Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II
Page 34
32 not just as an individual Alexander, Astonishing Elephant, p. 36. One man came upon a friend long after the man had been killed by an elephant. He mistook the victim for nothing more than a deer hide. When others began to “unfold” the remains, what seemed like strings turned out to be arms and legs. Three layers down was a face. A perfect image of the man’s profile, “but absolutely flat, no eyeball even, and that’s the first time we even knew what the thing was.”
33 were not eager to work The diary account of an evacuee, Jose Johnson, “WW2 People’s War.”
34 a little area to sleep in Goodall, Exodus Burma. Many travelers knew by now to scrape a hollow underneath where a hip would rest.
35 Rangoon fell to the Japanese “World Battlefronts: Bitter Blow,” Time magazine, March 9, 1942.
36 Without Rangoon “To the Offense!” The New York Times, March 8, 1942.
37 All told, about six hundred thousand Asad Latif, “Speaking for War’s Silent Victims,” The Straits Times (Singapore), November 7, 2004. In Burma Research Society, Burma Pamphlets No. 5, p. 1, the figure for refugees is half a million.
38 Only about fifty thousand were British Goodall, Exodus Burma.
39 Eighty thousand may have died Harper, “Second World War.”
40 “had sacrificed everything” “Elephant Bill Praises the Fighting Devons,” The Exmouth Journal, December 14, 1957.
41 no decent suspension “WW2 People’s War.” The March 9, 1942, diary account of evacuee Jose Johnson describes the road as “awful.”
42 two nights Evelyn Bostock to Mr. and Mrs. G. R. Gaunt, March 25, 1942.
43 with the rain Ibid.
CHAPTER 22: NO. 1 WAR ELEPHANT
1 After meeting up J. H. Williams’s two brothers had met the women in Calcutta and helped them with housing; Evelyn Bostock to Mr. and Mrs. G. R. Gaunt, March 25, 1942.
2 Mrs. Robertson Conversation with Diana Williams Clarke via Skype, May 30, 2013; email from Treve Williams, November 7, 2012.
3 with its posh British club Janice Pariat, “Why Shillong Flips for WWII Jeeps: The Second World War Years Linger in This Hill Town in Strange Ways, and None More Unusual Than in Its Abiding Fondness for Willys Jeeps,” Open Magazine, April 16, 2011, http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/arts-letters/why-shillong-flips-for-wwii-jeeps, accessed October 17, 2013.
4 a cook and a butler Conversation with Diana Williams Clarke via Skype, May 30, 2013.
5 running the camp Evelyn Bostock to Mr. and Mrs. G. R. Gaunt, March 25, 1942; FOEB, p. 329. Susan says they ran the camp for six weeks, but this is impossible since J. H. Williams evacuated Burma on April 9, according to EB, p. 204.
6 The British Army soldiers Goodall, Exodus Burma; Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire and the War with Japan (London: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 110, 111.
7 Williams searched Conversation with Treve Williams, June 13, 2012.
8 by war’s end McLynn, Burma Campaign, p. 1.
9 The organization of the defense Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p. 63.
10 The Royal Air Force McLynn, Burma Campaign, p. 30.
11 Mandalay was bombed Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p. 77.
12 Newspapers in India Goodall, Exodus Burma.
13 only one survived Ibid.
14 several survival tricks Ibid.
15 “baring the ribs” “Battle of Asia: Before the Monsoons,” Time magazine, March 30, 1942.
16 Stilwell said “Flight from Burma: Stilwell Leads Way Through Jungle to India,” Life magazine, August 10, 1942. (Stilwell was in Imphal on May 24, 1942.)
17 a few defeats Harper, “Second World War.”
18 Susan gave birth Susan’s passport; FOEB, p. 330.
19 “gnawing ache” EB MS, p. 123.
20 the largest Commonwealth army Fowler, We Gave Our Today, pp. 5–6.
21 field of operation “How Admin Troops Backed-up the Fighting Men,” Burma Star Association, http://www.burmastar.org.uk/admin_troops.htm, accessed October 17, 2013.
22 Fighting with them James Delingpole, “Our Heroes of Burma,” Mail on Sunday (London), April 19, 2009.
23 could be dicey Ronald Lewin, Slim the Standardbearer (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1999), p. 105. Originally published in 1976.
24 Williams was assigned Major R. M. Forrester, OC Burma section, “Appendix B, Appreciation for SOE Operations in Burma, 26 August 1943,” Burma Consolidated Reports 1941–1945; Rev. John Croft, MC, “Gentlemen—‘The Elephants,’ ” The Army Quarterly and Defence Journal 13 (April 1983): pp. 192–98; Patrick Howarth, Undercover: The Men and Women of the SOE (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), p. 11. Originally published in 1980.
25 didn’t play by the rules Howarth, Undercover, p. 11.
26 telegraph office Goodall, Exodus Burma.
27 beneath the weight The Calcutta Statesman, July 14, 1943; Bayly and Harper, Forgotten Armies, p. 252.
28 The first “hire” Harold Langford Browne’s partial war record in the National Archives, London. TNA Ref.: WO374/74943 and WO373/82.
29 Like the great tusker Kipling, “Toomai of the Elephants,” p. 148.
30 “Bandoola was presented to me” Williams, Bandoola, p. 240.
CHAPTER 23: THE MAKING OF ELEPHANT BILL
1 more than three dozen elephants “Elephants Do Their Bit Against Japs” looks like a wire service story about J. H. Williams written in the early 1940s. From the archives of Treve Williams.
2 forty miles EB MS, p. 125.
3 the uzis’ wives Ibid., p. 125. “It was a remarkable get away by night,” Williams wrote, “as these riders with their families were taking the gravest of risks in crossing the jungles of the Teelaung Creek as much the Japs’ no man’s land for patrols as ours.”
4 to escort uzis and elephants Kahn, “Elephant Bill’s Elephants,” p. 105.
5 “That they stayed” Slim, “Uncommon Adventure.”
6 full of mischief Email from Treve Williams, November 7, 2012. The nanny, Naw Lah, would sometimes spank him with her hairbrush, the “prickly” side being as painful as the flat side.
7 “a big-headed Scot” “British Raid Burma,” Life magazine, June 28, 1943.
8 greet visitors naked Annette Kobak, “The Naked General,” The New York Times, January 16, 2000.
9 stabbing himself in the neck Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p. 93.
10 illuminated map EB MS, p. 133.
11 On the ground “Battle of Asia: Before the Monsoons,” Time magazine, March 30, 1942.
12 report from the Daily Mail “Elephant Bill Won His War,” Daily Mail, no date. From the archives of Treve Williams.
13 plenty of enemy troops Tillman Durdin, “Patrols Clashes Mark Burma War: … Main Defenses of Enemy Are Believed Behind Chindwin and Irrawaddy Rivers,” The New York Times, December 14, 1943. “The Japanese still hold several points on the west side of the Chindwin,” The New York Times reported. “They have dug in in the usual fashion with bunkers and machine-gun nests, supported by tree-sitting snipers near trails and open spaces.”
14 no one stepped forward J. H. Williams, “The Story of a Hard-Boiled Jungle Adventurer: Elephant Bill,” The Sydney Morning Herald, June 8, 1950. Serialized version of Elephant Bill with a number of differences.
15 constant clashes Durdin, “Patrols Clashes Mark Burma War.” “The uninterrupted harassing warfare going on between Allied and Japanese troops on the India-Burma border is being waged along a jagged, discontinuous ‘front’ of jungle-covered mountains and valleys stretching 500 miles.”
16 The toll of those killed Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p. 90.
17 “formidable fighting insect” Hastings, Retribution, p. 49.
18 traveled as lightly as possible Associated Press, “British in 3-Month Burma Foray Learn How to Raise Havoc with Foe,” The New York Times, May 21, 1943.
19 “an expensive failure” Kobak, “Naked General.”
20 a letter of grati
tude R. A. Savory, HQ 23 Ind Div., to J. H. Williams, June 12, 1943, from the archives of Treve Williams.
CHAPTER 24: ELEPHANT COMPANY HITS ITS STRIDE
1 mail from Susan Conversation with Treve Williams, December 3, 2012.
2 high jinks Conversation with Diana Williams Clarke via Skype, May 30, 2013.
3 supplies of quinine Joyce Chapman, The Indian National Army and Japan (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1971), p. 155.
4 A visiting reporter T. L. Goodman, “Elephant Bill Commands a Strong Company of Bridge Builders in Burma,” The Sydney Morning Herald, November 28, 1944.
5 Imphal, despite its status McLynn, Burma Campaign, p. 294.
6 Here, the reporters found Philip Wynter, “Guerilla Tactics in Burma: Traps and Elephants Used Against Japs,” The Argus, November 25, 1943.
7 the enemy was so close EB, p. 238. As Williams had put it, “Most of the time there was nothing between us and the Japanese but dripping jungle.”
8 A form of guerilla warfare Wynter, “Guerilla Tactics in Burma.”
9 After the rains Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p 60.
10 They suffered from David W. Tschanz, “Uncommon Misery: The 1944–45 Burma Campaign,” Burma Star Association, http://www.burmastar.org.uk/misery.htm, accessed October 21, 2013.
11 called “yaws” Mark F. Wiser, “Plasmodium Species Infecting Humans,” Tulane University, http://www.tulane.edu/~wiser/protozoology/notes/pl_sp.html, accessed October 21, 2013.
12 most of all malaria The Burma Star Association is a collection of information on the war in Burma, including personal memoirs of soldiers. This quote is from Manny Curtis, South Lancashire Regiment, http://www.burmastar.org.uk/mannycurtis.htm, accessed October 21, 2013. One British soldier remembered being hit by the deadly strain of malaria, p. falciparum, then known as malignant tertian. “Near the banks of the Irrawaddy, I had the great ‘pleasure’ of developing the next worse strain of malaria—MT. I’d already plodded on through a bout of denghi [sic] fever, but in spite of my daily dose of Mepacrin which was meant to protect us from the dreaded mosquito, I still managed to find a mozzie that hadn’t read the label. I’d also had foot rot (who hadn’t?), prickly heat, jungle sores, sand fly fever and dysentery. But MT malaria was something apart.”
13 During a particularly bad spell Tschanz, “Uncommon Misery: The 1944–45 Burma Campaign.”
14 pants cut away Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p. 110.
15 longest campaign Ibid., p. xvii.
16 they owned the skies Harper, “The Second World War.”
17 they hated the land Hastings, Retribution, p. 67.
18 American K ration Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p 59.
19 Among the Japanese generals Ibid., p. 52.
20 The engineers had gone Goodman, “Elephant Bill Commands a Strong Company,” p. 2.
21 He was furious once Conversation with Diana Williams Clarke and Treve Williams via Skype, June 6, 2013.
22 The pay scale war J. H. Williams’s army records, National Archives, London. TNA Ref.: W0203-1020, Folio 3B-10A. Provided by Denis Segal.
23 Then he treated them EB, p. 290; email with Treve Williams: “M&B powder was correctly named M&B 693 and contained a sulphonamide in this case Sulphapyridine. The name M&B presumably came from its maker May & Baker.” See also Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfapyridine, accessed October 21, 2013.
24 create a sick camp EB, p. 290. “To my belief,” he said, “it was the first field veterinary hospital for elephants ever to be established.”
25 Time magazine wrote “World Battlefronts: Temperamental Transport,” Time magazine, April 12, 1943.
26 An Australian newspaper Goodman, “Elephant Bill Commands a Strong Company of Bridge Builders in Burma,” p. 2. Also reported in “A Company of Elephants: A Unique Army Unit in Burma: Bridge Building,” from our special correspondent, Kabaw Valley, Burma, November 24 (delayed), no year, no page number. From the archives of Treve Williams.
27 “The elephant kneels” Wynter, “Life’s Reports: Elephants at War / In Burma.”
28 challenged and killed Document 1, p. 8.
29 “One forgave Bandoola” Ibid., p. 9.
30 looking for bags of salt Reg Foster, “Elephants Think—But They Forget,” SEAC Souvenir, April 19, 1945; EB, p. 299.
31 red elephant insignia Foster, “Elephants Think—But They Forget.”
32 Jim reveled Conversation with Diana Williams Clarke via Skype, May 30, 2013.
33 his father’s Jeep Email from Treve Williams, November 7, 2012.
34 kidney pie Email from Treve Williams, March 30, 2012.
35 the winning Allies Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p. 126.
CHAPTER 25: A CRAZY IDEA
1 Slim had anticipated David Atkins, The Forgotten Major: In the Siege of Imphal (Pulborough, UK: Toat, 1989), p. 78.
2 the Japanese were risking everything Hastings, Retribution, p. 67.
3 estimated the value “World Battlefronts: Temperamental Transport.” Five thousand rupees equals about $100 dollars in 1943, according to this website: http://www.likeforex.com/currency-converter/indian-rupee-inr_usd-us-dollar.htm/1943. Then go to the Measuring Worth website (http://www.measuringworth.com) and you can do the conversion to today’s value seven different ways, with results from $1,000 to $7,300. Or for all: $330,000. This squares with Foster, “Elephants Think—But They Forget.”
4 High command wanted “A Company of Elephants.”
5 five mountain ranges Maps provide by the National Geographic Society map librarian, May 18, 2011.
6 where Williams had stood Atkins, Forgotten Major, p. 78. There were constant unforeseen appearances by the Japanese all along the route. On March 28, 1944, “Suddenly, without warning at all,” one officer, Major David Atkins with the Fourteenth Army, wrote, he found the enemy just behind him at Milestone 105: “How they got there without being seen is quite extraordinary.”
7 Even Slim wondered Slim, “Uncommon Adventure.”
8 “most forsaken spots” Chapman, Indian National Army and Japan, p. 153.
9 trench mouth Conversation with Treve Williams via Skype, February 9, 2013.
10 He was on musth Document 1, p. 11.
11 like the little elephant boy Kipling, “Toomai of the Elephants,” p. 161.
12 “his musth glands” Document 1, p. 11.
13 Balladhun tea plantation Dave Lamont, “My Memories of a Wonderful Time in India,” Koi-Hai.com, http://www.koi-hai.com/Default.aspx?id=490718, accessed October 21, 2013. Details of the plantation filled in by one of the later managers.
14 a “strong” Japanese patrol Alan K. Lathrop, “The Employment of Chinese Nationalist Troops in the First Burma Campain,” The Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12, no. 2 (September 1981): p. 422; John Parratt, The Wounded Land (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2005), p. 88; EB MS, p. 164.
15 was captured and, they heard Atkins, Forgotten Major, p. 85; conversation with Treve Williams via Skype, July 29, 2013.
16 a withering sight In EB MS, p. 167, Williams says 300 to 400 feet high. In at least two other sources, he describes the cliff as 270 feet high: Document fragment 7B, and “Elephant Bill Says: They Are Tops for Intelligence,” Grimsby (UK) Evening Telegraph, November 4, 1954. In FOEB, p. 337, Susan Williams says “about three hundred feet high.”
17 Williams’s vertigo Conversation with Diana Williams Clarke and Treve Williams via Skype, June 6, 2013.
18 the Japanese had bound Fowler, We Gave Our Today, pp. 24, 42, 48, 49.
19 “It’s strange:” “A Living Hell in Burma,” Bristol (UK) Evening Post, June 28, 2005.
20 “We were not merciful” Fowler, We Gave Our Today, p. 68. Quoting from Second Lieutenant John Randle.
21 “They’d been slit” “A Living Hell in Burma.”
22 an astonishing 25 percent Andrew Roberts, “The De
bt Japan Owes These Men,” Daily Mail, London, September 17, 1993.
CHAPTER 26: THE ELEPHANT STAIRWAY
1 “All will be well” FOEB, p. 338. Susan’s version of what Po Toke says differs from J.H.’s. His own writing changes between the original manuscript for EB, p. 169, and the published version, pp. 272–73. I’ve chosen to use Susan’s after consulting with Treve Williams.
2 Williams wore Email from Treve Williams, March 31, 2012.
3 taking a hammering Associated Press, “Allied Base in India Is Isolated; Foe Is at Last Trail to Imphal,” The New York Times, April 15, 1944: “Front dispatches said tonight that Japanese troops had reached the Bishenpur–Silchar Trail running southwest and west of the Allied Indian base of Imphal and suffered a dozen casualties in an engagement with Allied troops there.”
4 “Many were my thoughts” EB MS, p. 171.
5 pain in his stomach FOEB, p. 342.
6 Bandoola drew Ibid., pp. 338–39.
7 Bandoola’s great head EB MS, p. 171. Slightly different here from the book.
8 Here was nothing less Document 7b, p. 2. A pitch by J. H. Williams either for the book or screenplay: “The final height of the mountain range, when all seems hopeless, is crossed by Bandoola, justifying Williams’ life’s work.”
9 “This is the story” Slim, “Uncommon Adventure.”
10 On the big elephant’s back FOEB, pp. 339–41. And Document 1, p. 11.
11 It was April 26, 1944 In Elephant Bill, p. 283, J. H. Williams says the day after arrival is the twenty-fourth. But in later writing, Document 1, p. 11, he corrected the tally of days on the journey to twenty-one, which would have brought them to the tea estate on April 26, 1944.
12 The house was built Lamont, “My Memories of a Wonderful Time in India.”
13 “Faur are ye comin’ ” Ibid. Also squares with EB MS, p. 176.
14 After six weeks’ recuperation FOEB, p. 342; EB, p. 302. Susan and Jim often disagree in their writing over the timing of events. This is one of them. Susan tends to be more reliable on dates, and so I use hers here.