BURMA

 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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#Indian Railway stories 20's, 30's and 40's
#Wartime Courage by Gordon Brown
#How we won the war in Burma - Errol Flynn and me
#WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MY ROCKING HORSE
#The Burma Trek 1942 Pt1 
#The Burma Trek 1942 Pt2 
#The Burma Trek 1942 Pt3 
#Brigadier General Robert Scott
#Major " Trof"Tropimov MC
#Stephen returns to Burma after 60 years
#Gathering at Teashops
#The Stillwell/Ledo Road
#Aussie Dekho
#Tributes Paid to WWll Martyrs
#Historic Stillwell Road to reopen
#Through the Jungle of Death
#Nominal Roll
#Forgotten Frontier
#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----

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.

 

Foremr POWs pay their respects at a Japanese War cemetery in Rangoon

Former POWs pay their respects at a  war cemetery in Rangoon

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

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