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Recollections of a Burma Girl
by
Valerie Willix Howells
by
Valerie Willix Howells
Valerie story starts with her early childhood memories, her parents and the homes they occupied around the country.
The family was to settle in Maymyo where they were interned during the war and Valerie recounts some memories of this time.
Although the internment was “really bad” she remained positive throughout and started a school for the children.
Her positive thinking was to see her through until she died in 2001 in Australia having arrived there in 1947.
In April 2001 she celebrated 50 years of marriage to Peter who concludes the remainder of her life story with these words “I was honoured to share fifty years with Val. She was energetic, generous, enthusiastic, kind, loving, fun-loving, sincere, honest, a gifted pianist, a lover of animals. She had a strong faith in God and a keen sense of duty. She was a wonderful wife.”
Valerie's brother Peter is please at what we have to preserve this part of the family's history and it prompted him to these brief memories:-
"What I do remember is that kids play war games even in the middle of a war. On the open ground in the front of our barracks in front of the barbed (razor) wire ,we would construct little buildings with bricks and bits of tin and carry out bombing raids with our home-made wooden aircraft. Sometimes we would be caught out there when “Andy” and “Amos” flew out of the setting sun from the direction of India and bombed and strafed the surrounding Japanese barracks. Once on a high level raid by several aircraft ,two planes whose crew probably had not been briefed about the Camp, peeled off and did a strafing run. We dived under beds etc. while bullets plopped around us, but as I recall no one was killed or seriously injured.
I remember also when the crew of a downed American aircraft were being held in transit in the Camp guardhouse by the Japanese and us kids were allowed to take them some food – eggs and whatever we had which wasn’t much. We never heard what happened to them.
The Japanese attitude towards troops who were defeated or surrendered, even their own, became clear after the great battles of Kohima and Imphal, when some time later they began dumping their sick and dying soldiers on our perimeter hoping we would care for them. Apart from giving them a drink of water we could do nothing and they removed the bodies. This went some way towards explaining the ill-treatment of Allied POW's. Best wishes Rod.
"What I do remember is that kids play war games even in the middle of a war. On the open ground in the front of our barracks in front of the barbed (razor) wire ,we would construct little buildings with bricks and bits of tin and carry out bombing raids with our home-made wooden aircraft. Sometimes we would be caught out there when “Andy” and “Amos” flew out of the setting sun from the direction of India and bombed and strafed the surrounding Japanese barracks. Once on a high level raid by several aircraft ,two planes whose crew probably had not been briefed about the Camp, peeled off and did a strafing run. We dived under beds etc. while bullets plopped around us, but as I recall no one was killed or seriously injured.
I remember also when the crew of a downed American aircraft were being held in transit in the Camp guardhouse by the Japanese and us kids were allowed to take them some food – eggs and whatever we had which wasn’t much. We never heard what happened to them.
The Japanese attitude towards troops who were defeated or surrendered, even their own, became clear after the great battles of Kohima and Imphal, when some time later they began dumping their sick and dying soldiers on our perimeter hoping we would care for them. Apart from giving them a drink of water we could do nothing and they removed the bodies. This went some way towards explaining the ill-treatment of Allied POW's. Best wishes Rod.