police, prisons and other civil administrations. The field officers fell into two groups: the “town wallahs” of married men who lived in palatial residences set in spacious surroundings of lawns and gardens and who employed no less than four servants.
The other sector was called the “jungle wallahs” of bachelors who were timber-men, oilmen, rice-men, rubber tree planters and mine operators, all of whom had previous “theoretical” training in England. These bush workers were provided with less luxurious establishments called “chummeries.” They acquired their nickname because they lived with native women and were incapable of holding their liquor like gentlemen, but I felt they were unjustly tagged because they lived a rugged life, had little in the way of social distraction and there were risks attached to their work. There was the case of a young “fresher” just out from England who had barely been in the bush a month when he was brought back to town in a gunny bag - he had been gored to bits by a water buffalo as the result of not heeding the warnings of his more experienced colleagues.
While on tour, field officers were accommodated in Government “dak” bungalows, which were comfortably furnished residences permanently attended by a cook-cum butler: one merely carried one’s personal necessities. The more senior officers were allowed to use these “daks” as holiday resorts, the more popular choices being those located along the Arakan coastline or in the cooler climes of the beautiful hill stations. We spent many pleasant holidays at these locations amidst the natural beauty of the Burmese countryside: long hikes and picnics in the virgin hills and valleys, swimming in the crystal clear mountain pools, collecting wild orchids, duck shooting on lily covered lakes, big game safaris etc. If the Government P.W.D. launch happened to be in the area, my father would commandeer it for a few days so that the family could do a trip up or down the river: these launches were fully equipped to berth and victual up to 6 people.
The British residences were located on the outskirts of towns and grouped in “cantonments.” The focal point was the private club where membership was very exclusive but the club committee discreetly allowed in a quota of local V.I.P. The social functions were eagerly awaited occasions to dress up and for the ladies to show off their latest acquisitions from the London fashions. The men
this grade. Two years later he was appointed Executive Engineer and in another two years he was promoted to Superintending Engineer, the highest divisional appointment in the P.W.D.
While with the Burma Railways, Henry Lockyer met and married Edna May Blazey, the daughter of a military man. Five children were born, all in Burma: Nesta May (1918,) Phyllis Maud (1919,) Carlyle Edmund (1921,) Alwyn Henry (1924) and Joy Mary (1930.) I, Alwyn Henry was baptised in the parish of Minbu, a small town on the west bank of the Irrawaddy river, by Rev’d. Brian Caldecott from Mitcham.
General lifestyle of the British community in Burma
The British community comprised the “desk” officers, the large contingent of civil servants at the Secretariat in Rangoon who handled the affairs of the country under the supreme rule of the British Governor. Sir Harcourt Butler was the then Governor of Burma, 1924. Then came the “field” officers from the Civil Affairs Service, the Indian Civil Service and the Burma Service of Engineers. The remaining British population was employees from various English and Scottish companies: some names that come to mind are Steel Brothers, Macgregor’s, Bombay-Burmah Trading Corpn., Findlay’s, Shell and Burmah Oil and the two major banks, National Bank of India and the Chartered Bank of India and China. The field officers ran the public works, railways, police, prisons and other civil administrations. The field officers fell into two groups: the “town wallahs” of married men who lived in palatial residences set in spacious surroundings of lawns and gardens and who employed no less than four servants.
The other sector was called the “jungle wallahs” of bachelors who were timber-men, oilmen, rice-men, rubber tree planters and mine operators, all of whom had previous “theoretical” training in England. These bush workers were provided with less luxurious establishments called “chummeries.” They acquired their nickname because they lived with native women and were incapable of holding their liquor like gentlemen, but I felt they were unjustly tagged because they lived a rugged life, had little in the way of social distraction and there were risks attached to their work. There was the case of a young “fresher” just out from England who had barely been in the bush a month when he was brought back to town in a gunny bag - he had been gored to bits by a water buffalo as the result of not heeding the warnings of his more experienced colleagues.
While on tour, field officers were accommodated in Government “dak” bungalows, which were comfortably furnished residences permanently attended by a cook-cum butler: one merely carried one’s personal necessities. The more senior officers were allowed to use these “daks” as holiday resorts, the more popular choices being those located along the Arakan coastline or in the cooler climes of the beautiful hill stations. We spent many pleasant holidays at these locations amidst the natural beauty of the Burmese countryside: long hikes and picnics in the virgin hills and valleys, swimming in the crystal clear mountain pools, collecting wild orchids, duck shooting on lily covered lakes, big game safaris etc. If the Government P.W.D. launch happened to be in the area, my father would commandeer it for a few days so that the family could do a trip up or down the river: these launches were fully equipped to berth and victual up to 6 people.
The British residences were located on the outskirts of towns and grouped in “cantonments.” The focal point was the private club where membership was very exclusive but the club committee discreetly allowed in a quota of local V.I.P. The social functions were eagerly awaited occasions to dress up and for the ladies to show off their latest acquisitions from the London fashions. The men
3/18
being smartly attired in tropical semi-dress. Music for dancing was usually provided by the local police band which played the latest English tunes to perfection. Watching elegantly dressed people on the dance floor brought back scenes from films like “Gunga Din” and the “Bengal Lancers,” which portrayed the splendour of British colonial life in India. A Britisher disgracing himself in the public eye would be “black-balled” from the club and in the event of a more serious misconduct, he would be shipped back to England by his superior. Apart from the club, the out-country towns had nothing to offer in the way of more fashionable entertainment – Rangoon being the only exception – and about the only public function one would attend would be a “pwe” something like a variety show except that we sat out in the open and partook of food and drink during the performance which usually started late evening and ended in the early hours of daybreak.
In many towns the outlying residences had no sanitary plumbing and sometimes no electricity and I remember, with some amusement, the facilities that existed. This was the case with our residence in Prome which was sited on the highest hill, such that it was beyond the reach of public utilities, so water supplies, sewage disposal and lighting had to be autonomous systems. If a residence did not have an artesian well, one employed a “pani wallah” who, with his bullock drawn tanker, delivered the daily supplies of domestic water: to be potable, the water had to be sterilised and stored in ceramic containers equipped with charcoal filters. The bathrooms were equipped with large earthenware jars to contain the bath and wash water which had to be scooped out Roman fashion. The lavatory seats were called “Kermode’s” a freestanding piece of furniture with a removable receptacle: there was no limit to the number of Kermode’s one could accommodate in the bathroom, such that daily ablutions were sometimes a family gathering. The job of emptying the Kermode’s was carried out by a low-cast Indian sect who were referred to as “untouchables” by their nationals: to the Burman, this job was totally unthinkable. Lighting was provided by “storm-king” lanterns which were pressurised kerosene burners that had to be regularly pumped up to remain functional.
Each residence had a separate servant’s quarters, a padlocked food store and a detached cook-house connected to the main house by a covered walkway which served not only to ward off the weather but to prevent hawks and crows from snatching morsels of food off the dishes as they were being transported to the dining room. The domestics being inherent kleptomaniacs, the lady of the household had to dole out the daily rations to the nearest ounce. Clothes for laundering were checked to the last sock and handkerchief. The liquid levels in the bar stocks were marked up daily but this was quite a futile operation because I often caught our butler restoring the plimsoll line with water.
Family life and childhood impressions
On the whole, Anglo-Burmese relations were good and the Britisher mixed well with his local professional and social counterparts. The Burmese in British employ were treated fairly, unlike the overlord attitude of some other colonial regimes. I do not believe the Burmese resented the British presence because they were provided with employment, a reasonable standard of living and they realised they were getting more out of their homeland than if they had been let to their own resources. The intellectual Burman was taught English and the Britisher had a working knowledge of the local tongue so there were no language barriers. Many of the Burmese in senior Government positions chose to be educated in England and acquire their professional qualifications. The question of the Burmese seeking independence was never raised in the early days, but some dissident groups began to agitate in 1938 following the serious Indo-Burmese riots and the less blood-thirsty Sino-Burmese onslaught in Rangoon. The Burman, however,
being smartly attired in tropical semi-dress. Music for dancing was usually provided by the local police band which played the latest English tunes to perfection. Watching elegantly dressed people on the dance floor brought back scenes from films like “Gunga Din” and the “Bengal Lancers,” which portrayed the splendour of British colonial life in India. A Britisher disgracing himself in the public eye would be “black-balled” from the club and in the event of a more serious misconduct, he would be shipped back to England by his superior. Apart from the club, the out-country towns had nothing to offer in the way of more fashionable entertainment – Rangoon being the only exception – and about the only public function one would attend would be a “pwe” something like a variety show except that we sat out in the open and partook of food and drink during the performance which usually started late evening and ended in the early hours of daybreak.
In many towns the outlying residences had no sanitary plumbing and sometimes no electricity and I remember, with some amusement, the facilities that existed. This was the case with our residence in Prome which was sited on the highest hill, such that it was beyond the reach of public utilities, so water supplies, sewage disposal and lighting had to be autonomous systems. If a residence did not have an artesian well, one employed a “pani wallah” who, with his bullock drawn tanker, delivered the daily supplies of domestic water: to be potable, the water had to be sterilised and stored in ceramic containers equipped with charcoal filters. The bathrooms were equipped with large earthenware jars to contain the bath and wash water which had to be scooped out Roman fashion. The lavatory seats were called “Kermode’s” a freestanding piece of furniture with a removable receptacle: there was no limit to the number of Kermode’s one could accommodate in the bathroom, such that daily ablutions were sometimes a family gathering. The job of emptying the Kermode’s was carried out by a low-cast Indian sect who were referred to as “untouchables” by their nationals: to the Burman, this job was totally unthinkable. Lighting was provided by “storm-king” lanterns which were pressurised kerosene burners that had to be regularly pumped up to remain functional.
Each residence had a separate servant’s quarters, a padlocked food store and a detached cook-house connected to the main house by a covered walkway which served not only to ward off the weather but to prevent hawks and crows from snatching morsels of food off the dishes as they were being transported to the dining room. The domestics being inherent kleptomaniacs, the lady of the household had to dole out the daily rations to the nearest ounce. Clothes for laundering were checked to the last sock and handkerchief. The liquid levels in the bar stocks were marked up daily but this was quite a futile operation because I often caught our butler restoring the plimsoll line with water.
Family life and childhood impressions
On the whole, Anglo-Burmese relations were good and the Britisher mixed well with his local professional and social counterparts. The Burmese in British employ were treated fairly, unlike the overlord attitude of some other colonial regimes. I do not believe the Burmese resented the British presence because they were provided with employment, a reasonable standard of living and they realised they were getting more out of their homeland than if they had been let to their own resources. The intellectual Burman was taught English and the Britisher had a working knowledge of the local tongue so there were no language barriers. Many of the Burmese in senior Government positions chose to be educated in England and acquire their professional qualifications. The question of the Burmese seeking independence was never raised in the early days, but some dissident groups began to agitate in 1938 following the serious Indo-Burmese riots and the less blood-thirsty Sino-Burmese onslaught in Rangoon. The Burman, however,
4/18
did not hide his dislike for the Indians in his homeland, but he tolerated them because they provided all the menial labour, in fact, the Indians were the true working class of Burma. He also tolerated the Chinese because they ran half the shops and cafes and maintained trade in China. He ignored the Japanese since they were a minority sector, but they were a highly prosperous community which found ready markets for their cheap goods in return for which they were allowed to purchase large quantities of rice, cotton and tin ore. If one knocked on the door of a dentist, doctor or photographer, one was invariably greeted by the smiling face of Japanese, bowing and hissing his politeness. Many suspected, and their suspicions were later justified, that it was this community, through their Consul General in Rangoon, who kept Tokyo regularly informed about the political and military affairs of Burma and it was this line of communication that rendered the Japanese invasion such an efficient military operation, in fact, a walkover. The Burmese, I feel, welcomed the “protection” of their British visitors because they were a minority populace.
In the mid 30’s there were about 15 million “locals” but this figure included the independent states (administered by British Commissioners) of the Shans in the east, the Chins in the west, the Kachins in the north and the Karens in the south. The remaining populations was about 1.5 million Indians (mainly Moslems and Hindus but some Pathan frontier-men) some 300,000 Chinese and about 20,000 others comprising Europeans, Anglo-Burmans and Anglo-Indians.
I personally cannot recall any serious confrontations between the British and Burmese and I believe the association was a successful one, because, to the Britisher, Burma was his home and life and England was regarded as a distant land of bad weather and fogs, to be visited only during home furloughs. Few doubted the British right to be in Burma and both countries benefitted mutually from the association, economically and industrially, if not politically.
Our parents amply provided for us. We were educated in the best schools, given fabulous holidays, waited upon by domestics and were able to enjoy every conceivable form of sport: my brother and I had horses. We spent a good part of our school life as boarders because my father move headquarters frequently and in some of the towns we lived in there were inadequate or unsuitable facilities. The institutions we attended were St. Michael’s (run by European Anglican Sisters) and the Government English High School for Boys’, both located in the lovely hill station of Maymyo.
My brother and myself also attended the Diocesan Boys’ High School and St. Paul’s (run by English and German R.C. Brothers) in Rangoon. Students passed out of school with a Senior Cambridge Matriculation after which most of us went on to university, the coveted establishment being Rangoon whose campus looked on to the beautiful lakes of Kokine and Inya. Other graduates chose to take further education in England. University graduates were virtually guaranteed jobs in the civil services and Government administrations. Education was paid for privately. Burmese was a compulsory language and we also learnt to speak Hindustani via our daily contacts with our domestics. Sports were a major factor of the university curriculum and there were many find athletes who made their names in international sporting events. The Scout and Girl Guide movements were very active sectors and many of these groups proved their worth in the civil defence functions prior to the Japanese invasion.
It was in the towns of Toungoo (1936) and later Insein (1940) where I began to notice life around me and where my childhood impressions were the most vivid. Each day brought new adventures and we took for granted the hazards and dangers of the environment we lived in: today’s generation listen with some scepticism to the accounts of my experiences. In a country which abounds with a fantastic variety of wild life, we were constantly exposed to the dangers from serpents, where a sting from a cobra,
did not hide his dislike for the Indians in his homeland, but he tolerated them because they provided all the menial labour, in fact, the Indians were the true working class of Burma. He also tolerated the Chinese because they ran half the shops and cafes and maintained trade in China. He ignored the Japanese since they were a minority sector, but they were a highly prosperous community which found ready markets for their cheap goods in return for which they were allowed to purchase large quantities of rice, cotton and tin ore. If one knocked on the door of a dentist, doctor or photographer, one was invariably greeted by the smiling face of Japanese, bowing and hissing his politeness. Many suspected, and their suspicions were later justified, that it was this community, through their Consul General in Rangoon, who kept Tokyo regularly informed about the political and military affairs of Burma and it was this line of communication that rendered the Japanese invasion such an efficient military operation, in fact, a walkover. The Burmese, I feel, welcomed the “protection” of their British visitors because they were a minority populace.
In the mid 30’s there were about 15 million “locals” but this figure included the independent states (administered by British Commissioners) of the Shans in the east, the Chins in the west, the Kachins in the north and the Karens in the south. The remaining populations was about 1.5 million Indians (mainly Moslems and Hindus but some Pathan frontier-men) some 300,000 Chinese and about 20,000 others comprising Europeans, Anglo-Burmans and Anglo-Indians.
I personally cannot recall any serious confrontations between the British and Burmese and I believe the association was a successful one, because, to the Britisher, Burma was his home and life and England was regarded as a distant land of bad weather and fogs, to be visited only during home furloughs. Few doubted the British right to be in Burma and both countries benefitted mutually from the association, economically and industrially, if not politically.
Our parents amply provided for us. We were educated in the best schools, given fabulous holidays, waited upon by domestics and were able to enjoy every conceivable form of sport: my brother and I had horses. We spent a good part of our school life as boarders because my father move headquarters frequently and in some of the towns we lived in there were inadequate or unsuitable facilities. The institutions we attended were St. Michael’s (run by European Anglican Sisters) and the Government English High School for Boys’, both located in the lovely hill station of Maymyo.
My brother and myself also attended the Diocesan Boys’ High School and St. Paul’s (run by English and German R.C. Brothers) in Rangoon. Students passed out of school with a Senior Cambridge Matriculation after which most of us went on to university, the coveted establishment being Rangoon whose campus looked on to the beautiful lakes of Kokine and Inya. Other graduates chose to take further education in England. University graduates were virtually guaranteed jobs in the civil services and Government administrations. Education was paid for privately. Burmese was a compulsory language and we also learnt to speak Hindustani via our daily contacts with our domestics. Sports were a major factor of the university curriculum and there were many find athletes who made their names in international sporting events. The Scout and Girl Guide movements were very active sectors and many of these groups proved their worth in the civil defence functions prior to the Japanese invasion.
It was in the towns of Toungoo (1936) and later Insein (1940) where I began to notice life around me and where my childhood impressions were the most vivid. Each day brought new adventures and we took for granted the hazards and dangers of the environment we lived in: today’s generation listen with some scepticism to the accounts of my experiences. In a country which abounds with a fantastic variety of wild life, we were constantly exposed to the dangers from serpents, where a sting from a cobra,
5/18
krait or Russel’s viper meant almost instant death, equally the danger of poisonous reptiles. The big cats took their toll of humans and livestock, crocodiles in the rivers and swamps dragged down swimmers and wading cattle, innocent looking stretches of terrain concealed mires and quicksand which could suck down a horse in a matter of minutes, there was poisonous vegetation and the ever abundant hordes of leeches, scorpions, centipedes and giant red ants – capable of inflicting painful stings which were sometimes fatal. We had to be especially vigilant during the monsoon periods when crawling hordes sought the refuge of higher ground to escape the rising waters. They invaded our homes and hid wherever they could – behind furniture, cushions, in shoes and sometimes we would find snakes coiled around the roof rafters: I would being them down with an air rifle. Travelling at night during the monsoons the car headlights would pick out snakes drying out on the warm tarmac and we would zigzag along, trying to crush as many serpents as possible. On one occasion we ran over a python which recoiled with the shock and wrapped itself around the rear axle. It remained where it was for the rest of the journey and when we arrived at our destination we were amazed to see this beautifully marked 25 foot monster emerge from under the car and slide away into the bushes.
Apart from the wild life, we had to contend with the various human ailments such as typhoid, cholera, small pox, rabies, tick fever, malaria, ring worm, tape worm etc., in other words, the entire amalgam of tropical diseases. We were regularly vaccinated and injected but the locals being suspicious of European medicine, epidemics would almost wipe out entire villages which sometimes had to be burnt to the ground to contain the epidemic. While they were powerless to deal with the more complicated human ailments, the Burmese are to be accredited with their amazing knowledge of natural herbs and plants for curing the more everyday discomforts running from headaches to sprains and cuts. They could diagnose a malaise, seek out the appropriate plant, prepare and apply it and guaranteed complete cure. Some of their voodoo treatment defied all logical explanation and I recall a persistent wart on my forearm which resisted modern medicine, including surgery. The wife of our Burmese cook assured me that she had a positive cure: her treatment was to chew a tobacco leaf and apply the pulp to the spot on my unaffected right arm, corresponding exactly to where the wart was on my left forearm. Three days later the wart, a particularly ugly mushroom-type growth, fell off while I was towelling myself. The bandage covering the pulp on my right arm was removed to reveal a small discolouration which I have to this day. The wart itself was untouched during this “treatment.”
Excluding the conventional cat and dog, domestic pets came in various animal forms. My grandfather kept to camels, field officers owned mountain bears, leopards and pythons which wandered ad lib around the house, I had monkeys, birds, squirrels and a green snake and my brother reared two tiger cubs till they were fully grown and later donated them to a zoo when he had to leave Burma. An almost daily source of amusement for my family was the fanatic affection our next door neighbour’s long-tailed gibbon had for my mother: she always rose at first light to tend to her garden and that was when the ape would run after my screaming mother and firmly clasp himself around her. We dared not try to unravel the ape for fear of being bitten – it needed our neighbour to coax off his pet.
Wild animals were a real concern to communities and private residences bordering on to jungles were often invaded by the big cats who were particularly attracted by domestic pets and small livestock: a leopard was audacious enough to enter a house and snatch a dog from under one’s very nose. The high protective fences (up to six feet) around residences were no deterrent because the big cat would effortlessly clear the fence with an animal in its jaws. When tigers turned man-eaters i.e. when they were unable to hunt natural prey due to old age or battle injuries, they turned to more easy prey – humans – and I remember a single tiger which
krait or Russel’s viper meant almost instant death, equally the danger of poisonous reptiles. The big cats took their toll of humans and livestock, crocodiles in the rivers and swamps dragged down swimmers and wading cattle, innocent looking stretches of terrain concealed mires and quicksand which could suck down a horse in a matter of minutes, there was poisonous vegetation and the ever abundant hordes of leeches, scorpions, centipedes and giant red ants – capable of inflicting painful stings which were sometimes fatal. We had to be especially vigilant during the monsoon periods when crawling hordes sought the refuge of higher ground to escape the rising waters. They invaded our homes and hid wherever they could – behind furniture, cushions, in shoes and sometimes we would find snakes coiled around the roof rafters: I would being them down with an air rifle. Travelling at night during the monsoons the car headlights would pick out snakes drying out on the warm tarmac and we would zigzag along, trying to crush as many serpents as possible. On one occasion we ran over a python which recoiled with the shock and wrapped itself around the rear axle. It remained where it was for the rest of the journey and when we arrived at our destination we were amazed to see this beautifully marked 25 foot monster emerge from under the car and slide away into the bushes.
Apart from the wild life, we had to contend with the various human ailments such as typhoid, cholera, small pox, rabies, tick fever, malaria, ring worm, tape worm etc., in other words, the entire amalgam of tropical diseases. We were regularly vaccinated and injected but the locals being suspicious of European medicine, epidemics would almost wipe out entire villages which sometimes had to be burnt to the ground to contain the epidemic. While they were powerless to deal with the more complicated human ailments, the Burmese are to be accredited with their amazing knowledge of natural herbs and plants for curing the more everyday discomforts running from headaches to sprains and cuts. They could diagnose a malaise, seek out the appropriate plant, prepare and apply it and guaranteed complete cure. Some of their voodoo treatment defied all logical explanation and I recall a persistent wart on my forearm which resisted modern medicine, including surgery. The wife of our Burmese cook assured me that she had a positive cure: her treatment was to chew a tobacco leaf and apply the pulp to the spot on my unaffected right arm, corresponding exactly to where the wart was on my left forearm. Three days later the wart, a particularly ugly mushroom-type growth, fell off while I was towelling myself. The bandage covering the pulp on my right arm was removed to reveal a small discolouration which I have to this day. The wart itself was untouched during this “treatment.”
Excluding the conventional cat and dog, domestic pets came in various animal forms. My grandfather kept to camels, field officers owned mountain bears, leopards and pythons which wandered ad lib around the house, I had monkeys, birds, squirrels and a green snake and my brother reared two tiger cubs till they were fully grown and later donated them to a zoo when he had to leave Burma. An almost daily source of amusement for my family was the fanatic affection our next door neighbour’s long-tailed gibbon had for my mother: she always rose at first light to tend to her garden and that was when the ape would run after my screaming mother and firmly clasp himself around her. We dared not try to unravel the ape for fear of being bitten – it needed our neighbour to coax off his pet.
Wild animals were a real concern to communities and private residences bordering on to jungles were often invaded by the big cats who were particularly attracted by domestic pets and small livestock: a leopard was audacious enough to enter a house and snatch a dog from under one’s very nose. The high protective fences (up to six feet) around residences were no deterrent because the big cat would effortlessly clear the fence with an animal in its jaws. When tigers turned man-eaters i.e. when they were unable to hunt natural prey due to old age or battle injuries, they turned to more easy prey – humans – and I remember a single tiger which
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devoured eight natives before he was finally destroyed; his victims were all women, unsuspectingly washing their clothes by the river. The usual procedure of getting rid of a man-eater was to lay up in a tree nearest to the decomposing remains of a victim and wait for the beat to return to finish off his meal. The first shot had to be fatal because one rarely had the chance for a second try and if the animal was only wounded, one was obliged to respect the hunter’s code of honour and track it down to deliver the coup-de-grace. Tailing a wounded animal could mean several days in deep jungle, aided by a skilled tracker.
Wild elephants were also a menace when the bulls would go “must” during the mating season or turn rogue when ousted by the herd. When the bulls ran amok whole plantations would be devastated and entire villages flattened. Few village headmen were properly armed (mostly ancient musketry) so the nearest district officer would be called upon to deal with marauding animal. I used to enjoy accompanying these hunts and camping out in the wilds, but I only joined one elephant hunt: to see one of the earth’s largest ungulates brought down by a single bullet was a pitiful sight. These normally gentle creatures work the forests, hauling enormous logs to the railheads and my special treat was to sit behind a “mahout” (handler) and watch him work his charge.
My favourite pastime during the school vacations was to accompany my father on his inspection tours. The highway inspections I enjoyed most because I was allowed to drive the family car and wear my father’s Colt automatic: one needed to be armed because we carried the monthly wages of the road gangs or could be in bandit country – the feared “dacoits” I shall recount about later. My first memorable tour of three trips to the Shan States was in 1933 when my father had work to do on the Gokteik viaduct which linked Siam with Burma. It was an arduous journey into the hills, going as far as we could on horseback and tackling the final stages of the hilly crags on foot. In the dense jungle we would be accompanied by inquisitive hordes of chattering monkeys and sometimes we would spot a tiger following at a safe distance, hoping for stragglers in the retinue of native “bearers.” It was on one of these trips when I first set eyes on the Palaung and Padaung tribes whose women wear brass rings around their necks and halfway up their shins: they are popularly known as the “ostrich” or “giraffe” women. The “rings,” in fact, are more so part of a continuous spiral which starts wide at its base to rest on the shoulders and then tapers up to under the jawbone. The rings struck me as a most uncomfortable item of female adornment and it was most peculiar to watch them talking or chewing food: with the bottom jaw being held rigid by the rings, the top jaw and skull has to be articulated. The occasion to have seen them was made even more unique in the we were witness to a rare event – the public disgracing of a Palaung women who had been unfaithful to her husband. Her punishment was the removal of the rings. Such a sentence meant her death because after being supported by a halter for many years the neck loses its muscles and is nothing more than a trunk of shrivelled flesh housing the neck bone and gullet, such that it is quite incapable of supporting the weight of the head which then sags on the chest. While the village elder uncoiled the spiral, other women reviled and spat upon the hapless victim. After the “humiliation ceremony” the victim was dragged deep into the jungle and left to die either of suffocation, hunger or be devoured by a feline. An Irish Father (Finnigan or Flanagan) tried to stop the punishment, but to no avail. He had come over from his nearby mission and we were astounded to hear that we were the first Europeans he had seen for five years. It was not unusual to find missionaries hidden away in remote parts of the country because the Shans and Karens embraced Christianity more readily than the other locals: In Toungoo, particularly, it was a common sight to see Karens in clerical robes. The Burman, on the other hand, is a devout Buddhist and will accept no other religion. On another
devoured eight natives before he was finally destroyed; his victims were all women, unsuspectingly washing their clothes by the river. The usual procedure of getting rid of a man-eater was to lay up in a tree nearest to the decomposing remains of a victim and wait for the beat to return to finish off his meal. The first shot had to be fatal because one rarely had the chance for a second try and if the animal was only wounded, one was obliged to respect the hunter’s code of honour and track it down to deliver the coup-de-grace. Tailing a wounded animal could mean several days in deep jungle, aided by a skilled tracker.
Wild elephants were also a menace when the bulls would go “must” during the mating season or turn rogue when ousted by the herd. When the bulls ran amok whole plantations would be devastated and entire villages flattened. Few village headmen were properly armed (mostly ancient musketry) so the nearest district officer would be called upon to deal with marauding animal. I used to enjoy accompanying these hunts and camping out in the wilds, but I only joined one elephant hunt: to see one of the earth’s largest ungulates brought down by a single bullet was a pitiful sight. These normally gentle creatures work the forests, hauling enormous logs to the railheads and my special treat was to sit behind a “mahout” (handler) and watch him work his charge.
My favourite pastime during the school vacations was to accompany my father on his inspection tours. The highway inspections I enjoyed most because I was allowed to drive the family car and wear my father’s Colt automatic: one needed to be armed because we carried the monthly wages of the road gangs or could be in bandit country – the feared “dacoits” I shall recount about later. My first memorable tour of three trips to the Shan States was in 1933 when my father had work to do on the Gokteik viaduct which linked Siam with Burma. It was an arduous journey into the hills, going as far as we could on horseback and tackling the final stages of the hilly crags on foot. In the dense jungle we would be accompanied by inquisitive hordes of chattering monkeys and sometimes we would spot a tiger following at a safe distance, hoping for stragglers in the retinue of native “bearers.” It was on one of these trips when I first set eyes on the Palaung and Padaung tribes whose women wear brass rings around their necks and halfway up their shins: they are popularly known as the “ostrich” or “giraffe” women. The “rings,” in fact, are more so part of a continuous spiral which starts wide at its base to rest on the shoulders and then tapers up to under the jawbone. The rings struck me as a most uncomfortable item of female adornment and it was most peculiar to watch them talking or chewing food: with the bottom jaw being held rigid by the rings, the top jaw and skull has to be articulated. The occasion to have seen them was made even more unique in the we were witness to a rare event – the public disgracing of a Palaung women who had been unfaithful to her husband. Her punishment was the removal of the rings. Such a sentence meant her death because after being supported by a halter for many years the neck loses its muscles and is nothing more than a trunk of shrivelled flesh housing the neck bone and gullet, such that it is quite incapable of supporting the weight of the head which then sags on the chest. While the village elder uncoiled the spiral, other women reviled and spat upon the hapless victim. After the “humiliation ceremony” the victim was dragged deep into the jungle and left to die either of suffocation, hunger or be devoured by a feline. An Irish Father (Finnigan or Flanagan) tried to stop the punishment, but to no avail. He had come over from his nearby mission and we were astounded to hear that we were the first Europeans he had seen for five years. It was not unusual to find missionaries hidden away in remote parts of the country because the Shans and Karens embraced Christianity more readily than the other locals: In Toungoo, particularly, it was a common sight to see Karens in clerical robes. The Burman, on the other hand, is a devout Buddhist and will accept no other religion. On another
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tour we visited the “sacred” Mount Popa which has a unique history attached to it in that it is the breeding ground of the sacred king cobra or hamadryads, a highly venomous serpent measuring six feet and more, which will attack man or beast without provocation. Snake charmers collect their charges from this mountain and there is an unwritten law that after a given time the snake must be returned to the mountain after it has completed its “term of service.” It is believed that in giving the cobra its freedom, it will never sting the handler whilst it is with him. A myth for sure, but I cannot recall an occasion of a handler being stung to death. Many suspected that the performing serpents had their venom sacks removed, but the handlers soon disproved this by placing a rat or mouse before the snake – the cobra would strike and the quivering rodent would be dead in just a minute.
On yet another trip to the Kachin hills we visited the famous lake city of lake Inle (pronounced Inlay) in the north. In 1936 some 80,000 people, the Inthas lived on the laked and I mean “on.” Inle is an enormous expanse of water dotted with grass covered islets on which villagers build their huts or over the water on sunken stilts: the dug-out or sampan was the principal mode of transport. We happened to be in Inle at the time of the water festival when the Buddhists pay homage to the water God for irrigating their fields and plantations: it is quite a frivolous time when the faithful throw water at each other and even the non-Buddhists have to accept a dowsing because the Burmese become touchy of you do not join in the festivities. The celebrations on lake Inle itself have to be seen to be believed: the floating markets, the boat races where the famous leg rowers propel 100 foot sampans at speeds of 16 knots and more and while all this is going on the “Karaweit” tours the lake so that people can place their offerings on this floating temple. The “Karaweit” is a gigantic barge carrying a temple-like superstructure covered in gold leaf and a fresh layer is added each year. The same ritual is carried out for the famous Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon where no one has been able to estimate the depth of pure gold leaf which is added each year. With the sun’s rays in the right direction, one can see this central stupa – surrounded by 64 smaller pagodas – glittering in the sunlight from miles away. In the years I was in Burma, I never entered the Shwedagon because one must be barefooted and I did not fancy this ritual because the condition of the approaching terrain to the pagoda left much to be desired – the Burmese spat and blew their noses on the ground, the Indians squirted mouthfuls of red betel-nut juice and then the hundreds of un-owned dogs deposited their souvenirs all over the place.
Albeit the wild like in Burma harboured no fears for me as a child, I was fearful of the “dacoits,” bands of roving renegades who plundered and ruthlessly murdered people, Burman and foreigner alike. Their activities put Burma’s crime rate three times higher than any of her Asian neighbours. They operated all over the country and even fought against themselves for frontier rights. They were the bane of administration because they derailed trains, ambushed road transport, sabotaged public works and kept the police forces overworked. When they went on the rampage they were invariably under the influence of opium or a “magic potion” given to them by their “hpoongyis,” the saffron-robed Buddhist priests: the dacoits were given to believe that the potions rendered them bullet-proof because they were known to charge recklessly into the blazing guns of the police patrols. My fear of the dacoits stemmed from the fact that I was witness to their abject cruelty at a tender age. Their escapades were regular happenings, but two events have left a lasting impression upon me. The first was when they attacked one of my father’s road gangs - late one night we were aroused by the frantic cries of one of the Indian coolies who had run all the way from the work camp to inform us that the dacoits had murdered some of the gangers and stolen earth-working equipment. We rushed to the site to find two coolies almost dismembered by slashes from the dah (a short razor-sharp sword which is part of the Burman’s normal accoutrements) and the steam roller diver who had had both hands chopped off but was still alive. That scene gave me nightmares for quite some time.
tour we visited the “sacred” Mount Popa which has a unique history attached to it in that it is the breeding ground of the sacred king cobra or hamadryads, a highly venomous serpent measuring six feet and more, which will attack man or beast without provocation. Snake charmers collect their charges from this mountain and there is an unwritten law that after a given time the snake must be returned to the mountain after it has completed its “term of service.” It is believed that in giving the cobra its freedom, it will never sting the handler whilst it is with him. A myth for sure, but I cannot recall an occasion of a handler being stung to death. Many suspected that the performing serpents had their venom sacks removed, but the handlers soon disproved this by placing a rat or mouse before the snake – the cobra would strike and the quivering rodent would be dead in just a minute.
On yet another trip to the Kachin hills we visited the famous lake city of lake Inle (pronounced Inlay) in the north. In 1936 some 80,000 people, the Inthas lived on the laked and I mean “on.” Inle is an enormous expanse of water dotted with grass covered islets on which villagers build their huts or over the water on sunken stilts: the dug-out or sampan was the principal mode of transport. We happened to be in Inle at the time of the water festival when the Buddhists pay homage to the water God for irrigating their fields and plantations: it is quite a frivolous time when the faithful throw water at each other and even the non-Buddhists have to accept a dowsing because the Burmese become touchy of you do not join in the festivities. The celebrations on lake Inle itself have to be seen to be believed: the floating markets, the boat races where the famous leg rowers propel 100 foot sampans at speeds of 16 knots and more and while all this is going on the “Karaweit” tours the lake so that people can place their offerings on this floating temple. The “Karaweit” is a gigantic barge carrying a temple-like superstructure covered in gold leaf and a fresh layer is added each year. The same ritual is carried out for the famous Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon where no one has been able to estimate the depth of pure gold leaf which is added each year. With the sun’s rays in the right direction, one can see this central stupa – surrounded by 64 smaller pagodas – glittering in the sunlight from miles away. In the years I was in Burma, I never entered the Shwedagon because one must be barefooted and I did not fancy this ritual because the condition of the approaching terrain to the pagoda left much to be desired – the Burmese spat and blew their noses on the ground, the Indians squirted mouthfuls of red betel-nut juice and then the hundreds of un-owned dogs deposited their souvenirs all over the place.
Albeit the wild like in Burma harboured no fears for me as a child, I was fearful of the “dacoits,” bands of roving renegades who plundered and ruthlessly murdered people, Burman and foreigner alike. Their activities put Burma’s crime rate three times higher than any of her Asian neighbours. They operated all over the country and even fought against themselves for frontier rights. They were the bane of administration because they derailed trains, ambushed road transport, sabotaged public works and kept the police forces overworked. When they went on the rampage they were invariably under the influence of opium or a “magic potion” given to them by their “hpoongyis,” the saffron-robed Buddhist priests: the dacoits were given to believe that the potions rendered them bullet-proof because they were known to charge recklessly into the blazing guns of the police patrols. My fear of the dacoits stemmed from the fact that I was witness to their abject cruelty at a tender age. Their escapades were regular happenings, but two events have left a lasting impression upon me. The first was when they attacked one of my father’s road gangs - late one night we were aroused by the frantic cries of one of the Indian coolies who had run all the way from the work camp to inform us that the dacoits had murdered some of the gangers and stolen earth-working equipment. We rushed to the site to find two coolies almost dismembered by slashes from the dah (a short razor-sharp sword which is part of the Burman’s normal accoutrements) and the steam roller diver who had had both hands chopped off but was still alive. That scene gave me nightmares for quite some time.
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The second particularly gruesome occasion was when the dacoits derailed a passenger train and I noticed that among the corpses which littered the rail track, many of the Indian women were bereft of certain parts of their anatomy. The reason for this ghastly mutilation soon became evident in that Asian women sport all their worldly jewellery which they permanently affix to their ear lobes, nostrils, fingers and toes. The dacoits had collected these gory spoils for more leisurely disposal at their hideouts.
These dacoits were not easy to capture because they changed their hideouts often and the police were not wholly able to scourge the country of this menace even with public warnings like parading corpses through the town on a bullock cart or hanging them from gallows in police courtyards as a warning to would-be renegades. The only people the dacoits left unharmed were the Buddhist hpoongyis who held a powerful influence over the Burmese who never dared refuse offering alms to their holy men for fear of being beset by evil spirits or being struck down by some weird disease. The ritual of collecting alms was almost like a military operation: the priests, numbering six or more, walk through the village and towns in single file, bare-footed with their shaven heads bowed, holding wicker trays before them. They are forbidden to converse with people and every so often the file stops so that the “faithful” can load the trays with foodstuffs. I might add that these so-called holy men were sometimes known to aid and abet the dacoits by giving them sanctuary in their monasteries. Even today, the dacoit is still a public menace in Burma.
How this rebellious sector came into existence is unknown and they were incompatible with the general scenario because the average Burmese are a peace-loving race, perhaps a bit quick tempered, but a happy carefree people with simple tastes and somewhat child-like in their nature. The British referred to them as the “Irish of the east!” They are deep-rooted in their traditions and beliefs and easily impressed by anything out of the ordinary, particularly the village folk. I remember an occasion in the small town of Prome when a travelling film unit toured some of the villages to show them their first ever sound film, in fact it was my own first film. The picture was “Tarzan of the Apes” and it was set up in a field near our home with the audience squatting on the ground. All watched in amazement, but the scene with the roaring lion charging down on Tarzan created panic and the crowd fled in terror with some even climbing up nearby trees. I must confess that I also took refuge behind my parents.
The women of Burma are dainty, pretty creatures who are meticulous in their hygiene and dress. It was their charm and graceful bearing which inspired Sir Gerald Kelly to do his Royal Academy painting of Ma Ohn Nyum” in her full national dress, a painting which turned out to be one of Sir Gerald’s most famous works.
From an early age a girl is taught the finer arts of femininity and to be an efficient and obedient wife. In the latter aspect, I recall our cook beating his wife for some domestic inadequacy and she accepted her chastisement meekly, whether deserved or unjustified. The men are inclined to be indolent but react violently if aroused. Fisticuffs not being their noble art of combat, a dispute is usually settled with a dagger or dah with one unfortunate adversary being left with hideous scars for life, that is if he survived the duel.
Many close and lasting friendships were forged between the British and Burmese. My family was particularly attached to that of U Ba Sein, the High Court Judge in Toungoo with whose children we grew up, one boy and three very pretty girls and one whom, Iris,
The second particularly gruesome occasion was when the dacoits derailed a passenger train and I noticed that among the corpses which littered the rail track, many of the Indian women were bereft of certain parts of their anatomy. The reason for this ghastly mutilation soon became evident in that Asian women sport all their worldly jewellery which they permanently affix to their ear lobes, nostrils, fingers and toes. The dacoits had collected these gory spoils for more leisurely disposal at their hideouts.
These dacoits were not easy to capture because they changed their hideouts often and the police were not wholly able to scourge the country of this menace even with public warnings like parading corpses through the town on a bullock cart or hanging them from gallows in police courtyards as a warning to would-be renegades. The only people the dacoits left unharmed were the Buddhist hpoongyis who held a powerful influence over the Burmese who never dared refuse offering alms to their holy men for fear of being beset by evil spirits or being struck down by some weird disease. The ritual of collecting alms was almost like a military operation: the priests, numbering six or more, walk through the village and towns in single file, bare-footed with their shaven heads bowed, holding wicker trays before them. They are forbidden to converse with people and every so often the file stops so that the “faithful” can load the trays with foodstuffs. I might add that these so-called holy men were sometimes known to aid and abet the dacoits by giving them sanctuary in their monasteries. Even today, the dacoit is still a public menace in Burma.
How this rebellious sector came into existence is unknown and they were incompatible with the general scenario because the average Burmese are a peace-loving race, perhaps a bit quick tempered, but a happy carefree people with simple tastes and somewhat child-like in their nature. The British referred to them as the “Irish of the east!” They are deep-rooted in their traditions and beliefs and easily impressed by anything out of the ordinary, particularly the village folk. I remember an occasion in the small town of Prome when a travelling film unit toured some of the villages to show them their first ever sound film, in fact it was my own first film. The picture was “Tarzan of the Apes” and it was set up in a field near our home with the audience squatting on the ground. All watched in amazement, but the scene with the roaring lion charging down on Tarzan created panic and the crowd fled in terror with some even climbing up nearby trees. I must confess that I also took refuge behind my parents.
The women of Burma are dainty, pretty creatures who are meticulous in their hygiene and dress. It was their charm and graceful bearing which inspired Sir Gerald Kelly to do his Royal Academy painting of Ma Ohn Nyum” in her full national dress, a painting which turned out to be one of Sir Gerald’s most famous works.
From an early age a girl is taught the finer arts of femininity and to be an efficient and obedient wife. In the latter aspect, I recall our cook beating his wife for some domestic inadequacy and she accepted her chastisement meekly, whether deserved or unjustified. The men are inclined to be indolent but react violently if aroused. Fisticuffs not being their noble art of combat, a dispute is usually settled with a dagger or dah with one unfortunate adversary being left with hideous scars for life, that is if he survived the duel.
Many close and lasting friendships were forged between the British and Burmese. My family was particularly attached to that of U Ba Sein, the High Court Judge in Toungoo with whose children we grew up, one boy and three very pretty girls and one whom, Iris,
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I had a soft spot for. The other family, our neighbours in Insein, was that of U Aung Soe, a senior Government Official whose wife was the daughter of the Chief Judge of Burma. We met up again with the latter family when U Aung Soe was appointed the Burmese Ambassador to London in 1957. Incidentally, the “U” preceding a Burmese name signifies high status which is probably analogous, for example to the “Right Hon.” It was friendships such as these which safeguarded the lives of many who managed to escape from Burma or those who were trapped by the Japanese occupation.
Many of our acquaintances I accredit to my mother who made friends readily wherever we stayed. She had a passion for women and children’s welfare work and offered her services voluntarily. When she was not helping in the local hospitals and clinics, she would be touring the outlying villages to supervise confinements and check the health of the children. Even though she was accompanied by a Burmese midwife she undertook some risky missions and it was only if she was in dangerous country that she agreed to being escorted by an armed policeman. I have always regretted the fact that the British administration did not show recognition of her services to the women and children of that country. She was commended by Major General Sir Frederick Pearce, C.B.E., the Head of Civil Affairs in Burma, but then Sir Frederick had been a friend of our family since 1923.
My father often had to apply restraint to my mother’s enthusiasm for her work and often she would accompany my father when he inspected prisons, mental asylums and leper colonies. I remember an occasion when my mother and I were walking round the grounds of an asylum when one of the inmates grabbed hold of her and refused to let go in spite of bites and kicks from me. The appearance of the guardians made the situation even more tricky, but my mother eventually managed to cajole the inmate into releasing her. I admired and respected my mother even though she brought us up under iron rule. It was her ability to blend authority with kindness that made the Burmese accept her so readily.
The military defences of Burma
It was generally felt by the British administration in Burma that the military garrison was a forgotten outpost of the Defence Ministry. The garrison in Mingaladon, just outside Rangoon, consisted of two battalions of the 1st Gloucester Regt. and one of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, the latter being later transferred to the hill station of Maymyo. The local armies were, if my memory is correct, four battalions of the Burma Rifles and Frontier Force.
To the British soldier, the Mingaldon barracks represented refuge and home. He was regulated by discipline, went to daily parade, cleaned his webbing and polished his brassware, played traditional British sport, swilled beer in his wet canteen and was lulled to sleep and woken by the regimental bugler. Saturday night outings were the less reputable dance halls in Rangoon and brawls with the local lads were routine escapades. My mother’s second cousin was married to a Sergeant, Mick Metcalfe, in the Gloucester’s who occasionally invited me out to the barracks while I was a boarder with St. Paul’s in Rangoon. As a youngster I was most impressed with the uniforms and parades but all that military might later proved to be totally inadequate when it came up against the Japanese Imperial army. This is not to say that the garrison was not up to the required level of preparedness and they proved themselves in the successful quelling of the Burmese-Indian riots in 1938, but their material deficiencies were appalling. To give some examples –at about mid 1941, the Gloucester Regt. boasted some two dozen hand grenades and only a handful of soldiers had had the “privilege” of lobbing a live grenade. Apparently neither regiment had more than 100 rounds of Tommy gun ammunition each.
I had a soft spot for. The other family, our neighbours in Insein, was that of U Aung Soe, a senior Government Official whose wife was the daughter of the Chief Judge of Burma. We met up again with the latter family when U Aung Soe was appointed the Burmese Ambassador to London in 1957. Incidentally, the “U” preceding a Burmese name signifies high status which is probably analogous, for example to the “Right Hon.” It was friendships such as these which safeguarded the lives of many who managed to escape from Burma or those who were trapped by the Japanese occupation.
Many of our acquaintances I accredit to my mother who made friends readily wherever we stayed. She had a passion for women and children’s welfare work and offered her services voluntarily. When she was not helping in the local hospitals and clinics, she would be touring the outlying villages to supervise confinements and check the health of the children. Even though she was accompanied by a Burmese midwife she undertook some risky missions and it was only if she was in dangerous country that she agreed to being escorted by an armed policeman. I have always regretted the fact that the British administration did not show recognition of her services to the women and children of that country. She was commended by Major General Sir Frederick Pearce, C.B.E., the Head of Civil Affairs in Burma, but then Sir Frederick had been a friend of our family since 1923.
My father often had to apply restraint to my mother’s enthusiasm for her work and often she would accompany my father when he inspected prisons, mental asylums and leper colonies. I remember an occasion when my mother and I were walking round the grounds of an asylum when one of the inmates grabbed hold of her and refused to let go in spite of bites and kicks from me. The appearance of the guardians made the situation even more tricky, but my mother eventually managed to cajole the inmate into releasing her. I admired and respected my mother even though she brought us up under iron rule. It was her ability to blend authority with kindness that made the Burmese accept her so readily.
The military defences of Burma
It was generally felt by the British administration in Burma that the military garrison was a forgotten outpost of the Defence Ministry. The garrison in Mingaladon, just outside Rangoon, consisted of two battalions of the 1st Gloucester Regt. and one of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, the latter being later transferred to the hill station of Maymyo. The local armies were, if my memory is correct, four battalions of the Burma Rifles and Frontier Force.
To the British soldier, the Mingaldon barracks represented refuge and home. He was regulated by discipline, went to daily parade, cleaned his webbing and polished his brassware, played traditional British sport, swilled beer in his wet canteen and was lulled to sleep and woken by the regimental bugler. Saturday night outings were the less reputable dance halls in Rangoon and brawls with the local lads were routine escapades. My mother’s second cousin was married to a Sergeant, Mick Metcalfe, in the Gloucester’s who occasionally invited me out to the barracks while I was a boarder with St. Paul’s in Rangoon. As a youngster I was most impressed with the uniforms and parades but all that military might later proved to be totally inadequate when it came up against the Japanese Imperial army. This is not to say that the garrison was not up to the required level of preparedness and they proved themselves in the successful quelling of the Burmese-Indian riots in 1938, but their material deficiencies were appalling. To give some examples –at about mid 1941, the Gloucester Regt. boasted some two dozen hand grenades and only a handful of soldiers had had the “privilege” of lobbing a live grenade. Apparently neither regiment had more than 100 rounds of Tommy gun ammunition each.
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Both units had Bren guns and mortar platoons but the latter had barely enough shells to maintain more than a 20 minute barrage. Field equipment was lacking and instead of combat steel helmets the soldier was issued with a pith helmet, “solar topi” which gave good protection against the blistering sun, but quite useless against bullet and shrapnel.
The so-called jungle warfare training consisted of stalking straw dummies concealed in jungle tracks or slung from trees, an exercise which left the soldiers with the impression that there was no new hazard with jungle warfare than with any other form of field engagement. This complacent attitude rendered the British soldier totally incompetent against the Japanese fighter who was put through intensive training at his Formosa camp. Instead of dummies he was provided with live humans to stalk and kill and by the time he had exterminated the aboriginal population on that island the Nippon soldier had perfected the art of fighting, living and surviving in the jungle.
The air defences, perhaps adequate for a peacetime force, were not strengthened as the war in South East Asia developed. The air force, also stationed in Mingaladon, comprised a squadron of Blenheim’s and some 20 outmoded Buffalo aircraft of R.A.F. 67 Squadron, but the station lost the Blenheim’s when they were sent to help out with the war in Malaya. There were four Ack Ack batteries in Rangoon, but they ran out of ammunition in the week following the first bombing of that city. Air raid shelters were nonexistent and safety trenches were barely deep enough to contain a human being.
This was the roll-call of national defences that were handed over to Sir Reginald Dorman Smith when he took over as Governor. He remained in office till 1946.
The Japanese invasion, the collapse of the British administration and the retreat from Burma
I was with my parents in Shwebo for the Christmas vacation when we got news of the Pearl Harbour bombing on December 7th 1941 and the attack on Hong Kong the following day. No one was too perturbed because the war was still distant and we all naively believed that our armed forces were much too strong for any would-be aggressor. That daydream was soon shattered when four days before Christmas that year Japanese bombers appeared over Rangoon and killed 2,000 of the quite unsuspecting population and knocked out important utilities whose locations they pin-pointed.
The air warfare for Burma would have been a forgotten chapter had it not been for the AVG pilots (American Volunteer Group) who joined up with 67 Squadron. During the first raid on Rangoon, together they shot down a score of the 100 Japanese bombers at little cost to themselves. The AVG pilots struck a somewhat revolutionary image in their gaudy Hawaiian shirts, baseball caps, dangling revolvers and pockets bulging with chewing gum and Camel cigarettes, but they were tough, fearless fighters and often ignored their parachutes when they scrambled. They decked their aircraft with cartoon caricatures, shark heads and Bengal tigers, the latter emblem which dubbed then the “Flying Tigers.” Like today’s mercenaries they earned high salaries and a bonus for every Japanese aircraft shot down. They feasted and drank to excess, terrorised the local females and reeled off bawdy jokes which made even the R.A.F. blush.
In January 1942 I returned to school in Maymyo only to discover that preparations were under way to return all scholars to their homes. I had already signed on for volunteer ARP duties and since the war was still far down south, my parents agreed to my staying on – I was manning a telephone monitoring post and my links with the major towns kept me abreast with developments of the war. While the bombing of Rangoon continued, the Japanese 55th Division had marched through Siam, un-apprehended and thrust into Burma via the Three-Pagoda Pass and the Dawna mountain range. Towards the end of January that Division pushed down south
Both units had Bren guns and mortar platoons but the latter had barely enough shells to maintain more than a 20 minute barrage. Field equipment was lacking and instead of combat steel helmets the soldier was issued with a pith helmet, “solar topi” which gave good protection against the blistering sun, but quite useless against bullet and shrapnel.
The so-called jungle warfare training consisted of stalking straw dummies concealed in jungle tracks or slung from trees, an exercise which left the soldiers with the impression that there was no new hazard with jungle warfare than with any other form of field engagement. This complacent attitude rendered the British soldier totally incompetent against the Japanese fighter who was put through intensive training at his Formosa camp. Instead of dummies he was provided with live humans to stalk and kill and by the time he had exterminated the aboriginal population on that island the Nippon soldier had perfected the art of fighting, living and surviving in the jungle.
The air defences, perhaps adequate for a peacetime force, were not strengthened as the war in South East Asia developed. The air force, also stationed in Mingaladon, comprised a squadron of Blenheim’s and some 20 outmoded Buffalo aircraft of R.A.F. 67 Squadron, but the station lost the Blenheim’s when they were sent to help out with the war in Malaya. There were four Ack Ack batteries in Rangoon, but they ran out of ammunition in the week following the first bombing of that city. Air raid shelters were nonexistent and safety trenches were barely deep enough to contain a human being.
This was the roll-call of national defences that were handed over to Sir Reginald Dorman Smith when he took over as Governor. He remained in office till 1946.
The Japanese invasion, the collapse of the British administration and the retreat from Burma
I was with my parents in Shwebo for the Christmas vacation when we got news of the Pearl Harbour bombing on December 7th 1941 and the attack on Hong Kong the following day. No one was too perturbed because the war was still distant and we all naively believed that our armed forces were much too strong for any would-be aggressor. That daydream was soon shattered when four days before Christmas that year Japanese bombers appeared over Rangoon and killed 2,000 of the quite unsuspecting population and knocked out important utilities whose locations they pin-pointed.
The air warfare for Burma would have been a forgotten chapter had it not been for the AVG pilots (American Volunteer Group) who joined up with 67 Squadron. During the first raid on Rangoon, together they shot down a score of the 100 Japanese bombers at little cost to themselves. The AVG pilots struck a somewhat revolutionary image in their gaudy Hawaiian shirts, baseball caps, dangling revolvers and pockets bulging with chewing gum and Camel cigarettes, but they were tough, fearless fighters and often ignored their parachutes when they scrambled. They decked their aircraft with cartoon caricatures, shark heads and Bengal tigers, the latter emblem which dubbed then the “Flying Tigers.” Like today’s mercenaries they earned high salaries and a bonus for every Japanese aircraft shot down. They feasted and drank to excess, terrorised the local females and reeled off bawdy jokes which made even the R.A.F. blush.
In January 1942 I returned to school in Maymyo only to discover that preparations were under way to return all scholars to their homes. I had already signed on for volunteer ARP duties and since the war was still far down south, my parents agreed to my staying on – I was manning a telephone monitoring post and my links with the major towns kept me abreast with developments of the war. While the bombing of Rangoon continued, the Japanese 55th Division had marched through Siam, un-apprehended and thrust into Burma via the Three-Pagoda Pass and the Dawna mountain range. Towards the end of January that Division pushed down south
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to capture the towns of Tavoy, Mergui, Port Victoria and Moulmein in the Gulf of Martaban. At about the same time we got news that the Japanese 33rd Division had also crossed over the Siamese border, spanned the Sittang river and set up a road block some 30 miles north of Rangoon. By early February 1942 only a third of that city’s population remained along with some armed forces and customs and police officers but as these administrations began to evacuate the city produced a motley collection of looters, vagrants and the liberated inmates of prisons and mental asylums who made the city a dangerous place to be in.
My three sisters had joined my parents in Shwebo and in mid-February my brother was commissioned into the 9th Burma Rifles. I did not see him again till after the war, in Rangoon, June 1947, because he got caught up in various missions – Liaison Officer to the Chinese Expeditionary Force, Field Force 8 (of the Burma Frontier Force) No. 2 Burma Brigade, the Northern Assam Brigade and Group B of the S.O.E.
In early March the Japanese 55th and 33rd Divisions joined forces and began to over-run the territory. They went on the rampage plundering villages, raping and killing. We also got disturbing news that the Burmese soldiers were deserting in their hundreds, apparently having had enough of the war, even in its early phases. I became concerned when military and civil convoys began rolling into Maymyo, plus the fact that the civil administration from Rangoon started to set up temporary headquarters in the Secretariat and Government House. On March 8th 1942, we heard that operation “Red Elephant” had been put into action – this was the code name to start the scorched earth destruction of important facilities in Rangoon. My father decided it was time I returned to Shwebo and he arranged for me to be provided with a departmental car and official pass. The drive was a nightmare because after passing through Mandalay in the valley below Maymyo, I got caught up with the crowd of refugees, mainly the Indians, streaming northwards – on several occasions I was forced off the road by panicky military convoys endeavouring to put as much distance between themselves and the advancing Japanese forces. I eventually arrived in Shwebo to find an almost deserted town – a few officers from Steel Brothers, the Asst. Police Chief and my family.
My father was frantically trying to compete a temporary airfield which was to be used as a mid-country air-lift for officers and families taking refuge in India. A train carrying refugees and military wounded was calling in at Shwebo each day. My mother was meeting every train to see if the women and children needed any foodstuffs and clothing – the local hospital staff had deserted, so she collected what bed linen and useful medicines she could lay her hands on. It was when she saw a train load of the wives and families of the K.O.Y.L.I. and Gloucester’s that my father decided to fly out my family. My mother flatly refused to leave so I decided to remain also. On March 29th I closed 18 years and calling up age, but there was little point in joining a retreating army. Indeed, the few trains that were now passing through Shwebo contained mainly military wounded and sick and I began to see regimental should tags that were new to me – Baluchi, Dogras, Sikhs, Jats – apparently remnants from the 17th Division, plus the African Rifles and even some Chinese troops.
Determined to do my bit for the war cause, my father put me on the job of transporting drums of aviation fuel from a B.O.C. depot, some 25 miles outside Shwebo, to his airfield. Decked out in my school khaki uniform, solar topi, boots and my father’s Colt automatic strapped to my waist, I was taken for an army officer and was quite bucked with the deception. The Colt never left my person till I finally had to hand it over to the authorities when we arrived in India. About the only activity going on in Shwebo was
to capture the towns of Tavoy, Mergui, Port Victoria and Moulmein in the Gulf of Martaban. At about the same time we got news that the Japanese 33rd Division had also crossed over the Siamese border, spanned the Sittang river and set up a road block some 30 miles north of Rangoon. By early February 1942 only a third of that city’s population remained along with some armed forces and customs and police officers but as these administrations began to evacuate the city produced a motley collection of looters, vagrants and the liberated inmates of prisons and mental asylums who made the city a dangerous place to be in.
My three sisters had joined my parents in Shwebo and in mid-February my brother was commissioned into the 9th Burma Rifles. I did not see him again till after the war, in Rangoon, June 1947, because he got caught up in various missions – Liaison Officer to the Chinese Expeditionary Force, Field Force 8 (of the Burma Frontier Force) No. 2 Burma Brigade, the Northern Assam Brigade and Group B of the S.O.E.
In early March the Japanese 55th and 33rd Divisions joined forces and began to over-run the territory. They went on the rampage plundering villages, raping and killing. We also got disturbing news that the Burmese soldiers were deserting in their hundreds, apparently having had enough of the war, even in its early phases. I became concerned when military and civil convoys began rolling into Maymyo, plus the fact that the civil administration from Rangoon started to set up temporary headquarters in the Secretariat and Government House. On March 8th 1942, we heard that operation “Red Elephant” had been put into action – this was the code name to start the scorched earth destruction of important facilities in Rangoon. My father decided it was time I returned to Shwebo and he arranged for me to be provided with a departmental car and official pass. The drive was a nightmare because after passing through Mandalay in the valley below Maymyo, I got caught up with the crowd of refugees, mainly the Indians, streaming northwards – on several occasions I was forced off the road by panicky military convoys endeavouring to put as much distance between themselves and the advancing Japanese forces. I eventually arrived in Shwebo to find an almost deserted town – a few officers from Steel Brothers, the Asst. Police Chief and my family.
My father was frantically trying to compete a temporary airfield which was to be used as a mid-country air-lift for officers and families taking refuge in India. A train carrying refugees and military wounded was calling in at Shwebo each day. My mother was meeting every train to see if the women and children needed any foodstuffs and clothing – the local hospital staff had deserted, so she collected what bed linen and useful medicines she could lay her hands on. It was when she saw a train load of the wives and families of the K.O.Y.L.I. and Gloucester’s that my father decided to fly out my family. My mother flatly refused to leave so I decided to remain also. On March 29th I closed 18 years and calling up age, but there was little point in joining a retreating army. Indeed, the few trains that were now passing through Shwebo contained mainly military wounded and sick and I began to see regimental should tags that were new to me – Baluchi, Dogras, Sikhs, Jats – apparently remnants from the 17th Division, plus the African Rifles and even some Chinese troops.
Determined to do my bit for the war cause, my father put me on the job of transporting drums of aviation fuel from a B.O.C. depot, some 25 miles outside Shwebo, to his airfield. Decked out in my school khaki uniform, solar topi, boots and my father’s Colt automatic strapped to my waist, I was taken for an army officer and was quite bucked with the deception. The Colt never left my person till I finally had to hand it over to the authorities when we arrived in India. About the only activity going on in Shwebo was
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my father still working on his airfield and myself driving a truck between the depot and the airfield. The few remaining locals in no way showed any signs of hostility or aggressiveness towards the remaining British and were, in fact, extremely helpful in that I quite often got bogged with my heavily loaded truck and the townsfolk came to my assistance on each occasion. A day or two after my birthday, an Indian Army Service Corps moved into the house and grounds next door to our home and we began to feel a bit more secure, but the assurance was short-lived when the town came under its first air attack. We took shelter in the concrete garage inspection pit and when we later emerged after the bombing, the next door Service Corps was nothing more than a smouldering mass of twisted wreckage – we did not find a single survivor among the 20 odd men who made up the unit. Shrapnel from the bombs had ripped through our wooden-structured house and made it look like a colander. The airfield had also been badly pot-holed and the railway station and marshalling yard were completely destroyed and strewn with the bodies of passengers from a train that was refuelling.
The second day’s air raid was devoted to machine gunning and the dropping of anti-personnel bombs which killed many more people sheltering in their wooden and bamboo houses. Wooden structures virtually disappeared with the effects of blast and the town presented a weird barren aspect with only the few concrete buildings standing among a mass of matchwood. The Japs left us alone for the next few days, but the town was reeking with an odour that made one retch – the un-cleared human refuse in homes the has been splattered everywhere and the corpses that were beginning to decompose rapidly in the tropical sun. No one was doing any clearing up.
It was about the second week in April when we were visited by a Government courier who was driving up north. He informed us that the Japanese had advanced into Yenangyaung where they had captured the oilfields and had inflicted severe losses to the defending forces – he urged us to leave Shwebo as there was little reason to remain on with the Nippon army steadily spearheading northwards. We had another visit from the enemy air force and we wondered to what purpose because there was little left worth bombing. Fighter aircraft were almost at tree-top level strafing anything that took their fancy and the bombers were dropping their loads so low that one of them knocked out its starboard engine with the shrapnel from its own bombs. My parents then decided to pull out but the main road heading north was un-negotiable with the masses of refugees and every conceivable form of wheeled transport.
We returned to the town to see if there was any other less congested route out of Shwebo and to our good fortune my father’s Chief Clerk had found a railcar (a caravan-type vehicle with an ordinary car engine at each extremity) intact in one of the Loco sheds. With the help of the townsfolk the railcar was bodily shifted on to the undamaged stretch of rail track upstream of the station. In the next few hours we filled with petrol as many Gerry-cans as we could find and loaded enough hard rations for the journey. The family treasures and silver were stored in vermin proof teak chests and left in the custody of a Buddhist priest who buried them in the grounds of his monastery – the priest was indebted to my mother who had saved the life of one of his apprentice monks who had been seriously ill. My parents collected the chests on returning to Shwebo after the war and not a single item was missing. My prize heirloom which my mother left to me in her will is the pure silver tea and coffee pot service which was handmade by a London silversmith.
While my father was making a final check of the railcar, I returned to our home and set about destroying anything that was usable and immobilised the dozen cars parked in our grounds (friends dumped their cars with us as they evacuated.) I had no demolition material, but a 12 bore gun loaded [with] LG cartridges can create a lot of damage. In the early hours of April 4th we were given
my father still working on his airfield and myself driving a truck between the depot and the airfield. The few remaining locals in no way showed any signs of hostility or aggressiveness towards the remaining British and were, in fact, extremely helpful in that I quite often got bogged with my heavily loaded truck and the townsfolk came to my assistance on each occasion. A day or two after my birthday, an Indian Army Service Corps moved into the house and grounds next door to our home and we began to feel a bit more secure, but the assurance was short-lived when the town came under its first air attack. We took shelter in the concrete garage inspection pit and when we later emerged after the bombing, the next door Service Corps was nothing more than a smouldering mass of twisted wreckage – we did not find a single survivor among the 20 odd men who made up the unit. Shrapnel from the bombs had ripped through our wooden-structured house and made it look like a colander. The airfield had also been badly pot-holed and the railway station and marshalling yard were completely destroyed and strewn with the bodies of passengers from a train that was refuelling.
The second day’s air raid was devoted to machine gunning and the dropping of anti-personnel bombs which killed many more people sheltering in their wooden and bamboo houses. Wooden structures virtually disappeared with the effects of blast and the town presented a weird barren aspect with only the few concrete buildings standing among a mass of matchwood. The Japs left us alone for the next few days, but the town was reeking with an odour that made one retch – the un-cleared human refuse in homes the has been splattered everywhere and the corpses that were beginning to decompose rapidly in the tropical sun. No one was doing any clearing up.
It was about the second week in April when we were visited by a Government courier who was driving up north. He informed us that the Japanese had advanced into Yenangyaung where they had captured the oilfields and had inflicted severe losses to the defending forces – he urged us to leave Shwebo as there was little reason to remain on with the Nippon army steadily spearheading northwards. We had another visit from the enemy air force and we wondered to what purpose because there was little left worth bombing. Fighter aircraft were almost at tree-top level strafing anything that took their fancy and the bombers were dropping their loads so low that one of them knocked out its starboard engine with the shrapnel from its own bombs. My parents then decided to pull out but the main road heading north was un-negotiable with the masses of refugees and every conceivable form of wheeled transport.
We returned to the town to see if there was any other less congested route out of Shwebo and to our good fortune my father’s Chief Clerk had found a railcar (a caravan-type vehicle with an ordinary car engine at each extremity) intact in one of the Loco sheds. With the help of the townsfolk the railcar was bodily shifted on to the undamaged stretch of rail track upstream of the station. In the next few hours we filled with petrol as many Gerry-cans as we could find and loaded enough hard rations for the journey. The family treasures and silver were stored in vermin proof teak chests and left in the custody of a Buddhist priest who buried them in the grounds of his monastery – the priest was indebted to my mother who had saved the life of one of his apprentice monks who had been seriously ill. My parents collected the chests on returning to Shwebo after the war and not a single item was missing. My prize heirloom which my mother left to me in her will is the pure silver tea and coffee pot service which was handmade by a London silversmith.
While my father was making a final check of the railcar, I returned to our home and set about destroying anything that was usable and immobilised the dozen cars parked in our grounds (friends dumped their cars with us as they evacuated.) I had no demolition material, but a 12 bore gun loaded [with] LG cartridges can create a lot of damage. In the early hours of April 4th we were given
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a tearful send-off by the few remaining members of my father’s staff. Our destination was Myitkyina, the last Burmese town in the north. We knew we were fairly safe from up-coming rail traffic because the Shwebo railhead would take many days to repair, but we set up a duty roster all the same – one to watch the downstream track and scan the skies , one to drive the railcar, with the third resting. We made good headway and were a few miles from the town of Indaw when a scouting “Zero” spotted us and made a low run over the railcar, at which we stopped and ran for the cover of the jungle alongside the track. The fighter swung round and headed for the railcar, very low over the tracks and let off a salvo of gunfire, climbed and disappeared from view. The railcar was nearly cut in two by the bullets which had smashed all the essential components of the forward facing engine, but the rear engine was fortunately undamaged. However, with having to run the engine in reverse gear we were down to a laborious 15 miles per hour even with the engine at high revolutions. Anyway, by late morning we neared Indaw and saw the tail lights of the guard’s van of a train halted in the station. I ran the car engine flat out and a few hundred yards from the station the big-ends blew out but we hastily gathered a few essentials and raced towards the train.
We need not have hurried because the locomotive was undergoing some minor repairs and refuelling. We found the guard who told us we could have the one remaining compartment if we were prepared to dispose of the dead bodies that occupied it – apparently the victims were suspect cholera cases and no one dared approach the coach. The rest of the train was packed to bursting point with families and sick and wounded military – barely room for a single person, let alone the three of us. Without a word my mother disappeared into the station and later returned with a can of kerosene oil and bottles of “phenile” a locally made disinfectant for lavatories. She doused her arms and feet with the phenile, soaked a towel which she wrapped round her face and entered the compartment to open the doors and windows. The stench that emerged was abominable, but my mother examined the bodies and diagnosed two dead from gangrenous wounds and the third from an intestinal infection. None of the station staff were prepared to help us remove the bodies, so my father and I loaded them on to a luggage trolley and trundled them out to waste ground behind the station and ordered them to be cremated. We then set about disinfecting and cleaning the compartment and disposed of the upholstered bunks as they were totally unfit for use. The awful stench still remained but we put up with it as we had no intention of being left behind.
Just after sunset the train pulled out of Indaw and the heavily loaded coaches made it hard going for the locomotive even though it was a powerful 6 wheel-drive Garret engine. We had just dropped off to sleep when we heard screams and shouting from the tail end coaches of the train which was almost down to walking pace on the steep gradient. In the bright moonlight we could see Burmans standing in the running boards hacking at the windows with their dahs and others were running towards the train from the track side jungle. My father merely muttered “dacoits” slammed home the safety catches on the doors and closed the heavy shutters of the windows. We sat and hoped the engine would pick up speed and it was just about beginning to do so when we heard heavy blows on one of our shutters. When it began to shatter I pointed my Colt at it and emptied the cartridge clip – there was a yell and the battering ceased, but I re-loaded the clip and stood by. There were no further attempts to break in, probably because the train [was] picking up speed since the tumult at the rear carriages had died down.
When we were sure that no one was on our running boards we opened all our windows because of the unbearable stench in the compartment. We were climbing and the engine was skidding its wheels trying to pull its heavy load. Daylight was just breaking when the train came to a complete halt on a very steep and curved incline. We saw the driver jump down on to the track and apply
a tearful send-off by the few remaining members of my father’s staff. Our destination was Myitkyina, the last Burmese town in the north. We knew we were fairly safe from up-coming rail traffic because the Shwebo railhead would take many days to repair, but we set up a duty roster all the same – one to watch the downstream track and scan the skies , one to drive the railcar, with the third resting. We made good headway and were a few miles from the town of Indaw when a scouting “Zero” spotted us and made a low run over the railcar, at which we stopped and ran for the cover of the jungle alongside the track. The fighter swung round and headed for the railcar, very low over the tracks and let off a salvo of gunfire, climbed and disappeared from view. The railcar was nearly cut in two by the bullets which had smashed all the essential components of the forward facing engine, but the rear engine was fortunately undamaged. However, with having to run the engine in reverse gear we were down to a laborious 15 miles per hour even with the engine at high revolutions. Anyway, by late morning we neared Indaw and saw the tail lights of the guard’s van of a train halted in the station. I ran the car engine flat out and a few hundred yards from the station the big-ends blew out but we hastily gathered a few essentials and raced towards the train.
We need not have hurried because the locomotive was undergoing some minor repairs and refuelling. We found the guard who told us we could have the one remaining compartment if we were prepared to dispose of the dead bodies that occupied it – apparently the victims were suspect cholera cases and no one dared approach the coach. The rest of the train was packed to bursting point with families and sick and wounded military – barely room for a single person, let alone the three of us. Without a word my mother disappeared into the station and later returned with a can of kerosene oil and bottles of “phenile” a locally made disinfectant for lavatories. She doused her arms and feet with the phenile, soaked a towel which she wrapped round her face and entered the compartment to open the doors and windows. The stench that emerged was abominable, but my mother examined the bodies and diagnosed two dead from gangrenous wounds and the third from an intestinal infection. None of the station staff were prepared to help us remove the bodies, so my father and I loaded them on to a luggage trolley and trundled them out to waste ground behind the station and ordered them to be cremated. We then set about disinfecting and cleaning the compartment and disposed of the upholstered bunks as they were totally unfit for use. The awful stench still remained but we put up with it as we had no intention of being left behind.
Just after sunset the train pulled out of Indaw and the heavily loaded coaches made it hard going for the locomotive even though it was a powerful 6 wheel-drive Garret engine. We had just dropped off to sleep when we heard screams and shouting from the tail end coaches of the train which was almost down to walking pace on the steep gradient. In the bright moonlight we could see Burmans standing in the running boards hacking at the windows with their dahs and others were running towards the train from the track side jungle. My father merely muttered “dacoits” slammed home the safety catches on the doors and closed the heavy shutters of the windows. We sat and hoped the engine would pick up speed and it was just about beginning to do so when we heard heavy blows on one of our shutters. When it began to shatter I pointed my Colt at it and emptied the cartridge clip – there was a yell and the battering ceased, but I re-loaded the clip and stood by. There were no further attempts to break in, probably because the train [was] picking up speed since the tumult at the rear carriages had died down.
When we were sure that no one was on our running boards we opened all our windows because of the unbearable stench in the compartment. We were climbing and the engine was skidding its wheels trying to pull its heavy load. Daylight was just breaking when the train came to a complete halt on a very steep and curved incline. We saw the driver jump down on to the track and apply
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the hand brakes on some of the leading coaches and my father and I ran up to find out what was happening – he told us that the engine could not negotiate the gradient and asked us to consult the guard for instructions. We ran back to the guard’s van and found the poor man on the floor with his neck almost severed from a dah slash. With no other railway officials on the train my father took command and surveyed the situation. In addition to the over-loaded coaches there were three too many for such a loco, there were two flat-tops with heavy track repair gear and a large water tanker with nearly a full load. The milestone alongside the track showed that we were about 20 miles from Myitkyina so my father instructed the driver to drain the water tanker and try and pull away but the drive wheels just skidded on the rails. My father then decided upon two alternatives – either to haul the train in two sections to Myitkyina or dispose of the flat-tops and the tanker.
The passengers who would have been left to wait in the section flatly refused the first suggestion because the dacoit attack was still fresh in their minds, three people had been hacked to death and others needed medical attention to their cuts and injuries sustained during the attack. There was a third option of persuading people who were able to walk to disembark to enable the engine to haul the coaches on to more level terrain – the number of “sound-limed” who descended was hardly enough to make any appreciable lightening of the load.
So, this left the second option and mustering as many able-bodied men as we could (able-bodied in the very loose sense) we unloaded most of the heavy material and lifting tackle from the flat-tops which we toppled from the track with the aid of ropes and cables, the water tanker, even though empty, was too heavy to overturn. The loco was then hitched up to the train and the driver was instructed to roll back down to more level terrain and grit the rails while doing so. The load-shedding operation worked because the Garret chugged up the steep on to flatter ground.
We arrived at Myitkyina on the 7th or 8th April afternoon – I am unsure of the exact date. The situation was somewhat disorderly, officials in the various administrations were nowhere to be found and it was only through hand-written notices posted around the town that we discovered the existence of an evacuee camp which was handling the transit of refugees to India. The camp was a collection of marquee’s furnished with “charpoys” (the stringed Indian beds.) Half the occupants in the camp were bed-ridden and medical supplies were being reserved for the most urgent cases of wounded or sick people. We were given a meal of “pish-pash” (broken par-boiled rice mixed with an odd assortment of vegetables) which looked like dog’s food but we ate it because we were famished after a day and a half on biscuits and peanuts. An airlift to India was in operation and after much haggling we manager to get our names down for a flight to India – American Dakota’s were running a shuttle service between Myitkyina and Dibrugarh in northern Assam. We spent the rest of the day scouting the town for some decent food, but the shops were virtually sold out and what little stocks remained were being plied at exorbitant prices. The locals were, naturally, making hay of the crisis situation and we noticed for the first time since leaving Shwebo that the Burmese were displaying mixed feelings of mild aggression and indifference towards anyone who was non-Burman. This attitude was probably due to the fact that they realised that new rulers would soon be taking over their country and they could expect to receive but little salvation from their British administrators who were too preoccupied saving their own skins.
Back at the camp we were given numbered tickets and told to report at the air strip at first light. Walking out to the air strip the next morning my mother recognised a black Ford sedan threading its way through the traffic – it was her brother in the car, Claude Blazey, and the next few minutes it was a tearful but happy reunion. At the airfield we formed into priority groups according to the numbers on our tickets – we were the first of three groups of 33 people per group. We were assembled under temporary shelters
the hand brakes on some of the leading coaches and my father and I ran up to find out what was happening – he told us that the engine could not negotiate the gradient and asked us to consult the guard for instructions. We ran back to the guard’s van and found the poor man on the floor with his neck almost severed from a dah slash. With no other railway officials on the train my father took command and surveyed the situation. In addition to the over-loaded coaches there were three too many for such a loco, there were two flat-tops with heavy track repair gear and a large water tanker with nearly a full load. The milestone alongside the track showed that we were about 20 miles from Myitkyina so my father instructed the driver to drain the water tanker and try and pull away but the drive wheels just skidded on the rails. My father then decided upon two alternatives – either to haul the train in two sections to Myitkyina or dispose of the flat-tops and the tanker.
The passengers who would have been left to wait in the section flatly refused the first suggestion because the dacoit attack was still fresh in their minds, three people had been hacked to death and others needed medical attention to their cuts and injuries sustained during the attack. There was a third option of persuading people who were able to walk to disembark to enable the engine to haul the coaches on to more level terrain – the number of “sound-limed” who descended was hardly enough to make any appreciable lightening of the load.
So, this left the second option and mustering as many able-bodied men as we could (able-bodied in the very loose sense) we unloaded most of the heavy material and lifting tackle from the flat-tops which we toppled from the track with the aid of ropes and cables, the water tanker, even though empty, was too heavy to overturn. The loco was then hitched up to the train and the driver was instructed to roll back down to more level terrain and grit the rails while doing so. The load-shedding operation worked because the Garret chugged up the steep on to flatter ground.
We arrived at Myitkyina on the 7th or 8th April afternoon – I am unsure of the exact date. The situation was somewhat disorderly, officials in the various administrations were nowhere to be found and it was only through hand-written notices posted around the town that we discovered the existence of an evacuee camp which was handling the transit of refugees to India. The camp was a collection of marquee’s furnished with “charpoys” (the stringed Indian beds.) Half the occupants in the camp were bed-ridden and medical supplies were being reserved for the most urgent cases of wounded or sick people. We were given a meal of “pish-pash” (broken par-boiled rice mixed with an odd assortment of vegetables) which looked like dog’s food but we ate it because we were famished after a day and a half on biscuits and peanuts. An airlift to India was in operation and after much haggling we manager to get our names down for a flight to India – American Dakota’s were running a shuttle service between Myitkyina and Dibrugarh in northern Assam. We spent the rest of the day scouting the town for some decent food, but the shops were virtually sold out and what little stocks remained were being plied at exorbitant prices. The locals were, naturally, making hay of the crisis situation and we noticed for the first time since leaving Shwebo that the Burmese were displaying mixed feelings of mild aggression and indifference towards anyone who was non-Burman. This attitude was probably due to the fact that they realised that new rulers would soon be taking over their country and they could expect to receive but little salvation from their British administrators who were too preoccupied saving their own skins.
Back at the camp we were given numbered tickets and told to report at the air strip at first light. Walking out to the air strip the next morning my mother recognised a black Ford sedan threading its way through the traffic – it was her brother in the car, Claude Blazey, and the next few minutes it was a tearful but happy reunion. At the airfield we formed into priority groups according to the numbers on our tickets – we were the first of three groups of 33 people per group. We were assembled under temporary shelters
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on the air strip perimeter. An hour or so after sunrise we heard the engines of an aircraft which circled once and then touched down and it barely came to a halt when pandemonium broke loose amongst the waiting groups – everyone made a mad rush towards the plane, wrestling, clawing and jostling each other in a frenzied attempt to board the aircraft. It was not until the supervisor and two armed policemen rushed to the plane and threatened to shoot anyone attempting to board that sanity returned to the crowd who regained their shelters.
We watched the plane being refuelled and when the road tanker had almost reached the airfield perimeter we heard the engines of another aircraft – a fighter plane, with the unmistakable emblems of the rising sun, plummeted down from the sky and pumped tracer bullets into the Dakota which exploded in a mushroom of flame. We all stared, silent and aghast, at the smouldering carcass which was to have been our passport to safety and freedom. The silence was broken by the co-pilot (the captain had been killed in his aircraft) shouting to the air field crew to clear the wreckage as the second flight was due in three hours time.
The second Dakota eventually arrived, it circled the airstrip and dropped down for landing, but suddenly revved up again and disappeared behind the hills bordering on to the west of the airstrip. The reason for the odd manoeuvre soon became clear to those of us waiting because we heard the drone of other aircraft approaching the airfield from the east. The supervisor yelled “Jap bombers, everyone take to the jungle.” With no resistance from the air or ground the two bombers leisurely staged their attack – the airfield was given a thorough going over and some bombs were dropped on the northern part of the town causing only minor casualties and damage. Having dropped their loads the bombers circled the airfield as if to make sure they had done a good job and then left the area. My father talked to the supervisor about organising repair work but he was not interested and ordered his men to collect what equipment was left and departed from the airfield.
Back at the transit camp the officer told us that air control at Dibrugarh had refused to send over any more aircraft unless they were provided with fighter escort. We knew full well that this would never materialise and decided to trek out from one of the overland routes to the Indian border. Refugees from the south of the country were marching up the dry weather road at Yeu through the dry belt to Kalewa, up the Tamu saddle (5,000 feet) across the Indian border and down into the Manipur valley to the refugee camp at Imphal from where people were being transported by trains to various destinations. Another smaller route further up-country and north of Indaw went westwards through the Kabaw valley to link up with Imphal.
The monsoon would soon be arriving (late April, early May) meaning that the torrential rains would transform passable tracks into impassable quagmires and rivers and streams into raging torrents so we decided to set off as soon as possible. Being reluctant to back-track to the southerly routes we enquired about possible passages through the higher reaches of the Chindwin river from where we could cut across country to the Dimapur refugee camp in the north. We were warned off because the northern sector was dangerous Naga country (the dreaded head hunters) and the dense jungles were virtually impenetrable. So it meant the Indaw route and seeing that no trains were travelling south we piled into uncle’s car and headed for Mogaung where we equipped ourselves for the trek.
A trek of 5 to 7 days through wild and desolate country was no problem to us as we had gained plenty of experience from our hunting expeditions, we knew how to survive in the jungles and protect ourselves. We were already suitably attired and shod for such a venture but acquired the added precaution of shin gaiters to ward off snake bites when walking through shrubbery. We packed our
on the air strip perimeter. An hour or so after sunrise we heard the engines of an aircraft which circled once and then touched down and it barely came to a halt when pandemonium broke loose amongst the waiting groups – everyone made a mad rush towards the plane, wrestling, clawing and jostling each other in a frenzied attempt to board the aircraft. It was not until the supervisor and two armed policemen rushed to the plane and threatened to shoot anyone attempting to board that sanity returned to the crowd who regained their shelters.
We watched the plane being refuelled and when the road tanker had almost reached the airfield perimeter we heard the engines of another aircraft – a fighter plane, with the unmistakable emblems of the rising sun, plummeted down from the sky and pumped tracer bullets into the Dakota which exploded in a mushroom of flame. We all stared, silent and aghast, at the smouldering carcass which was to have been our passport to safety and freedom. The silence was broken by the co-pilot (the captain had been killed in his aircraft) shouting to the air field crew to clear the wreckage as the second flight was due in three hours time.
The second Dakota eventually arrived, it circled the airstrip and dropped down for landing, but suddenly revved up again and disappeared behind the hills bordering on to the west of the airstrip. The reason for the odd manoeuvre soon became clear to those of us waiting because we heard the drone of other aircraft approaching the airfield from the east. The supervisor yelled “Jap bombers, everyone take to the jungle.” With no resistance from the air or ground the two bombers leisurely staged their attack – the airfield was given a thorough going over and some bombs were dropped on the northern part of the town causing only minor casualties and damage. Having dropped their loads the bombers circled the airfield as if to make sure they had done a good job and then left the area. My father talked to the supervisor about organising repair work but he was not interested and ordered his men to collect what equipment was left and departed from the airfield.
Back at the transit camp the officer told us that air control at Dibrugarh had refused to send over any more aircraft unless they were provided with fighter escort. We knew full well that this would never materialise and decided to trek out from one of the overland routes to the Indian border. Refugees from the south of the country were marching up the dry weather road at Yeu through the dry belt to Kalewa, up the Tamu saddle (5,000 feet) across the Indian border and down into the Manipur valley to the refugee camp at Imphal from where people were being transported by trains to various destinations. Another smaller route further up-country and north of Indaw went westwards through the Kabaw valley to link up with Imphal.
The monsoon would soon be arriving (late April, early May) meaning that the torrential rains would transform passable tracks into impassable quagmires and rivers and streams into raging torrents so we decided to set off as soon as possible. Being reluctant to back-track to the southerly routes we enquired about possible passages through the higher reaches of the Chindwin river from where we could cut across country to the Dimapur refugee camp in the north. We were warned off because the northern sector was dangerous Naga country (the dreaded head hunters) and the dense jungles were virtually impenetrable. So it meant the Indaw route and seeing that no trains were travelling south we piled into uncle’s car and headed for Mogaung where we equipped ourselves for the trek.
A trek of 5 to 7 days through wild and desolate country was no problem to us as we had gained plenty of experience from our hunting expeditions, we knew how to survive in the jungles and protect ourselves. We were already suitably attired and shod for such a venture but acquired the added precaution of shin gaiters to ward off snake bites when walking through shrubbery. We packed our
16/18
rucksacks with enough food for a week and bought goatskin water carriers which hold a gallon or more of liquid. We were also adequately armed to take on any marauders, my father and uncle with 12 bore shotguns and ample cartridges, me with my colt 45 and my mother had a light 410 bore.
The final essentials to our kit were chunks of saltpetre to replenish the salt content of the body lost through perspiration – few people are aware of the danger of heat exhaustion caused by dehydration of the body which, if very advanced, can be fatal. Then the necessary insect repellent, a locally made unpleasant smelling ointment but very effective against mosquitoes – our trek would be leading us through the most malaria-infested region of Burma, the Kabaw valet, known as the “Valley of Death” because the anopheles mosquito abounds in that region more than anywhere else in the country.
We decided to take the Indaw route the next morning and while meandering around the town that evening we met a group of forest officers who had back-tracked from Indaw and were seeking another route. They gave us an alarming account of conditions where refugees were dying like rats along the route from disease, exhaustion and starvation. People died where they collapsed and were left to decompose in the torrid heat. The few water holes along the route were tainted and flies and bluebottles feeding off the corpses were transmitting diseases to healthy travellers. Trekker were stealing each other’s provisions and hill tribesmen were attacking isolated groups and robbing them of their pitiful possessions. As one member of the group remarked – “The exodus looks like a macabre paper-chase with rotting human bodies serving as the markers.” These foresters had been told of a trader’s route some 8 or 9 miles south of Mogaung, a beaten track which went through the Kabaw and finished up at the Chindwin river, after which one had to blaze one’s own trail into India to Kohima and Dimapur.
The story we heard settled our decision and next morning we set out to locate the trail which turned out to be better than we have envisaged so we decided to take the car as far as we could. It was slow going bumping over ruts and boulders but we had covered a fair distance when the car broke down – the heat of the blazing sun plus the engine’s heat had burst the radiator – the metalwork of the car was so hot that one could have fried an egg on the bonnet, so we abandoned the vehicle and continued on foot. We were now in arid areas and I began to understand why this region was known as the “dry belt” because the ground was parched and criss-crossed with splits. Rocks and boulders were everywhere and the only vegetation was low prickly shrubs. I also began to understand why mirages are to be seen in the desert. When the “solar time” (in south east Asia one keeps out of the sun between noon and 2 p.m. because the infra-red and ultra-violet radiations are at their peak, the former is not so dangerous because it reddens the skin but does not burn like the latter which can cause blistering and produce a nasty rash) arrived we crawled under the shrubbery to ward off the sun and have our afternoon meal and rest up. The heat was furnace-like but we kept strictly to our water ration and popped a pebble in our mouths to help the saliva to flow and then set off again, when towards late afternoon we spotted hill sections on the horizon so we decided to continue till sunset and camp for the night. We fed and then set off again in the cool of the evening till we became too footsore to go any further.
Our routine each night during the trek was to find a hillock or large tree to protect our rear and set up a small enclosure of shrub (particularly thorny) to our front to shy off any prowling animals. We kept a small camp fire going and maintained 3 hourly watches till first light in case we were caught unawares by roving tribe people, although we did not encounter a single human being during our passage through the valley. On our first night in the wilds, mine was the last watch till daylight and I must have dozed off
rucksacks with enough food for a week and bought goatskin water carriers which hold a gallon or more of liquid. We were also adequately armed to take on any marauders, my father and uncle with 12 bore shotguns and ample cartridges, me with my colt 45 and my mother had a light 410 bore.
The final essentials to our kit were chunks of saltpetre to replenish the salt content of the body lost through perspiration – few people are aware of the danger of heat exhaustion caused by dehydration of the body which, if very advanced, can be fatal. Then the necessary insect repellent, a locally made unpleasant smelling ointment but very effective against mosquitoes – our trek would be leading us through the most malaria-infested region of Burma, the Kabaw valet, known as the “Valley of Death” because the anopheles mosquito abounds in that region more than anywhere else in the country.
We decided to take the Indaw route the next morning and while meandering around the town that evening we met a group of forest officers who had back-tracked from Indaw and were seeking another route. They gave us an alarming account of conditions where refugees were dying like rats along the route from disease, exhaustion and starvation. People died where they collapsed and were left to decompose in the torrid heat. The few water holes along the route were tainted and flies and bluebottles feeding off the corpses were transmitting diseases to healthy travellers. Trekker were stealing each other’s provisions and hill tribesmen were attacking isolated groups and robbing them of their pitiful possessions. As one member of the group remarked – “The exodus looks like a macabre paper-chase with rotting human bodies serving as the markers.” These foresters had been told of a trader’s route some 8 or 9 miles south of Mogaung, a beaten track which went through the Kabaw and finished up at the Chindwin river, after which one had to blaze one’s own trail into India to Kohima and Dimapur.
The story we heard settled our decision and next morning we set out to locate the trail which turned out to be better than we have envisaged so we decided to take the car as far as we could. It was slow going bumping over ruts and boulders but we had covered a fair distance when the car broke down – the heat of the blazing sun plus the engine’s heat had burst the radiator – the metalwork of the car was so hot that one could have fried an egg on the bonnet, so we abandoned the vehicle and continued on foot. We were now in arid areas and I began to understand why this region was known as the “dry belt” because the ground was parched and criss-crossed with splits. Rocks and boulders were everywhere and the only vegetation was low prickly shrubs. I also began to understand why mirages are to be seen in the desert. When the “solar time” (in south east Asia one keeps out of the sun between noon and 2 p.m. because the infra-red and ultra-violet radiations are at their peak, the former is not so dangerous because it reddens the skin but does not burn like the latter which can cause blistering and produce a nasty rash) arrived we crawled under the shrubbery to ward off the sun and have our afternoon meal and rest up. The heat was furnace-like but we kept strictly to our water ration and popped a pebble in our mouths to help the saliva to flow and then set off again, when towards late afternoon we spotted hill sections on the horizon so we decided to continue till sunset and camp for the night. We fed and then set off again in the cool of the evening till we became too footsore to go any further.
Our routine each night during the trek was to find a hillock or large tree to protect our rear and set up a small enclosure of shrub (particularly thorny) to our front to shy off any prowling animals. We kept a small camp fire going and maintained 3 hourly watches till first light in case we were caught unawares by roving tribe people, although we did not encounter a single human being during our passage through the valley. On our first night in the wilds, mine was the last watch till daylight and I must have dozed off
17/18
because when I did wake the sun was already up and I discovered we had an audience of crows and vultures who probably thought we were corpses, but I soon disillusioned them with a shot from my gun. Carrion birds are a protected species in Burma because they keep the countryside clear of rotting animal carcasses.
We continued our march till we reached the hilly wooded range which dropped down to the Chindwin river where the four of us reacted, without saying a word, similarly – we stripped off and soaked ourselves in the cool water. We rinsed our clothes in the river (they were stiff with salt from perspiration) and spread them out to dry, an operation which was completed within the hour under the blazing sun. Our next move was to cross the river which is not wide but deep and swift flowing. Luckily we spotted smoke rising up from the trees some distance upstream so we headed towards it and came upon a small settlement of natives who were not hostile but very wary of us. After much palaver and persuasion they agreed to row us across the river, the fare was my father’s watch as they were not interested in money. We kept a wary eye on the oarsmen because they were armed with bows and a full quiver of arrows. From the opposite bank we saw a towering hill range, the northern section being the Patkai hills and the southern the Chin hills. It took us a whole day to climb over the Patkai hills and it was hard going wending our way through dense foliage but they provided merciful relief from the blistering sun.
We made frequent halts to feed on the wild fruit and admire the tropical flora and fauna. Parasite orchids could be found on nearly every other tree, beautifully marked giant butterflies were perched on branches, exotically coloured birds screeched in the tree tops, particularly the hornbills and feathered game was in abundance, especially wild pigeon and plump jungle fowl which provided us with much needed fresh meat and my uncle bagged a Chinkara, the small spotted Indian deer. Our gunshots attracted a group of tribesmen whom we later learnt were the Indian Lulung tribe who live in the region and non too friendly towards strangers, they carried long spears and machetes. They were unable to understand our Hindustani as they probably spoke Pushtu or an Afghan tongue. They tailed us for some distance in the jungle but abandoned us when we entered more savannah-like country where they were unable to conceal themselves. The Patkai hills were now behind us and as we progressed we began to see the first of the many tea terraces which cover the Assam region.
At the end of that day’s march we came upon an Indian village where, fortunately, some natives spoke Urdu. We discovered that we had reached the dry weather road about midway between Kohima and Dimapur which was almost a day’s march northwards. The headman was a most friendly individual in that he farmed out some members of his family to others in the village and provided us with a room in his hut. That evening we gorged ourselves on chapattis, potato curry and gallons of goat’s milk and slept like babies – no sentry duties! Much refreshed and rested we prepared for the final stage of out trek. The Burmese paper currency was of no use to the headman so my mother gave him her 410 shotgun and all the ammunition she has carried; the man was overjoyed.
The vehicle traffic on the Dimapur road was not too heave, mainly bullock carts and the odd army truck with Indian soldiers, but I was unable to distinguish any divisional insignias. We passed groups of Indians trundling hand carts and enormous bundles on their heads - their worldly possessions - and we were amazed to discover that they too were refugees from Burma and were heading back to their hometowns in Tezpur, Dimapur and Dibrugarh. Many related tearful accounts of the loss of their kith and kin during the exodus. There were also some groups along the roadside huddled around an ailing member of their family but we were powerless to assist. When we finally walked into Dimapur the first thing we did was to report the situation of ailing refugees we had encountered
because when I did wake the sun was already up and I discovered we had an audience of crows and vultures who probably thought we were corpses, but I soon disillusioned them with a shot from my gun. Carrion birds are a protected species in Burma because they keep the countryside clear of rotting animal carcasses.
We continued our march till we reached the hilly wooded range which dropped down to the Chindwin river where the four of us reacted, without saying a word, similarly – we stripped off and soaked ourselves in the cool water. We rinsed our clothes in the river (they were stiff with salt from perspiration) and spread them out to dry, an operation which was completed within the hour under the blazing sun. Our next move was to cross the river which is not wide but deep and swift flowing. Luckily we spotted smoke rising up from the trees some distance upstream so we headed towards it and came upon a small settlement of natives who were not hostile but very wary of us. After much palaver and persuasion they agreed to row us across the river, the fare was my father’s watch as they were not interested in money. We kept a wary eye on the oarsmen because they were armed with bows and a full quiver of arrows. From the opposite bank we saw a towering hill range, the northern section being the Patkai hills and the southern the Chin hills. It took us a whole day to climb over the Patkai hills and it was hard going wending our way through dense foliage but they provided merciful relief from the blistering sun.
We made frequent halts to feed on the wild fruit and admire the tropical flora and fauna. Parasite orchids could be found on nearly every other tree, beautifully marked giant butterflies were perched on branches, exotically coloured birds screeched in the tree tops, particularly the hornbills and feathered game was in abundance, especially wild pigeon and plump jungle fowl which provided us with much needed fresh meat and my uncle bagged a Chinkara, the small spotted Indian deer. Our gunshots attracted a group of tribesmen whom we later learnt were the Indian Lulung tribe who live in the region and non too friendly towards strangers, they carried long spears and machetes. They were unable to understand our Hindustani as they probably spoke Pushtu or an Afghan tongue. They tailed us for some distance in the jungle but abandoned us when we entered more savannah-like country where they were unable to conceal themselves. The Patkai hills were now behind us and as we progressed we began to see the first of the many tea terraces which cover the Assam region.
At the end of that day’s march we came upon an Indian village where, fortunately, some natives spoke Urdu. We discovered that we had reached the dry weather road about midway between Kohima and Dimapur which was almost a day’s march northwards. The headman was a most friendly individual in that he farmed out some members of his family to others in the village and provided us with a room in his hut. That evening we gorged ourselves on chapattis, potato curry and gallons of goat’s milk and slept like babies – no sentry duties! Much refreshed and rested we prepared for the final stage of out trek. The Burmese paper currency was of no use to the headman so my mother gave him her 410 shotgun and all the ammunition she has carried; the man was overjoyed.
The vehicle traffic on the Dimapur road was not too heave, mainly bullock carts and the odd army truck with Indian soldiers, but I was unable to distinguish any divisional insignias. We passed groups of Indians trundling hand carts and enormous bundles on their heads - their worldly possessions - and we were amazed to discover that they too were refugees from Burma and were heading back to their hometowns in Tezpur, Dimapur and Dibrugarh. Many related tearful accounts of the loss of their kith and kin during the exodus. There were also some groups along the roadside huddled around an ailing member of their family but we were powerless to assist. When we finally walked into Dimapur the first thing we did was to report the situation of ailing refugees we had encountered
18/18
on our last stage and the authorities arranged for transport to do down the line and seek them out.
The administration of refugees at Dimapur was a highly organised affair and after a phone call to Rangpur (where the advance guard of our family has registered) we learnt that our families had been relocated to Allahabad and that we could obtain their exact address from the Municipal Secretariat.
Immigration formalities were rapidly dealt with and we had to hand in our weapons and I very reluctantly parted company with my Colt which had given me so much self-assurance during the entire period of my evacuation from Burma; when I unbuckled the weapon I felt physically and morally denuded. Nevertheless, we were given receipts for our armoury and told that we could reclaim them as soon as we were in possession of firearm licenses. We were issued with railway warrants for Allahabad ...
on our last stage and the authorities arranged for transport to do down the line and seek them out.
The administration of refugees at Dimapur was a highly organised affair and after a phone call to Rangpur (where the advance guard of our family has registered) we learnt that our families had been relocated to Allahabad and that we could obtain their exact address from the Municipal Secretariat.
Immigration formalities were rapidly dealt with and we had to hand in our weapons and I very reluctantly parted company with my Colt which had given me so much self-assurance during the entire period of my evacuation from Burma; when I unbuckled the weapon I felt physically and morally denuded. Nevertheless, we were given receipts for our armoury and told that we could reclaim them as soon as we were in possession of firearm licenses. We were issued with railway warrants for Allahabad ...