Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II

by Croke, Vicki Constantine

  There is no way to adequately thank Treve for his contribution. This book was made possible by his generosity, insight, and drive. Besides providing an enormous repository of materials, he was unstinting in sharing memories and helping pin down dates that his father had left vague. By knowing Treve, I could know, to some extent, James Howard Williams in the flesh—witnessing through the son the father’s rangy physique, his great zest, his humor, his stamina, and, above all else, his kindness. Jim Williams still has a voice every time his son speaks. All of these things were a blessing for a biographer, but beyond that, I’ve once again made a beloved friend. As Treve put it once during a passing disagreement, “We’re mates, that’s for life, nothing will change that.” Thank you, dear Treve, for everything.

  I am also indebted to Denis Segal for uncovering J. H. Williams’s government, employment, shipping, and military records in London. I was told that Denis could discover in ten minutes files that would take other scholars ten years to track down. It turned out to be true. And Denis has contributed much more. His own experience in the British military in India during World War II provided many insights. His supercomputer of an intellect was always humming, waiting to field any question. And even though the research is done, our email correspondence has sustained the exquisite pleasure of knowing him.

  Thanks also to Dr. Kevin Greenbank, archivist and administrator, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. Kevin provided me with invaluable materials on Burma, including footage of tea planter and World War II refugee rescuer Gyles Mackrell, and introduced me to Denis Segal. Kevin is a modest man but an incredible polymath. I thank him for allowing me a glimpse of his astonishing “other” lives—musician, heroic activist, and writer. His accomplishments might have intimidated me, but Kevin’s wicked sense of humor kept our communication down to earth.

  Much love and many thanks to Diana Clarke. Di is the little girl in this story who broke my heart. When she arrived with her brother, Michael, at Jim and Susan’s front door in 1940, she was only three years old, motherless, and quite ill. She immediately became a beloved member of the family, one whom Treve still refers to as his sister. In helping me, she recollected details about Jim and Susan that only a daughter could. She is, today, as brave and kind and generous as she was then. Late in the project, she offered an example of British decorum. I was on the phone with Treve and Di the day they had a reunion in London. They had not seen each other in decades and I asked Di if they wept. “Oh, no!” she objected. But then she paused, and whispered, “We just blinked a lot.” I am honored to consider her a friend.

  As always, thanks to Jan Freeman, a friend and editor without equal (she’ll roll her eyes at such a superlative). I hardly write a personal letter without requesting Jan’s red pencil. A colleague once asked how I had the nerve to show Jan my “raw copy.” It’s actually easy, because along with being an exacting reader, Jan is the tenderest of friends.

  John Bostock, son of Geoff Bostock of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, generously provided me with his family’s private correspondence, which recorded the exodus from Burma they shared with the Williamses in 1942. Among his father’s papers was the “Evacuation Scheme,” a detailed seventeen-page outline of the supplies and logistics necessary for the trek and the names of all the evacuees. Everything was calculated with precision down to the last bedroll, tin bath, and fork. His mother’s letters home, full of detail as well as emotion, provided an invaluable glimpse of the journey.

  To David Air and his posse of retired tea planters, many thanks for providing insight and information on the details of Elephant Bill’s stay in Silchar.

  I am grateful to Felicity Goodall, author of Exodus Burma, who was unstintingly generous in sharing her research, and to Harvard scholar Kyi Thant, who kindly edited the Burmese phrases used in these pages.

  And then there are the elephants. They are the reason Billy Williams traveled to Burma and the inspiration for this book. They, and Williams’s love for them, are what first attracted me to this story and sustained me throughout. I knew I could not understand the man if I did not understand his elephants. The journey toward that end has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. And the biggest part of the education was provided by two remarkable elephant matriarchs—Ruth and Emily.

  In 2010, Dr. Bill Langbauer, the head of the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford, Massachusetts, invited video artist Christen Goguen and me to come down and meet “the girls.” Emily had lived much of her life alone in the zoo, when it was run-down and sad. Ruth had arrived in the 1980s after being abandoned by a private owner in a dump in Massachusetts. Known as a striker—one who lashes out with her trunk—and a dangerous elephant, Ruth was rehabilitated by a curmudgeon with a heart of gold—a keeper named Bill Sampson. Bill was patient and dependable, and he turned Ruth into a lap elephant—a trustworthy animal who thrives on love and attention.

  Christen and I visited the girls every other week for nearly two years, learning about life, love, and all things elephant from Emily and Ruth. They taught us to close our eyes when reaching up to rub them (sand rains down from their hide), where they liked to be scratched (often along the tire-tread “elbow” of their trunks), and how easy it is for elephants to open a coconut (the girls would just place a foot on the hard shell, close their eyes in anticipation of the pop, and press). Of course, they had bigger lessons to provide, too. I didn’t need to be convinced of what J. H. Williams wrote about elephant emotions, but the girls validated all of it—they have courage, kindness, intelligence, humor, and loyalty. I hope these deserving animals receive the expansion and renovation of their living space that some of my friends have fought so hard for.

  The elephants didn’t come with an instruction manual, but I have been fortunate to have five remarkable guides: Bill Langbauer, Jenny Theuman, Kay Santos, John Lehnhardt, and Katy Payne.

  “Dr. Bill,” a renowned elephant researcher, opened his mind, his home, and, as the head of Buttonwood at the time, his zoo to me, giving me full immersion into the hearts and minds of these incredible creatures. Dr. Bill is a scientist, a skeptic, and a man of integrity and joy, and like his elephants, he inspires one to be a bigger person in his presence.

  Jenny and Kay, sensitive and insightful elephant keepers, let me tag along, sharing their observations on elephant life. Jenny is smart and talkative, Kay quiet and intuitive; both are masterly elephant whisperers.

  John Lehnhardt was my elephant guru on my very first book, The Modern Ark, and has remained a friend and adviser on all things elephant ever since. He was a curator at the National Zoo then, and now he is beginning a remarkable endeavor—making a sanctuary for elephants in Florida.

  Finally, Katy Payne is a gift from Ganesha. I had read and reviewed her book Silent Thunder and for years had admired her work on elephant behavior and vocal communication. I had hoped to introduce myself someday. Then, in 2009, as I headed to Truro for my annual visit with filmmaker Cynthia Moses, I found out that Katy would be joining us for the week. I hadn’t even realized that Cynthia, most generous and plugged-in of friends, knew Katy. I had long talks with Katy that week, and many strolls with her on the beach, but my favorite memory is sitting on her bed one windy afternoon as she read my book proposal and I reread Silent Thunder, taking turns quoting favorite passages from each other’s work.

  If we were elephants, my dearest friends would be my twai sins, sister matriarchs with whom I share fierce loyalty but no DNA: Amy Macdonald, Mary Savoca Crowley, Ellen Maggio, Jan Freeman, and Louise Kennedy. I thank them all for their unstinting support.

  Thanks also to Jane von Mehren at Random House, for believing in this story, and to Jonathan Jao for his vision and the strength and delicacy of his editing. To his assistant Molly Turpin, too, my gratitude for a fine and astute reading.

  I continue to be indebted to my literary agent, Laura Blake Peterson, at Curtis Brown, Ltd. Laura deserves credit for the good fortune I have enjoyed in the world of books. Magical op
portunities seem to just fall into my lap because of her. I never see the effort, just the wonderful result. She is so breathtakingly good at what she does, and so smart, funny, kind, and courageously protective, that I benefit every day from being associated with her.

  NOTES

  Among the archives of J. H. Williams, kept by his son Treve Williams in Tasmania, were many documents, writing fragments, private letters, Susan Williams’s handwritten timeline of her married life, screenplays, movie treatments, and original manuscripts as they were written before being edited. (The original manuscript for Elephant Bill was titled “Elephants in Peace, Love, and War.”) I coded this material sequentially as Document 1, Document 2, Document S1, and so forth. J. H. Williams wrote five memoirs and his wife, Susan, one.

  ABBREVIATIONS

  EB J. H. Williams, Elephant Bill

  SOF J. H. Williams, Scent of Fear

  FOEB Susan Williams, The Footprints of Elephant Bill

  FOEB MS Original manuscript for The Footprints of Elephant Bill

  EB MS Original manuscript for Elephant Bill

  INTRODUCTION

  1 with a dash of mysticism J. H. Williams, “ ‘Elephant Bill,’ ” The Times (London), July 31, 1958.

  2 who could talk to elephants Kenneth Joachim, “Elephant Bill Is No More,” The Herald (Melbourne), August 4, 1958.

  3 Williams had evolved into J. H. Williams, “ ‘Elephant Bill.’ ”

  4 “than any other white man” James Bartlett, “Never Say ‘Lah-Lah’ to a Wild Elephant,” Daily Express (United Kingdom), May 8, 1953.

  5 the lives of countless refugees J. H. Williams, “ ‘Elephant Bill.’ ”

  6 wild mountainous terrain Philip Wynter, “Life’s Reports: Elephants at War / In Burma, Big Beasts Work for Allied Army,” Life magazine, April 10, 1944.

  7 “a holy war” Marshall Pugh, “Let Animals Teach You to Live,” Daily Mirror (London), Wednesday, April 1952.

  8 The Daily Mail’s headline “Elephant Bill Won His War,” Daily Mail (London), no date. From the archives of Treve Williams.

  9 how much he owed Williams Sir William Slim, “Uncommon Adventure,” Broadsheet, The Bulletin of “World Books,” published by the Reprint Society, LTD., London, no date. From the archives of Treve Williams.

  10 It was the elephants Pugh, “Let Animals Teach You to Live.”

  11 “I’ve learned more about life” Ibid.

  12 “Not a bad way to learn” Ibid.

  13 Courage defined them Ibid.

  14 how to be content with “I Speak for Myself,” radio broadcast transcript of “Elephant Bill” (Col. J. H. Williams, OBE), Disc No. DBU 52898, September 18, 1950, 1220 GMT. See also the original essay typed by Williams for the broadcast, which is slightly different, pp. 1–2.

  15 “the most lovable” J. H. Williams, Elephant Bill (Long Riders’ Guild Press, 1950), p. 320. Hereinafter cited as EB.

  16 “God’s own” Ibid., p. 166.

  17 “The relationship” J. H. Williams, Big Charlie (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959), p. 37.

  18 “I am convinced” EB, p. 64; Susan Williams, The Footprints of Elephant Bill (Leicester: Ulverscroft, 1975), p. 119. First published 1962 by William Kimber. Hereinafter cited as FOEB.

  19 had become his religion Document Fragment 14, p. 4. Handwritten notes on the relationship between man and animals by J. H. Williams.

  CHAPTER 1: THE SHOULDERS OF A GIANT

  1 the raging Yu River J. H. Williams, Bandoola (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1955), p. 153.

  2 a sound like thunder A. W. Smith, “Working Teak in the Burma Forests: The Sagacious Elephant Is Man’s Ablest Ally in the Logging Industry of the Far East,” National Geographic, August 1930, p. 246.

  3 chocolate-colored torrent J. H. Williams, Bandoola, p. 153.

  4 a thousand elephants by name Frank McLynn, The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph (London: Vintage Books, 2011), p. 10. First published in 2010 by The Bodley Head. McLynn estimates that there were twenty thousand working elephants in Burma. And A. C. Pointon, The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited: 1863–1963 (Southampton, UK: Millbrook Press, 1964), p. 45. Pointon says there were 3,028 BBTC elephants in Burma, the Salween, and Siam.

  5 he could keep water Communication with elephant keeper Jenny Blackburn Theuman, December 19, 2010.

  6 “No one who works” J. H. Williams, Bandoola, p. 144.

  7 Now, seven years later Conversation with Treve Williams, June 13, 2012.

  8 The others were either Pointon, Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited, p. 59.

  9 Then Bandoola would Document S1, p. 53. Autobiographical screenplay. From the archives of Treve Williams.

  10 maybe a hundred miles to go J. H. Williams, Bandoola, p. 154.

  CHAPTER 2: INTO THE JUNGLE

  1 On a crisp November day J. H. Williams, “Elephants in Peace, Love, and War” (the original, unpublished manuscript that became Elephant Bill), pp. 3–8. Hereinafter cited as EB MS.

  2 still practiced head-hunting Charles H. Bartlett, “Untoured Burma,” National Geographic, July 1913, p. 852.

  3 performed human sacrifices R. G. Woodthorpe, “Explorations on the Chindwin River, Upper Burma,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, n.s., 11, no. 4 (April 1889): pp. 197–216, http://www.​jstor.​org/​stable/​1801163, accessed October 25, 2013.

  4 into ghost cats Sir Herbert Thirkell White, Burma, Provincial Geographies of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923), p. 33.

  5 remote and little-known corners F. Kingdon-Ward, Burma’s Icy Mountains (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949), p. 5.

  6 barbaric tribes Captain F. Kingdon Ward, In Farthest Burma: The Record of an Arduous Journey of Exploration and Research Through the Unknown Frontier Territory of Burma and Tibet (London: J. B. Lippincott, 1921), p. 18.

  7 on January 26, 1920 J. H. Williams’s WWI records, National Archives, London.

  8 Billy had led J. H. Williams’s WWI war records, British Library. Ref.: 1OR:L/MIL/14/67886.

  9 turmoil of Lahore Ibid., under heading “Special Services in Peace or War.”

  10 Nearly a million Wade Davis, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), p. 15.

  11 he truly thrived “I Speak for Myself,” radio broadcast transcript.

  12 “My way” FOEB, p. 370.

  13 “I developed a longing” EB MS, p. 1.

  14 recruiting frenzy Pointon, Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited, pp. 58–59.

  15 elite schools Harold Braund, MBE, MC, Distinctly I Remember: A Personal Story of Burma (Mount Eliza, Victoria: Wren Publishing, 1972), p. 20.

  16 in 1863 Raymond L. Bryant, The Political Ecology of Forestry in Burma, 1824–1994 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996), p. 64.

  17 athletic over academic skill Braund, Distinctly I Remember, p. 57.

  18 “A robust constitution” Pointon, Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited, p. 16.

  19 These firms required Smith, “Working Teak in the Burma Forests,” p. 239.

  20 stellar personal references Braund, Distinctly I Remember, p. 21.

  21 Just under six feet tall J. H. Williams’s WWI records, National Archives, London. Folio 142, ref: 9/11/106.

  22 picked up Hindustani J. H. Williams’s WWI records, British Library. Ref.: 1OR/L/MIL/14/67886.

  23 “good moral character” J. H. Williams’s WWI records, National Archives, London. Folio 142, ref: 9/11/106.

  24 His official offer J. H. Williams’s original employment contract, London Metropolitan Archives. Ref.: clc/b/207/ms 40603/002, Folio 31.

  25 Every day during the war Martin Pugh, We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain Between the Wars (London: Bodley Head, 2008), p. 4. And J. H. Williams, “Life Offered Only Adventure: J. H. Williams, Author of ‘Elephant Bill,’ ” no page number.

  26 The elder, Nick Susan Williams, original manuscript for Footprints of Elephant Bill
, p. 35. Hereinafter cited as FOEB MS. She says the firm was Orr Dignus and Co. From the archives of Treve Williams.

  27 “Go down to Penamel cove” Document S1, p. 3.

  28 On July 7, 1920 J. H. Williams’s original employment contract.

  29 Weeks later Passenger list of the Bhamo from the P. Henderson and Co. steamship line. The passenger cargo vessel Bhamo was built in 1908 and scrapped in 1938. Gross tonnage: 5,239.

  30 It was a mild, hazy Thursday Weather from the Liverpool Observatory records, National Meteorological Archive, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter, UK.

  31 travel between the two countries Braund, Distinctly I Remember, p. 26.

  32 company’s home leave schedule Felicity Goodall, Exodus Burma: The British Escape Through the Jungles of Death 1942 (History Press, 2011), no page number.

  33 But he was also thrilling Writing Fragment 8, p. 6.

  34 well-liked high school student H. J. Channon, “Elephant Bill of Burma: An Early Adventure at Queen’s College.” Reminiscences of J. H. Williams by one of his schoolteachers. Unknown publication. From the archives of Treve Williams.

  35 Once on board J. K. Stanford, Far Ridges: A Record of Travel in North-Eastern Burma 1938–39 (London: C. & J. Temple, 1946), p. 20.

  36 games such as skittles Braund, Distinctly I Remember, p. 27.

  37 a few weeks later Shipping information indicates these were generally two- or three-week trips, though J. H. Williams says in Document 10a, p. 1, that it was a five-week trip. Stanford, Far Ridges, pp. 17–20, indicates that the England to Burma run was a three-week trip.

  38 lonely journey up-country Document 10a, p. 1. It appears to be a rough draft of the early chapters for Elephant Bill, but contains information not in the published version or EB MS.