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This page has been
created in an effort to share the abundance of interesting stories
and facts about the Burma and the Japanese invasion of Burma in the 40's. Burma
borders
Assam and at the time of the invasion of Burma there were many stories of great heroism by
people of
different backgrounds and races.
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#WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MY ROCKING HORSE
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#Stillwell Road
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April
1 2008
Shirley West who wrote the
story
"Whatever happened to my Rocking Horse"
gives us another insight into her life -
This time she is
helping a friend Sally, who is collecting stories of Indian
Railways in the 20's 30's and 40's -there has recently been
some first class photos of rail scenes in Assam on
www.koi-hai.com and this should add to the interest -here is
Shirley's note:
Hello Sally,
I
arrived in Calcutta in March 1942, having been evacuated
from Rangoon on the last ship to leave before the Japs
arrived. We were soon on a train to Bangalore to be
with my maternal grandparents, and then on to Simla in the
foothills of the Himalayas where Burma railways had
regrouped. My Father was a senior accounts officer
with Burma Railways, and as such, his family always had the
privilege of travelling First Class on all our journeys.
We would travel down to Bangalore for the three month
Christmas Holidays, and of course the train journeys were a
source of great pleasure and excitement.
The noise of the big stations, Madras, Delhi and
Bombay were something never to be forgotten. We always
had a coupe for my Mother, brother and myself, and it was
always my lot to sleep on the floor. The bedroll would
be opened, and I would fall asleep to the rumble of the
wheels. It was a bit dicey sleeping on the floor,
there was always the danger of being trodden on during the
night if either of the other two needed the loo!
My Mother would take a huge wicker picnic basket with
food for the journey, Madras to Delhi took two days, and I
would chomp through two dozen hard-boiled eggs during this
time. Once we ordered a meal from the dining car, this
was delivered but the attendant did not have enough time to
get back to his work place, so he simply hung on to the door
handle outside our compartment till the next stop.
As the train would come in to the station, my Mother
would hang out of the carriage window, yelling "Coolie,
coolie!" till we would have about twenty of them
running to keep pace with our compartment till the train
stopped. We only had three suitcases !!!!
My most vivid memory of these journeys was "The
Bath" in the First Class Ladies Waiting Room in Delhi !
We always had several hours to kill before the train to
Kalka, and my Mother would decide that I needed a bath.
The Waiting Room was a huge, cool, dark room, with another
huge room which was the bathroom. Here, in splendid
isolation, would stand a huge marble bath. I was only seven
years old, and she would tell me to stand in the bath so
that I would not pick up any germs! This would be
fine, until the soapy water seeped under my feet and I would
fall - all arms and legs - elbows and knees hitting the
sides of the bath. My Mother was not one for
tenderness or patience, and she would shout and slap me for
not doing as I had been told!!!! How I hated those
baths in Delhi. Small as I was, I used to wonder why
my Mother never remembered that I always fell.
The
little train from Kalka up to Simla was delightful. We
would go through 103 tunnels on the way, with the
compartment filling with smoke in the darkness, the stations
on the way all had the usual vendors, with the brown monkeys
ever watchful for anything that could be snatched or eaten.
My husband and I had two holidays in India in 2001
and 2004 both were nostalgia trips organised by someone who
had schooled at Sanawar in the Simla Hills. The trip
by train was an extra excursion because car journeys were
faster, but it was not the same. No steam , no smoke
and no whistle.
In 1960 I took my Mum back to India to see her Mother
who lived in Allahabad. Yet again we were lucky as Dad
had written to Indian Railways asking that his wife and
unmarried daughter be watched over, and back came a reply
from someone who had worked under him years before, and
offered us free First Class travel whilst in India! I
have never forgotten the Ticket Clerk in Agra, (a lady
clerk), saying we would have to change trains at two in the
morning. On seeing my dismay at this, she said
"Never mind, you ladies have a good sleep and I will
arrange for the bogey to be transferred to the other
train!" I did wonder just where we would find
ourselves the next morning, but sure enough, we arrived in
Allahabad as promised! What service and efficiency!
The school trains were something else! The
school year lasted from March to December, and long journeys
were involved in getting the children to the Hill Schools,so
teachers were roped in to supervise the children on the
trip. The older children, usually the boys, used to
get up to all sorts of mischief. I have a friend who
is nearing eighty and he says he still has a conscience
about how they used to trick to vendors and not pay for the
good they "bought".
I hope this is the sort of thing you are looking for,
and wish you all the very best in your quest to compile
Indian train memories. You may also find this website of
interest, it is fascinating www.koi-hai.com an
www.koi-hai.com/Burma.html
Kind regards,
Shirley West
(nee Jones)
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November 18 2007
This article which is part of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's book
Wartime Courage was shown in the Daily Telegraph and we asked for
permission to show on our website--the part shown is copied below
Wartime
Courage by Gordon Brown:
---- part four----
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For
two years, Major Hugh Seagrim trained and led an
army of Burmese tribesmen to resist the Japanese
occupation. But, as Gordon Brown reveals in the
fourth of our exclusive extracts from his new
book, Seagrim’s love for his men was so great
that he could see only one way to save them
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Near St
Mary’s church in the little village of
Whissonsett in Norfolk stands a memorial to two
brothers, one with the Victoria Cross, one with
the George Cross.
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Former
POWs pay their respects at a war
cemetery in Rangoon
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The only two
brothers ever to be so honoured, they were sons of
a local clergyman, the Rev. Charles Seagrim,
rector of Whissonsett-with-Horningtoft. Neither
survived the war, and both awards were posthumous.
The older
brother, Lt. Col. Derek Seagrim, earned a VC for
his heroic leadership of a battalion of the Green
Howards in an assault on the Mareth Line in North
Africa on 21 and 22 March 1943, but died on 6
April of wounds sustained in another battle.
Major Hugh
Seagrim, GC DSO MBE, Lt. Col. Seagrim’s youngest
brother, served for two years behind enemy lines
in Burma, in circumstances of appalling hardship,
uncertainty and danger; and died in Rangoon on 2
September in the same year.
Hugh
Seagrim’s story, set in the darkest times of the
war in the Far East, is one of the highest courage
and leadership. Always short of weapons,
ammunition and supplies, and only rarely in touch
with command, he raised and led a local force, the
Karen Levies; and with them remained in Eastern
Burma during the Japanese occupation, threatening
and harassing their lines of communication and
maintaining, however precariously, a British
presence there for much of the time between the
invasion of Burma and the arrival of Slim’s
ultimately victorious Fourteenth Army.

Major Seagrim with his beloved
Karen fighters behind enemy lines
Hugh Seagrim was born in 1909, the
youngest of a family of five sons all of whom saw
Army service in the Second World War. He attended
the King Edward VI School in Norwich, where many
years before Horatio Nelson, also the son of a
Norfolk clergyman, had been a pupil. In 1927, when
Hugh was in his last year in school, his father
died. Plans for university and a career in
medicine were now unaffordable.
An application
for Dartmouth and the Navy failed – he was
partially colour-blind – but one for Sandhurst
succeeded, and he followed his brothers into the
Army. Like many a young officer of limited means,
he opted for service with the Indian Army and,
after a one-year attachment to the Highland Light
Infantry in Cawnpore, applied to join the Burma
Rifles and was posted to Taiping in Malaya,
joining the regiment as a 22-year old subaltern.
A good
linguist, a sportsman, and at 6ft 4in a talented
goalkeeper, he did well as a junior officer. His
quirky sense of humour made him popular with his
peers, though his love of classical music, his
restless intelligence and a wide reading that ran
to philosophers such as Nietzsche, Bergson and
Schopenhauer marked him out from them too. He was
not conventionally ambitious, often telling
colleagues he would sooner be a postman in Norfolk
than a general in India.
His troops
were Karens, members of a group of minority tribes
in Burma. His quick mastery of languages – he
spoke fluent Burmese and some Karen too –
impressed them, as did his goal-keeping and his
height (most Karens are stocky). He turned out to
be a natural regimental soldier: a gifted trainer
and leader of men.
He got to know
his Karens, and they him, and for the rest of his
life he was to serve with them. In his last letter
to his mother he wrote that there was a chance he
‘wouldn’t get through’, and that if he
didn’t, he ‘wanted to leave a memory with the
Karens’. The status of the Karens in Burma in
the 1930s and ’40s is relevant to this story.
An ethnic and
religious minority, they had long been subjugated
by the dominant Buddhist Burmese, and distrusted
by them too. In the ninetheenth century they had
welcomed the British, whom they saw as advancing
their rights in Burma; and a proportion,
particularly the leadership, had embraced
Christianity as a result of US missionary work
from 1813 on.
Indeed it was
said that the Karens called the American
missionaries their ‘mother’, and the British
authorities their ‘father’. Most Karens lived
a village life, agrarian and simple, and were led
by tribal elders. Those from the mountains of
Salween province in the east of Burma, the ‘hill
Karens’, were strongly represented in the Burma
Rifles and valued as tough and trustworthy
soldiers, and it was from them that Seagrim was
eventually to raise his irregular force.
In the later
1930s, when war threatened, he recognised their
potential for guerrilla warfare against the likely
enemy, and considered the Indian Army’s
traditional drill-based approach to training
pointless, even irrelevant, for the battles ahead.
Japan’s declaration of war in 1941 was followed
by a series of invasions across south-east Asia,
and in Burma preparations were made for resistance
against an enemy with overwhelming advantages both
in numbers and air superiority.
Plans for
Operation Oriental Mission, which would impose
maximum delay upon the enemy ‘by using forces
other than regular forces’, began to form. Very
soon its leader commandeered Seagrim, who had long
argued for the raising, training and use of an
army of Karen irregulars. He was formally seconded
to the new force, and was delighted to join it.
Gradually its
role was defined; in ‘stay-behind’ units, it
would attack likely main Japanese supply routes
such as the Moulmein-Rangoon road and railway.
What was sound in theory proved very difficult in
practice. The main problem was a desperate
shortage of arms and ammunition, and already time
was running out. The Japanese were advancing from
Siam into Burma.
In late
January 1942 Seagrim set out for Papun, in the
mountains of Salween province, with a collection
of miscellaneous firearms, a few tommy guns and
some grenades. A little supply convoy, bringing
200 Italian rifles and a few thousand rounds of
ammunition, arrived a few days later, and on its
return to Rangoon was almost cut off by the
advancing enemy.
In Papun
Seagrim recruited 200 levies and trained them his
way. Barefoot, and encouraged to shoot accurately
from any position they found comfortable – no
Indian Army firing-range drills now – they
practiced concealment and ambush techniques in the
kind of hill country they knew well.
An Army
colleague, Ronald Heath, later a highly successful
jungle training officer with the Chindits, was
impressed by the results. And of Seagrim he said:
‘Any of those Karen boys would have done
anything for him. He had a terrific sway over
those lads.’ The stay-behind role, and the fact
that the Japanese had over-run Burma, meant
Seagrim was now in continuous danger.
He moved
north, and the last British official he spoke to
for many months found him ‘cheerful, but not
betting on his chances.’ In the northern hills
he trained and organised several hundred more
recruits, but the shortage of weapons and
ammunition with which to train was a constant
hindrance.
In
desperation, the Karen crossbow, fatal at up to
seventy-five yards, became a weapon of modern war.
Worse even than lack of stores and firepower was
the lack of communication with the outside world,
and in April, Seagrim, who had served once as a
signals officer, set out to obtain a wireless set
from forces in a town far to the north, only to
discover when he got there that the Japanese were
in control.
On the way
back he was wounded in a bandit ambush, and spent
the next four months hidden in the jungle and
recuperating in the care of two Karen pastors.
Recovered, though still lacking arms, ammunition
and communications, he continued to sustain the
morale and loyalty of his levies across his vast
territory, travelling and maintaining contact
through messengers, and endlessly at risk to any
breach of security.
Dressed like a
Karen, and sustained and concealed by the Karens,
who said of him ‘He has learned to live like
us’, Seagrim moved from village to village, from
camp to camp, seeking out veterans of the Burma
Rifles, registering their names, and making plans
to support British troops once they returned to
Burma. Operation Oriental Mission was now barely
even a holding operation, but Seagrim never gave
up.
In late 1942
British and Indian forces were once more on the
offensive in the Arakan, and GHQ in Delhi looked
again at the possibility of irregular operations
in the Karen hill country. Early in 1943, three
officers, two British and one Karen, were to be
parachuted in with communication equipment and
instructions to make contact with Seagrim, who was
assumed – somewhat against the odds – to be
still alive.
Many attempts
resulted in eventual success: in October 1943
Major Nimmo, Lt Ba Gyaw and Seagrim established
wireless communication with India. At last useful
intelligence traffic began to flow in to Delhi.
But word of parachute drops and the presence of
British officers in the Karen hills had reached
the Japanese, and early in 1944 a 17-man military
‘Goods Distribution Unit’ arrived in Papun and
sold matches and cloth at suspiciously low rates.
Casual
enquiries about foreign soldiers and parachutes
drops confirmed suspicions, which loyal Karens
passed to Seagrim, who moved camp further into the
mountains. Shortly afterwards, the Japanese, who
had learned of the activities of Po Hla, a Karen
friend and supporter of Seagrim’s who had family
in Rangoon, advised him through a distant relative
that if he did not hand himself in for questioning
his family would suffer. The net was closing.
Again Seagrim was informed.
Soon Japanese
infantry and military police units appeared in
force in the Karen hills and began arresting and
torturing various suspects, including an old Burma
Rifles veteran who was one of Seagrim’s levy
commanders. Maung Wah endured three days of
beating, said nothing, was released, and went into
the hills to tell Seagrim what was happening.
Seeing his wounds, Seagrim wept, but the old
soldier simply entreated him to signal for aid and
arms from India and start a Karen revolt.
Seagrim tried,
but GHQ in Delhi refused. The time was not ripe.
Others under torture told more, and soon the
Japanese knew all they needed to: about the
levies, the arms dumps and Seagrim’s
whereabouts. Though loyal Karens still kept
Seagrim informed, and though he continued to move
camp, nothing could be done to prevent what
happened next. The Japanese located him and
attacked. But Seagrim and most of his companions,
warned by their noisy approach, escaped.
In the
following search of the mountainous jungle site,
Captain Inoue, leader of the Kempeitai (military
police) unit, found Seagrim’s bible. Seagrim
himself was to remain at large for another month.
The Japanese were determined to find him, and
their actions in the Karen hills degenerated into
a reign of terror. The loyalty and silence of the
Karens resulted in reprisals both savage and
brutally systematic.
Their villages
were burned and their elders tortured, sometimes
to death. Innocent people suffered dreadfully for
what was, in the eyes of their oppressors,
treachery. Meanwhile Seagrim, with Pa Ah, a young
Karen who had been parachuted in from India, made
his way through twenty-five miles of jungle to
Mewado, a village where his companion’s
brother-in-law would feed and protect them.
In the event
they stayed in the hills, with food brought to
them every few days, but the Japanese again closed
in, looking for Pa Ah, whom they knew had family
in the area. Under threat, the villagers persuaded
him to give himself up, and while he was in
Japanese custody word of Seagrim’s whereabouts
leaked out via a young Karen, who told Captain
Inoue.
When Inoue
arrived with his Kempeitai at Mewado and
threatened to burn down the village and arrest its
inhabitants, the headman, by now a friend of
Seagrim, offered to go and talk to him the next
day. They discussed suicide, which Seagrim
rejected as unchristian. Instead he decided to
give himself up, as the only way to end the
suffering now being inflicted on the Karen by the
Japanese. As they walked to the village Seagrim
gave the headman his watch, asking that he send it
to his mother in England after the war.
In Mewado
Seagrim and Inoue shook hands. Then Seagrim asked
Inoue to treat the Karens generously: ‘They are
not to blame. I alone am responsible for what has
happened in the hills.’ Captor and captive then
spent several days together, sharing meals and
accommodation and talking at length through an
interpreter, with Seagrim repeating his pleas for
clemency towards the Karens.
Inoue returned
Seagrim’s bible, and heard of his plans to be a
missionary among the Karens if he survived the
war. He did not. On 16 March 1944 he was taken
from Papun, first in an oxcart, then in a train to
Rangoon, and held prisoner at the Kempeitai
headquarters there. In a grim jail, in which
torture was common and many died, he stood out,
not simply because of his great height.
A
fellow-prisoner, Arthur Sharpe, a young RAF
officer shot down over Burma, found in him ‘a
profound philosophy and a strong religious
faith.’ He believed him to be ‘the finest
gentleman I have ever met. He had a complete
disregard for his own life and the same time the
greatest concern for the Karen NCO’s and men
under him.’
Seagrim
conducted a short service for another RAF officer,
including an impromptu prayer. Sharpe later wrote
‘Nothing could reveal better this man’s
wonderful character than those words which are now
lost. A tribute to the dead, a prayer for the
living, and, greatest of all, a word for his cruel
captors, for of the Japs he said, in the words of
Christ, “Lord, forgive them, or they know not
what they do.”’
In early July
Seagrim and surviving hill Karens were transferred
to another jail at Insein near Rangoon. On 2
September he and fifteen Karens were summoned to a
court martial. Again Seagrim pleaded for the lives
of his Karens, saying that he alone was
responsible for their actions, and that he alone
should suffer. He and seven of the Karens were
sentenced to death, the remaining eight receiving
long jail sentences.
As the
condemned were driven away, with Seagrim in the
Karen attire he had worn since March 1942, one
Karen witness noted that he was ‘smiley-faced’
as he shouted goodbye to those destined only to
jail. As the citation for his posthumous GC
records: ‘There can hardly be a finer example of
self-sacrifice and bravery than that exhibited by
this officer who in cold blood deliberately gave
himself up to save others, knowing well what his
fate was likely to be at the hands of the
enemy.’
The Japanese
had prevailed over Seagrim and his Karen Levies.
But within a year of his death it was clear that
his courage, leadership and ultimate sacrifice
with and for the Karens had made possible a vast
and successful new venture that owed much to him
and his work in the hills.
Operation
Character, which began in April 1945, was the
largest and most successful example of irregular
warfare in all South-East Asia Command. More than
12,000 Karens, now well-armed and properly
supported, wrought havoc on Japanese forces in
Burma until their defeat, killing thousands and
tying down many thousands more in a classic
irregular conflict.
Seagrim, I think,
would not have been surprised; and, in the words
used in his last letter to his mother, he had
succeeded in his aim of leaving ‘a memory with
the Karens’.
When I read
that letter more than sixty years after his death,
I thought immediately of the inscription I first
saw many years ago at the Scottish National War
Memorial in Edinburgh Castle: ‘The whole earth
is the tomb of heroes and their story is not
graven in stone over their clay, but abides
everywhere, without visible symbol, woven into the
stuff of other men’s lives.’
·
Copyright © Gordon
Brown 2007. Taken from Wartime Courage by
Gordon Brown to be published by Bloomsbury in 2008
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November
10 2007
Shirley West wrote: You
kindly published my article "Whatever Happened To My Rocking
Horse?"
(Which is just below this story)
Whilst on holiday in Cyprus last month, we met Bert Peers who
turned out to be quite a character! He entertained us for many
hours with his poems and extracts from Kipling, etc. One in
particular took our fancy, "Errol Flynn and me" - so much
so that he sent us a copy because of my Burma connection.
I have checked with Bert, and he is to quote:- "quite happy for
you to spread his poem but wants to point out that he wrote it
as a skit after seeing the film 'Burma Victory' (sic) 'Objective
Burma' which apparently anyone who was there during the War
absolutely hated."
Thank you
Shirley--Here it is
HOW WE WON THE WAR IN BURMA
-just Errol Flynn – and me.
The war in Europe was ending in the winter of ‘44
I thought that I had done my bit but the Air Force wanted more;
They said that now the Jerries had been beaten well and true,
It’s time the Japs were taught just what a Yorkshire lad can do;
And so they then decided before the battle could begin
They’d send for reinforcements - me and Errol Flynn.
They
sent us off to Chittagong and on to Cox’ Bazaar,
We
flew right down from Ramree, it wasn’t very far,
They
said that we should both report to Burma GHQ
As
the brass hats at the centre really hadn’t got a clue,
So
they then decided we should help out General Slim
And
so we went to meet him – me and Errol Flynn.
‘At
last’, said Bill we’ve got a chance now that you lads have
arrived,
We’ll
give the Japs a shake up, a mighty big surprise;
We’ll
chase the blighters all the way from Magwe down to Prome
Those
little yellow perils will wish they had stayed at home
So
come on lads get cracking if battle you would win
We
only needed you to come – you and Errol Flynn
So
we chased them all the morning, - we were feeling very warm;
We
chased through the evening, through night until the dawn,
We
chased them through the jungle ‘till we came to old Pegu,
And
the Japanese commander just knew not what to do
His
Generals suggested that they might as well give in
When
they were told that what they faced was me and Errol Flynn.
A
few snags we encountered as we advanced all that day,
A
Nip armoured division we swept out of our way
Some
Geisha girls the Japs then sent to try to halt our push,
And
some 40,000 Japanese were trampled in the rush
And
who was in the forefront with a beatific grin
None
other than yours truly, yes me and Errol Flynn.
Those
Geisha girls were lovely, and we really made them swoon
They
said that they would wait for us when we finally reached Rangoon
So
we pressed on forward our just reward to take
We
had Banana money and my mother’s Christmas cake
To
take advantage of those girls, it really was a sin
But
we were hard, the two of us – me and Errol Flynn.
At
last the Japs surrendered, you could see they’d had enough,
They
had run the length of Burma, and were feeling pretty rough;
Mountbatten
took their swords from them, for that really was his due
And
looked around to see who he would present them to
And
then he smiled; ‘They go to those who have set Burma free’
And
so he gave those Nippon swords to Errol Flynn and me.
©
Albert Peers.
October
28 2006
WHAT
EVER HAPPENED TO MY ROCKING HORSE?
Through the kind auspices of Bob
Needham, Shirley West writes offering her
article to www.koi-hai.com
which the Editor is delighted to accept.
Shirley offers a little background to her story.
It all started when we took my
cousin from Australia and her husband Tim to
visit the RAF Museum in Hendon, London, last July. Tim's
Father had been
the Lead Navigator in the first non-stop flight from Egypt to Darwin
in 1938,
and he had found a cine film of this epic flight amongst his late
Father's things.
The Asst. Curator at the RAF Museum was delighted to accept a
copy of the
film together with Log books etc. He then asked me where
I had been during
the War, and I dismissed this with "I was only six and at the
receiving end of
Jap bombs in Rangoon"....
So here is the outcome - my
article
"WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MY ROCKING HORSE?" It is now
filed in the
archives of the RAF Museum, Hendon; the Royal Signals Museum
in
Blandford, Dorset; and the Imperial War Museum in London.
WHAT
EVER HAPPENED TO MY ROCKING HORSE?
The
recollections of a six year old at the fall of Rangoon, Burma in
1941/42.
By
Shirley
Ann West.
[nee
Jones]
I was born in Rangoon in April 1935, and lived at 39 Fraser Road,
Rangoon
with my parents, George and Mabel Jones, and my elder brother Philip. My
father Charles George Jones was a senior officer with Burma Railways.
We had a
comfortable life, a big house, large grounds with a hard tennis
court
in the front garden, and a wide circle of friends. There were many
servants, and
I had two ayahs, my beloved Susan Ayah and her teenage niece Monica
both of whom looked after me with such love for the first 6½ years of
my life.
A photograph taken in happier times.
My
sixth birthday party in April 1941
I
remember the grown-ups sitting around the radio listening grim faced
to the
news. Pearl Harbour, sunken battleships, Singapore falling [how I
wondered]
Japs advancing……..I often heard the word propaganda and wondered
who
or what on earth it was.
Earlier
in the year we had dug in the back garden what we had hoped and
planned to be a swimming pool, it was a hole about ten feet by six
with the
vain hope that the monsoon rains would fill it for our pleasure. Now
it was
pressed into service as an air raid shelter. Railway sleepers were
laid over
it, which were covered with soil and sandbags. Steps were cut into the
side
to provide access, but they soon crumbled to leave us with a slide.
Mats and
rugs were laid on the ground in the shelter, but these had to be
lifted daily
to check for snakes and scorpions that might be hidden under them.
On
23rd. December 1941 my brother and I were with my mother at
the cinema, watching ‘The Reluctant Dragon’. My mother asked why
everyone was leaving
the cinema, and was told that there was an air raid in progress. We
hurriedly
left the cinema and drove home. The City of Rangoon was being bombed
by
the Japs, with a great many casualties resulting. We lived away from
the centre
of the City, and some friends and acquaintances from the City
arrived at our
house seeking shelter. No one was turned away, but providing food
became something of a problem. My mother went off in the car,
accompanied by
Bernard the bearer, to see what she could get, scrounging or buying
enough
to keep us going.
On
25th December, Christmas Day, the Japs had promised Rangoon
a
‘Christmas dinner’, and true to their word the sirens sounded at
around midday
My mother, fearing that this would happen, had ordered lunch to be
served
early, so when the sirens went we had just finished
our meal. The bombing
by the Japs was heavy with the residential areas being the main target
this
time. During a lull in the bombing my father and another man decided
to leave
the shelter and see what had happened. They were soon back, a bomb
had
fallen on our tennis court and the Sawyer’s house was burning
fiercely. I can remember a strong acrid smell. But the incendiary bomb
which had fallen on
the tennis court had not set fire to our house, although it was
riddled with small pellets which had burned a small circle where each
had landed. Later we
found another unexploded bomb behind the garage and the servants
quarters which meant that we had been right in the path of these two
bombs. Back in the house
the overhead fan had crashed onto the dining table smashing the
glasses and
the crockery. After this experience our ‘refugee’ friends
packed up their
belongings again, and moved further out of Rangoon!
From then
onwards there were nightly air raids. The sirens would sound and
Mum would then put me on the potty! We would dash down stairs,
all except
my Father – who insisted on getting dressed. He would arrive
at the shelter
long after the bombing had started, with Mum alternately praying out
loud for deliverance – much to my acute embarrassment – or
haranguing Dad that
he
would be killed if he weren’t more careful.
She would cover my ears with a
pillow and tell me to go to sleep! How on earth could I? I could feel
the exploding bombs, the noise frightened me, and I felt very hot
underneath that stuffy old
pillow.
Moonlit
nights made us feel very unsafe. Mum thought that the Japs would
think that our tennis court was really an airstrip so she initially
had the servants
put all the potted palms on it to soften the outline. She then
looked out of an
upstairs window to view the finished work only to decide that the Japs
would
then think that the palms were troops guarding the airstrip, so the
palms were speedily removed, and earth was scattered over the tennis
court.
I
clearly remember that the neighbourhood dogs would start howling
before
the siren sounded. They seemed to be aware of the raid about to
happen, and
I often wondered if they could hear the aircraft before we could as
the Jap
aircraft engines had a curious drone to them.
Whilst
in the shelter my foremost feeling was one of embarrassment at
Mum
praying aloud. I hoped also that a bomb would not fall on us, but
never thought
this through as to what would happen to us if one ever did. I
was terrified of
the loud bangs of exploding bombs, and even now the sound of a siren
makes
my stomach turn. We had no defence against the Japs. I believe
that we did
have a few small aircraft, but the best Rangoon could manage were long
bamboo poles surrounded by sandbags made to look like anti-aircraft
guns
By
late February 1942 people were leaving Rangoon by any means
possible,
by sea to India, or up country to Northern Burma. Mum had heard that
the
shipping company had set up a point at Rangoon racecourse to deal
with
the huge crowds seeking a passage to India, so off she went to join
the scrum.
As luck would have it, when she got to the desk the man dealing with
the ticket allocation was someone she had helped in the past, and at
that time he had
told her that if he could ever return the favour she only had to ask.
It was time
to ask, and so with tickets for herself, my brother, and me, we
boarded a
Chinese ship the “Hong Peng” in Rangoon harbour bound for
Calcutta.
Once
aboard nothing much seemed to be happening. We spent the next two
days tied up to the wharf with frequent air raids, and hindered
by me crying
for both my Daddy and my Ayah. I had not said goodbye to them, and
nobody
had thought to tell me that we were leaving for India. We were given
permission
to leave the ship briefly, and my poor Dad was shocked to see us turn
up at
his office at Burma Railways. He drove us home where we had a meal and
I had
a bath, stopped crying, and then returned to the ship.
It
was said that the delay in departing was due to the fact that they
were loading
all of Burma’s gold reserves and would be the last ship to leave,
but finally everything was made ready and we sailed out of Rangoon
harbour.

SS HONG PENG.
[This
photograph shows her aground in Hong Kong harbour after the great
typhoon in 1937.
Luckily she was re-floated and was able to take us to safety
some five years later.]
Looking
now at the photograph of the ship I am amazed at how much
smalleand scruffier she looks compared with how I remember her through
a
child’s eye.
After
we had sailed, back in Rangoon my Dad had heard a rumour that
two
previous ships sailing from there had been sunk by Jap submarines.
Using his contacts, he gave chase in a Customs launch in the hope of
getting us off the
ship, but by the time he reached Hastings, the point where the Pilot
left the ship,
we were on the high seas bound for Calcutta. I have often
wondered what would have been our fate had he been successful in
reaching us, and getting us off the
ship
I
remember very little of that three day voyage to India except that my
mother had
a ‘heart attack’ and took to her bunk. There was in fact nothing
wrong with her
heart. My fear at the time was what on earth would we do if she died
on the voyage. My brother was ten and I was six, and all we knew was
that Aunty Minsey lived in Calcutta and Granny and Grandpapa lived in
Bangalore, but nothing more. As she had taken to her bunk I presume
that somebody took us for meals and up on deck
as I can remember old ladies spending their time up there
sighting all sorts of phantom mines and periscopes! Luckily they were
seeing things and we arrived
safe and sound, and my mother made a miraculous recovery.
We
arrived in Calcutta, and on disembarking from the SS Hong Peng we were
instructed by officious ladies wearing armbands that we were to stay
put until
we had been registered. Mum tired of waiting in the heat after a
trying and dangerous voyage had a few choice words to say about them
before she
whisked us off in a taxi to my Aunt’s flat in Calcutta. As a result
we were never registered as refugees, and our names do not appear on
any of the published
lists. I have vivid memories of arriving at Aunty Minseys flat,
and her calling out “Mabel and the children are here” and Great
Aunt Min calling back “No, no,
they are all dead, I know they are all dead!”
Meanwhile,
in March 1942 my Dad was still in Rangoon, staying in post to see
all of his staff safely away, and records destroyed. As a result
he left it too late
to get away. Rangoon was now a very dangerous place, with the Japs on
the doorstep the authorities had emptied the jails of convicts, and
released the
insane from the asylum, with the result that they were all rampaging
through
the City, stealing food, looting shops and homes, and burning
property. My
Dad said later that he just walked out of our home, not
bothering to lock the
doors – there was no point. Together with his faithful cook, Sahib
Din, he
trekked over a thousand miles through the jungle, out of Burma into
India.
Without Sahib Din he would never have survived the appalling hardships
of
the trek. He owed his life to his faithful servant who nursed him
through dysentery, and eventually they both made it into India and
safety. Countless numbers
died on the trek out of Burma, and we were so happy eventually to
receive
a telegram two months later to say that Dad and his cook were
alive.
All
we now had was what we had carried out from Burma, and that was
not
much. We lost everything, silver, photographs, toys, and all our
family
treasures. Such photographs as we now have are those we sent to
relatives
before the invasion.
But
to this day I still wonder what ever happened to my favourite toy,
my
rocking horse
©
Shirley West,
Iver Village,
Buckinghamshire,
July
2006.
POSTSCRIPT.
For
the rest of the war we all lived in Simla in the foothills of the
Indian
Himalayas, my Father returning to Burma in 1945 and the rest of the
family
in 1946.
When
my father returned to Rangoon from Simla in 1945 after the
defeat
of the Japs, our cook Sahib Din returned with him. Rangoon was in
a
dreadful state and only jeeps could cope with the damaged roads,
and
although our old house was still there in Fraser Road, we were given
a
railway house at 39 Prome Road in which to live; and joy of joys
my
beloved Ayah, Susan Mary, was there.
Shirley at
Rangoon River
Ayah & Monica with Anthony
1947.
1947.
Sahib
Din our cook, Rangoon
1947
Ayah
and her husband, Vincent Veloo had survived the Jap occupation, as had
her niece Monica who had married Bernard, our bearer, and they
had a child, Anthony. Vincent was now the Station Master at Prome Road
Station, and he
and Susan Mary lived in a small cottage adjoining the station. We only
lived a
few yards away, and Ayah and I spent many happy hours together, and
she
often brought Monica and young Anthony to see us.
On
January 4th 1948, Burma’s Independence Day, we sailed
from Rangoon for England. Dad stayed on in Rangoon where he was
Controller of Railway
Accounts with Burma Railways.
In
1949 Dad had to take early retirement, and left Burma to join us in
England.
Sahib Din, who had worked for Dad since 1916, was given a lump sum,
and he returned to his family in his village in India. Dad kept in
touch with him, and
Sahib Din would reply using the services of a ‘writer of letters’.
When a letter
was received requesting the names and photographs of the
children, suspicions were aroused, and we sadly concluded that Sahib
Din had died and the
‘writer of letters’ was anxious to adopt us
ooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo
October 23 2006
Our
thanks to Larry Brown
Larry
Brown uses RootsWeb
India-L, which provides a
forum where those who have connections with India
are able to interact with like minded people and share
stories and experiences as well as to enquire about
relatives
who had been in India in the early days.
Sometimes a story appears which is very moving and
provides an insight into an event that many of us know of.
One such story is the Trek from Burma in 1942 by
Bonnie Arnall. Bonnie's grandson,Bob Needham,lives
in Port Macquarie,NSW. Australia, and he kindly gave
permission for us to share in Bonnie's story.
The
Burma Trek 1942 ( Pt. One)
by Bonnie ARNALL (nee BAY).
Made
possible and forwarded by "R
& P Needham"
Whose
e-mail address is BobNeedham@bigpond.com.au
Bob would be happy to answer any queries on the article
I
As
a result of a recent offer to the list to share my Grandmother's
reminiscences of her experiences on the trek quite a few listers
have asked me to send them a copy. However I thought it might
be of general interest to most of the list so with apologies
to
those who are not interested, here it is. My Grandmother was
born in 1888 and was in fact 54 at the start of the trek. And she
was actually 77 yrs. old when she wrote this in U.K.
Granny
was born in Maymo. The rather quaint way in which she writes
is just as she used to speak. The family called it a
"chi-chi"
accent. My Mother, born in Rangoon, spoke like that
also.
Most people thought they were Welsh. Finally my Grandfather,
Asst. Collector of Customs - Rangoon) Frederick J. Arnall,
was actually born in West Derby (Nr. Everton) and not Redruth.
His Father, Henry, was born in Redruth. Once again apologies
for the length to those who are not interested.
Bob
Needham
N.S.W.
Australia.
Mrs.
Bonnie E. Arnall,
Tadley
- Hants.
U.K.
Age
- 69 at present - 10.2.65.
Widow
of the late F.J. Arnall of His Majesty's Customs, Rangoon.
Birthplace - Redruth Cornwall, later of Everton, and daughter
of the late Major Thomas Archibald Bay T.M.D. serving with the
British Forces in Burma. This is how I happened to be in Rangoon
when war was declared; age 52 years when I left Rangoon for the
Burma Road. Below is the TRUE story of my sufferings, sleepless
nights and losses from December 1941 to May 1945. I arrived in
India after my long walk lasting nearly three months of
countless miles through jungles and up hills.
In
November 1941 I left Rangoon to have a holiday in South India
and, while there, I heard the news that war was declared by the
Japanese and the British, so I made up my mind to return at once
to Rangoon, knowing that my two sons Donald and Jamie would be
called up for Military Service and that our home would be left
unprotected. I went at once to book my passage on the first ship
leaving Madras for Rangoon. The route we took was longer than
usual and lasted about 10 days. This was because Japanese
submarines were supposed to be in the Bay of Bengal. We arrived
at the mouth of the Irrawaddy River on the 25th December,
1941.
As we journeyed up the river the first sight we saw was the
beautiful golden Shwe Dagon Pagoda, which is built on a small
hill; it was glittering in the morning sun.
We could now see
burning villages and smoke all along the banks. It was only then
that we learnt from the Ship's radio that Rangoon had been bombed on
Christmas morning. The
Japs
let Rangoon know that they were going to bomb the city, and
give them 'plum puddings' for Christmas. This they did, just when
all the people were out - some returning from Church. It was a busy
day, also a day of death all over. I must tell you that my
voyage across the Bay of Bengal were nights of terror, waiting
for death perhaps from a submarine. We were in darkness all
through the voyage, and no-one was even allowed to light a
matchstick.
When
I landed in Rangoon I was told by the Customs Officers that there
were no conveyances, so I left my baggage at the Customs Office and
started to walk all alone to my home on the cantonments, which was a
good two miles.. As I walked through the town the sight that I saw
was terrible. Broken bodies of poor women, men and children all
lying, some on the roads, some just entering their homes.
Shopkeepers - their bodies lying across their open stalls and, worst
of all, was the horrible smell from these unfortunate people. In the
cafes, which were also bombed, sat people at their tables - dead. It
was a case of "in the midst of life, we are in Death". I
was feeling ill, and sick, to see all this as I went along, and
finally came near to my home. In the distance I could
see crowds of people all gazing at something and, when I was near,
I could see a huge crater - the result of a Jap bomb that was
thrown that morning of Christmas at about 9 o'clock. There was not
a sound in my home - my sons having been 'called up', but there were
one or two people in a part of my home. Jamie was called up by
the Air Force,
and Donald joined The Battery. For a week I
lived
in terror all alone
then news came that all the convicts, lepers and insane people were
going to be freed, as all the officials in charge had run away for
safety, and there would be no-one to look after their welfare. This
bit of news added to my nights of terror thinking that every
moment someone would enter my door. It was only on moonlight nights
the Jap bombers
came over and when the siren went (a whistle blown by
neighbours who acted as wardens) my dog and I ran downstairs
to the shelter, which was dug in my garden. Along with me were a few
Indian women and children, and one of my servants (the others
having run away). These people kept on praying as long as the
bombers kept flying over. This went on for a week, as there
were no British bombers to stop them. !
Later
on one morning my son, Jamie, came in suddenly and
told me I would have to leave the house as the pilot of
the
plane said he could try and find a place for me as he was flying
on to India. On being told this I never suffered so much in my
life. The thought of leaving a beautiful home, pet cats, a dog
with puppies and poultry in the yard, which were to be left to
the mercy of the invaders, or thieves. Before I left in
the
lorry, after being almost carried down by my son, he ran
upstairs again and brought down my favourite cat, Tibby, and
put her on my lap, as I was crying so bitterly. I must tell
you that I carried Tibby through the whole of my journey, in a
Burmese bag slung over my shoulder. On arrival at the airfield,
the officer in charge then told my son that, as another
officer had turned up, he could not find a place for his
mother.
My son then took me to a cousin living in Rangoon with her
husband, who was a Sergeant in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps!
.
She
was Secretary to the Friends' Ambulance Unit, doing some
work in Burma and who were at this time leaving for
Upper
Burma. These people were Quakers of America. They then agreed
to take me along in their station wagon along with my
cousin
and her sister.
It was the month of March that we
left Rangoon, reaching Mandalay after a journey of about 4 days.
From here we went
on to May Myo, a Hill Station. When in May Myo the news
came over the radio's loudspeaker that there was a big fight
between the Japanese bombers and the American (there were a
few
here who came to help). This set me thinking a lot - and if
anything had happened to my son as a few British planes were
also in the fight. I had no idea at this time where
my two sons were.
We were at May Myo for a week during this period - the
Japs came over every morning at 10 o'clock. Before they came
my cousin and I used to cook a small meal, and then go out a
mile and sit under some large trees in a deserted
area until
the bombers flew back to their base. Then we returned to our
room - a small one in a broken down shop. My other cousin
left with General Stilwell's army, along with the Quakers,
to go on to Lashio in Northern Burma, where the lead mines
were in the Lashio hills, hoping to get an aeroplane to India,
but without success. After the bombers went back to base
we
went out to see what destruction they had done and, to our
horror, we could see dead and dying all over, some in
trenches,
and some on the roads, even poor horses and other animals.
Return to
top
The
Burma Trek 1942 ( Pt.
Two)
by
Bonnie ARNALL (nee BAY).
Made possible and
forwarded by "R & P
Neeedham
In
the evenings the bombers never came as the mist was too
great for them over the hills. Before we left for Mandalay again
I went to see the Air Force officers stationed at May Myo,
telling
them I was the mother of J. Arnall belonging to the Air
Force,
and asking if they could get me away, being all alone, as I
heard
some other evacuees were sent away to India. The Officer in
Charge, a Captain, promised to get me away, but that is all, for
I never saw him again until I was on the Burma Road. We
now
left May Myo to go to Mandalay, being the route to India which
we had to take. We were offered a place by the Military Accts.
in
some open trucks that were going to Mandalay. On the way to
Mandalay we had to climb a hill and half way up we heard the
sound of bombers, so the driver of the truck stopped still
until
they passed over. May Myo, I must say, was a big military
objective
for the Japs who wanted to destroy the Military Posts and
Railways. We reached Mandalay !
and
when we arrived there we
found Mandalay in flames and almost raised to the ground. From
here the evacuees, including my cousin and me, were put into
some open railway trucks with the sun's rays on our heads, which
was something terrible. We journeyed on, sometimes in the
pouring
rain, when halfway to Moniwa we had an accident - the driver of the
train being evidently under the influence of drink, which led to
the
trucks running off the lines. Two trucks from the one my
cousin
|and I were in rolled over, dragging the others with them. The
speed
that the train travelled was terrible so all the passengers were
being
thrown from side to side. As soon as the front carriages stopped
along
with the engine we all ran to see the damage done, and if we
could
help in some way. The screaming and crying of the wounded was
heartrending. Some were under the trucks and some pinned under
the wheels. Some were calling to us to help them. There were no
doctors
or even medicines
available to treat them. My cousin and I went to help
an unfortunate Indian woman, and to try and bandage her wounds
with
some clothes we had, but an officer called us away and told us to
get
onto the train at once - a most cruel act. The train left, leaving
these
wounded people alone until help could be sent to them. We
arrived
in Moniwa where there was a small camp. A short time after some of
the wounded from the train disaster
were brought in for
attendance.
For some days after this I could not sleep, as the cries of these
poor
souls kept ringing in my ears. From Moniwa we again moved on
and
crossed the Chindwin River by ferry and rested here a day where
we
managed to get something to eat and drink for payment to a Burmese
stall holder. From here we walked to Kalewa, another village,
where
we got two coolies to carry our baskets which contained a few of our
treasured possessions, such as family photos, a gold plated
French
clock about 80 years old give
n
to my mother by her mother as a
wedding gift, money and a little jewellery. Stayed here a day,
got
something to eat, and then started our walk again until we came to
another deserted village. It was here that three officers came up
to
us and asked us how we were faring. It was then that I recognised
one of them - the Captain that I asked for a seat in the planes at
May
Myo. I thanked him very much for his kindness in getting me
away!!!
He said he was very sorry he could not find one available seat
for
me. I told him "well you have taken my son for military
service, but
could not help his mother, but left her to find her way alone to
reach
India somehow". At the time when they arrived I was making
some
tea which a kind evacuee neighbour
gave
me - a pkt. of leaves. I offered
them some in old broken mugs left back by other evacuees,
which
they accepted very gladly and said it was hours since they had a
drink.
Of
course the tea had no milk or sugar and it was made on a fire
from
the dry twigs of trees in the ju
|