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     The 15^th of March, 1942, found my mother at one of the lowest ebbs of her life.  She was slightly off a jungle trail, near the Indian Border between Sake Hi, Burma, and Yanman, India.  Her party consisted of Scots and Irish women and children, plus a few native servants with Tulah-Rhum acting as guide, and of course Pinkie.  They were fleeing from the Japanese Army and, so far, this journey had proven to be a nightmare.

     My folks’ escape route.

     The monsoon had started early that year, allowing Mom’s modest group to take a leaking riverboat up the Irrawaddy, and its tributary the Chindwin, to the town of Singkaling Hkamti.  From there they had a 104-mile trek overland - as the crow flies - to Digboi, India, and safety.  Their expedition consisted of travel by sampan, raft, bullock and pony cart, and mostly by foot.

     Travel by Bullock Cart.

    

     The jungle they had to penetrate on foot.

     Prior to leaving Chauk, in order to pay the necessary fees and bribes for their journey, Mother and the rest of the ladies were required to visit the money changers, and the Chinese apothecary at the bazaar.  Where they converted their paper money, into the currencies that were only acceptable in places without civilization: silver rupees and opium. 

          Opium.

     The rain was incessant and, when they weren’t slogging through mud and swollen streams, they were hacking their way through overgrown jungle paths.  When the rain let up, swarms of mosquitoes and blood sucking flies appeared, that were enough to drive one mad.  If they couldn’t reach a village by nightfall, they’d have to cut back the vegetation – making it more difficult for the scorpions, snakes and leeches – and string hammocks allowing them to sleep well off the ground.  All drinking water had to be boiled for 20 minutes; in spite of this precaution, almost everyone suffered bouts of fever and dysentery.  They also carried small bags of rock salt, on chords hung from their necks.  This was used for the removal of leeches, which were everywhere by the thousands. 

     And this was the activity Mom was engaged in off the jungle trail.  Beforehand she had spotted a blood stain, on the right thigh of Pinkie’s trousers.  When the party halted on the trail for a ten-minute break, Mother and Brownie (the Irish lemon meringue pie lady) took Pinkie off the trail behind a number of bushes to strip her down.  They discovered two engorged leeches in Pinkie’s crotch; the poor little kid was nearly hysterical.  After removing them, both Brownie and Mom stripped and checked each other out - Brownie had four and Mother had three.

     Brownie proved to be not only a great pal, but gave a tremendous amount of support and help to Mom on this safari from hell.  Three years earlier, Brownie had lost her only child to a miscarriage, motivating her to stay close to Mother and Pinkie; protecting them as best she could.  Because Brownie immediately noticed a feature that was different about my mother; she was two and a half months pregnant with me.

     From the physical stress of the trek, dysentery, rotten weather, leeches, terrible food and bouts of fever - not to mention the occasional leopard, tiger or wild elephant they came across - Brownie was terrified Mother might also suffer a miscarriage.  The odds were not good.

     By the time they had come out of the jungle at Ledo in India, and caught the train to Digboi, Mom had contracted a really bad bout of dengue fever, otherwise known as “break bone fever.”  Brownie knew what it was when she discerned the red rash on Mother’s legs and abdomen, and what to do to lower her temperature, and keep her hydrated.  The opium also came in handy, relieving Mom’s severe headaches and aching joints.

     It’s a wonder I didn’t become a junky, dear reader. In Mother’s defense however, she did give up drinking and smoking while carrying me.

     Upon arriving at the Digboi compound – twelve days after leaving Chauk – the Burmah Oil Company took Mom and her band of weary refugees right in.  In fact, she was given back her old bungalow, and Brownie moved in with her, to nurse Mother, take care of Pinkie, and organize the servants and household.

     From her sickbed - still recovering from the dengue fever - Mom gave Tulah-Rhum the remainder of the rupee coins and opium, saying, “Please, Tulah-Rhum, go get Sahib Mike and bring him here.”

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     All alone at dawn the next day Tulah-Rhum departed; retracing their journey and reaching Chauk in under six days, on the 10^th of April 1942, to get my old man.

     So why had my father, along with the rest of the men, not evacuated Chauk with the women and kids?  You may well ask, dear reader.

     They had remained behind to totally shut down, and sabotage, the oilfield and refinery at Chauk before it fell into Japanese hands.  One massive job lay before them; destroying diesel engines that ran pumps and drill bits, changing titanic valves – diverting the oil to nowhere so it couldn’t be loaded onto river barges – and dropping heavy scrap iron and broken pipe down the shafts of drilled wells.

     At one point, since they were running out of time, the men considered dynamiting all the oil wells, refinery and storage tanks.  Instead they cast a vote, and decided not to follow this course of action, as it would cause an ecological disaster for the Burmese being left behind.

    Much unlike that psychotic idiot, Saddam Hussein, who blew up the Kuwaiti oilfields during the Persian Gulf War of 1990 –‘91.

     Finally, the Japanese 33^rd Division reached the oilfield at Yenangyaung, 47 miles downriver from Chauk, where the British, Burmese, Indian and Chinese soldiers resisted bitterly to retain control.  By day the battlefield down the Irrawaddy was marked by a huge pillar of smoke, looming barely over the horizon, and at night it was indicated by the glow of fires and the flash of shell bursts.

     Japs taking Yenangyaung

     On 19th April 1942, Yenangyaung fell to the Japanese.  On 20^th April my father,Tulah-Rhum, and the other exhausted employees of the Burmah Oil Company boarded a listing, leaking riverboat to begin their escape upriver.  They followed my mother’s harrowing trek to Digboi, India, with Tulah-Rhum again acting as guide. 

     At the time, it was imperative they get out of Chauk now!  Nonetheless, Dad tried to talk them into delaying their departure; Scotty (the giant Scotsman) hadn’t returned yet from sabotaging one of the exploratory rigs quite a distance back in the bush.  But Scotty had told the others, if he didn’t get back when they were ready to leave, to go ahead without him; he’d catch up with them, “...in a wee bit.”  So my pop was outvoted and they cast off.

     A couple of hours after their departure, the first Japanese scouting patrols arrived at Chauk; easily taking the empty compound.

     Scotty didn’t catch up with my dad and the others.  He instead was taken captive by one of these Japanese patrols, and was eventually put to work on the infamous Death Railway constructed by the Japanese between Bangkok and Rangoon. 

      The infamous Japanese “Death Railway.”

    

  

          The actual Bridge on the River Kwai.

 

 

      Using forced labor the Japanese laid 258 miles of track, by killing 16,000 Allied POWs and roughly 90,000 Asians, from overwork, malnutrition, cholera, malaria, dysentery, beatings and executions.  Scotty vanished in all that death...and was never seen or heard from again.

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