MARCH OF REFUGEES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 May 1942, Page 4

MARCH OF REFUGEES

LED BY GENERAL STILLWELL INTO ASSAM THROUGH JUNGLE & ACROSS RIVERS & MOUNTAINS. TERRIBLE SCENES ON ROADS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, May 26. General Stillwell personally led a nightmare march of 117 refugees through jungle and across rivers and mountains from Shwebo in Upper Burma, 5 miles north-west of Mandalay, to Imphal, on the Burmese border of Assam. Revealing this,- the Calcutta correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says: “The strange march of so small a mixed body, led by so high an officer, is probably unparalleled in recent military history. “General Stilwell rejected all advice to the contrary, and managed to find us almost the only safe route from Burma a few days ahead of the Japanese moving up the Chindwin Valley. The trek took 25 days. General Stilwell headed the line of weary, hungry and sick British, American and Chinese army officers and rankers and Burmese nurses, Shan tribesmen, and a devil’s brew of Indian and Malayan mechanics, railwaymen, cooks, clerks, and a dozen mixed breeds from the south of Asia. “More than half were civilians, and about 20 were women, the majority of the party suffering from malaria, dysentry, and jungle skin infections. The very sick were borne on stretchers fashioned of bamboo and trees. “We were drenched in tropical rain and slept on muddy trails alive with ants, leeches and mosquitoes. We ate berries and jungle vegetables, Sometimes we used the main roads where progress was blocked by a leaderless and directionless stream of helpless, pleading, praying, and cursing refugees seeking foojj comfort and aid to reach India. General Stilwell, who is 59 years of age, stood the rigours better than the youngest private. He performed every task any other performed and somehow squeezed 15 miles daily from us. He whipped the 'polyglot mob into a disciplined foice, willing to follow him anywhere.”