 A young male calf about two and a half years old, and his mother. He is eating a leaf and challenging an intruder. The mother's turned-over ears show that she is at least forty-five years old. |
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A young male calf about two and a half years old, and his mother. He is eating a leaf and challenging an intruder. The mother's turned-over ears show that she is at least forty-five years old. |
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the Elephants and their Riders, and to the Up-country Staff of Timber Assistants in Burma. Also as an appreciation of two Sappers, Bill Hasted and Tich Steadman of the XIVth Army, who did everything possible to help the Elephants in War |
IN the XIVth Army our soldiers varied in colour from white, through every shade of yellow and brown, to coal black. The animals we used reflected a similar variety. Pigeons, dogs, ponies, mules, horses, bullocks, buffaloes and elephants, they served well and faithfully. There were true bonds of affection between men and all these beasts, but the elephant held a special place in our esteem. It was not, I think, a matter of size and strength. It was the elephant's dignity and intelligence that gained our real respect. To watch an elephant building a bridge, to see the skill with which the great beast lifted the huge logs and the accuracy with which they were coaxed into position, was to realise that the trained elephant was no mere transport animal, but indeed a skilled sapper.
I could never judge myself how much of this uncanny skill was the elephant's own and how much his rider's. Obviously it was the combination of the two which produced the result, and without the brave, cheerful, patient, loyal Burmese oozie our elephant companies could not have existed. And we should have had no oozies had it not been for men like "Elephant Bill" and his assistants. It was their jungle craft, elephant sense, dogged courage, and above all the example they set, which held the Elephant Companies together under every stress that war, terrain and climate could inflict on them.
They built hundreds of bridges for us, they helped to build and launch more ships for us than Helen ever did for Greece. Without them our retreat from Burma would have been even more arduous and our advance to its liberation slower and more difficult. We of the XIVth Army were---and are---proud of our Elephant Companies whose story "Elephant Bill" tells so modestly but so vividly.
 Foreword Part
One |
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 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
7 8 9 10 11 |
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Part
Two |
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| 12 13 14 15 |
16 17 18 |
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Illustrations |
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