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     The Second World War - which formerly had seemed so very far away - with very little warning landed in my folks’ end of the world during the last month of 1941.

     7th December 1941, Japs attack Pearl Harbor, Honolulu.

     Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the airfields at Tavoy, south of Rangoon, were bombed and strafed by the Japanese.  The next day small scouting units, of the Japanese Army, infiltrated the southern Burmese border and skirmished with British and Burmese troops.

     Flying Tigers at Rangoon examine Jap rudder they shot down.

RAF squadron at Rangoon with their obsolete Buffalo Fighter.

     Also on that day a squadron of P-40s, from the American Volunteer Group known as the “Flying Tigers,” came down from China to reinforce the RAF at Rangoon. 

       Japanese 15th Army on the Burma-Siam Border about to invade.

     Following this the Japanese 15^th Army swept across the border with Siam, and took the airfields at Tavoy and Mergui.  The invasion of Burma was on.

     For the next couple of months my folks literally held their collective breaths, waiting to see if the Allies could stop the Japanese at Rangoon.  During this period they also detected, that for the past year, the English had been secretly moving their families out of Burma to India.  That’s why my dad had been offered this higher paying position at Chauk, to help fill the vacuum.

     Mom was also hearing rumors that if the Japanese should bypass Rangoon, and commence moving up the Irrawaddy River in their direction, all the native staff at Chauk were prepared to run off.  My mother encountered Tulah-Rhum all alone one afternoon, and asked him about these rumors.  He was repairing a bamboo fence at the time.  Dropping his tools, he stood up - almost coming to attention – and then said, “I a soldier, Memsahib.  I never leave Missy Baba (Pinkie) and Memsah’b.  I a soldier!”

    1915; when his regiment was decimated, though seriously wounded himself, Tulah-Rhum

     saved several wounded comrades under fire.  He never stopped being a soldier.

     Shortly after that Japanese planes began buzzing the oilfields at Yenangyaung and Chauk, taking recon photos; resulting in slit trenches being dug in case of an airborne attack.  They also initiated air raid drills in the middle of the night, which Mom greatly hated because they were required to chase away the scorpions, centipedes, spiders and snakes out of the muddy trenches prior to occupying them.  Making her always wonder how in Christ they’d ever get rid of all these critters, in a real attack, with bombs dropping around them.

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      In that blackness directly ahead of dawn, on 8^th March 1942, my mother awoke in a cold sweat.  She glanced over at Dad; he was snoring away in the other bed under the mosquito net.  Mom tried to go back to sleep.  It was deathly quiet...too quiet.  Not even the creatures of the night were active with their usual banter.  Something was very wrong.

     Crawling out of her mosquito net, she slipped on a silk robe over her pajamas and quietly left the bedroom barefoot - moving through the tepid, humid air.

     First, Mother checked on Pinkie; they had brought her home from boarding school in order to keep her nearby.  Pinkie was also making “Zs.”

     Afterward, Mom went out back to inspect the kitchen and servant’s quarters.  The sky was getting light now; Tony should be up at this hour baking fresh bread.  The kitchen was dark and the charcoal-burning stove was cold.  Upon peering into each of the servant’s rooms next door, she likewise found them dark, empty of possessions and devoid of all life; even Tulah-Rhum’s quarters.

     Really frightened at this point, Mother ran back to the bungalow to alert Pop.  But before she went to her bedroom, a feeling stopped her, making her go to the front door instead to check the yard.  Upon opening the door, Mom chanced upon Tulah-Rhum curled up on a split bamboo mat with Toughie – both sound asleep on the veranda.  He had one arm draped over Toughie, while his other hand rested on the hilt of his outsized Gurkha knife.  The pair had spent the night here; Tulah-Rhum obviously keeping the dog close so he’d be alerted to the arrival of any intruders. 

     Later that same morning, Mom and Dad heard the BBC announce over the wireless that Rangoon had fallen to the Japanese the day before.

      Japanese taking Rangoon.

Japanese rounding up British POWs at Rangoon.    

     Amazingly, nearly all the servants, throughout the compound at Chauk, had previously gotten the word last night - via the native grapevine – prompting them to vanish.

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