大象传媒

In 1942 I found myself in Burma in the Shan States. I was 22 years old and had been in the army for a few years already but it was still a long way from Batley in West Yorkshire where I had been brought up!

I was there as part of a group of Special Forces. At the end of 1941 on the 7th December the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and the following day Britain and the USA declared war on Japan. This war didn't go well for us at first.

19 January 1942 Japanese advance into Burma
1 February 1942 British Army retreat to Singapore
15 February 1942 Singapore falls to Japan
1 May 1942 Japanese captured Mandalay, Burma

The Only Way Out

I was stuck in the middle of nowhere and had to find somewhere to go before the Japanese came. There were no proper roads. Even now the area is very desolate. A small group of men and I decided that the only way out was to walk out.

We had to cross the foothills of the Himalayas, which rise to over 8000ft. There were many rivers, which ran in steep gorges and were difficult to cross. To cross we had to climb down 2000ft through very thick jungle. The wide, fast flowing river at the bottom was made up of 鈥渋ce melt鈥� water from the mountains so it was very cold. Once we had crossed the river, we then had to climb all the way back up to 8000ft.

The jungle was so thick that we couldn't walk in a straight line. We often walked five or six miles to climb back up to the top of the gorge, which may only have been three quarters of a mile 鈥渁s the crow flies鈥�. On the map it looks as though I walked about 400 miles but, in reality, because of the number of rivers to cross and the difficult terrain it was much further.

I had a map made of silk, so that it could be stuffed into a pocket. However only parts of this region were mapped. Most of the map was just white! I still have this map on my wall today.

Even a current map of the area describes the roads as very primitive and there are still large areas of the map that are shown as 鈥淩elief Data Incomplete.鈥�

When we got to the top of each gorge, we looked back and could see the other side. We had probably only travelled half a mile and it had taken them several days.

The villages were very small and we didn't dare stay in them for health reasons. We always camped a mile or two away and usually upstream. The villages were always by a mountain stream and the people who lived there drew their water from upstream and used the lower stream as a sewer.

Our Route

On 28 April 1942 we left Kentung in the Shan States in an old lorry - heading north west.

Day 4 - Mongnoi, Wa State - Now on foot with ponies
Day 11 - Crossed Nam Loi River - Originally heading for Lashio but we changed plans here and decided to head for China
Day 12 -Tolou, Wa State
Day 22 - Crossed Nam Lan River - Now in China
Day 27 - Ta Ya Koi, Yunnan Province -3 miles from Mekong River. We were warned not to go to crossing point at SauMao as it was held by Chinese Army deserters and bandits. Camped up river.
Day 28 - Crossed Mekong River.
The Mekong River is approximately 2,800 miles long. It runs in steep gorges for most of the upper course. Where I crossed the river the gorge was about 8000 feet deep.
Day 29 - Crossed Taku river - Camped here.
Day 41 - Hsia Pa - Crossed Black River.
Day 42 - Tung Kuan - A broad cultivated valley.
Day 48 - Yuan Chiang Chou - A walled city approximately 1,600 feet above sea level. Camped here preparing to cross the Red River. The delta of the Red River is in Vietnam.
Day 51 - Crossed Red River
Day 56- Hsin-Haing Chou - Also called Ishi or Yu-Hsi. Start of motor road to Kunming. We did the last 80 miles in a battered old lorry! What luxury!
I got to Kun Ming after 62 days of walking. I am quite a tall man and when I got there I was very, very thin and weighed less than 8 stone. We had had to eat our ponies on the way to stay alive.

In Kun Ming I stayed with the American Volunteer Group (AVG), who were American civilians flying fighter planes and transport planes for China.

I was then 鈥渇lown over the Hump鈥� to Dingjan in Assam, India, then to Dum-Dum near Calcutta the following day. 鈥淭he Hump鈥� is a region in Western Yunnan, of high mountains running in long ranges from North to South. The Salween, Mekong and Yangzi Rivers run parallel to each other in spectacularly deep trenches separated by snow peaks.

There were no seats, no crew, no gunners, and no wireless operator, only a pilot. The loss rate was more than 25%. The pilots were paid in gold American dollars and allowed two hundredweight of 鈥減rofitable goods鈥� (i.e. smuggled contraband on each trip. )

But it was better than walking!

My pilot was a Texan, who never took the cigar out his mouth for the whole trip. To avoid being attacked by the Japanese, we had to fly through the gorge of the Kali Gandaki River, which is much deeper and longer than the Grand Canyon, and cuts through the Himalayas. The mountains on each side soar to over 28,000 feet but the plane couldn't fly this high.

The pilot said in a broad southern American drawl,
鈥淪ee those mountains over there?鈥� They're thirty thousand feet!鈥� Wanna know the ceiling of this kite?鈥� Eighteen thousand feet!鈥� We鈥檙e lookin' for a pass that is fifteen thousand feet鈥� Sometimes we finds it - sometimes we don鈥檛.........鈥�

I didn't ask what happened if we didn't find it but you can guess!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.