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Thanks to both Joe and Al.
I will have more from the book, later, my copy will eventually become
Valmiki's, I hope. Eric.
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: JOSEPH LOBO <jlob
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Albert DeSouza <albert.desouza.1
To: JOSEPH LOBO <jlobo@
It was 1942 whenRangoon had fallen and not 1941.Rangoon was first bombed on
Dec 23rd 1941.We had left for Calcutta early in Feb 1942en route to Goa. e
reached Goa somewhere by 10th or 11th of Feb. I was twelve years old then .
Albert P.S Caesar Menezes was well known to us fromm Rangoon Days and then
Belgaum and Pune. Caesar 's wife Thelma was a good writer .She died a few
years ago in Bangalore.
Donovan Webster, 2003.
>
>By March 7, 1941, Rangoon had fallen and British and Indian forces abandoned
>the city. With streets emptied, roving bands of convicts and mental hospital
>inmates looted and torched homes and stores. Dalhousie Street and the
>commercial center, Phayre Street were in ruins.
>Those Burmese remaining in the city exercised their long time hatred of
>Indians by shooting any they encountered, then hacking them with two-foot long
>'dahs.'
>------------------------------
>Colonels Haynes and Scott flew from Assam to Gen. Stillwell's HQ in Schwebo
>with orders to evacuate him and his officers - he declined the lift ! Staffers
>were loaded on the plane and sent to India. He planned to walk and regroup
>with the Nationalist Chinese. After five days of hard jungle marching, they
>arrived in Homalin. Crossing the Chindwin, the general exchanged his Burmese
>porters for the more knowledgeable Naga tribals. Stillwell immediately took to
>the Naga's mix of easy manners and ferocious looks: many wore bearskin cloaks
>and hair crests in the middle of shaven heads. The Naga's shared their rice
>beer with outsiders and carried the heaviest of loads. The group humped three
>thousand vertical feet into the Naga Hills beneath a monsoonal downpour.
>Ethnologists have identified 133 different linguistic groups within Burma's
>borders. The majority are placid Buddhistd, but a few of the most isolated
>groups - particularly the Mons, Nagas, Karens and Kachens - are religious
>animists, and have remained fiercely independent for centuries. The British
>Crown regime left the tribes strictly alone.
>In response to the tribal's brutal 'shadow war,' the Japanese had to halt the
>invasion and northward advance in the country with two thirds of the land in
>hand. The Kachins fought with spears, but over time they recieved supplies of
>shotguns gifted by British colonial tea planters in Assam.
>The U.S. was not formally at war with Japan, so Roosevelt commited 'volunteer'
>airmen to join the campaign. Equal part pilots and rakes, they exuded energy -
>and a formidable lack of discipline. They flew in cowboy boots and shorts,
>taking off one booze - soaked evening in an unauthorized bombing run over
>distant Hanoi using a C-47 cargo plane and gasoline-filled whisky bottles as
>incendiaries.
>--------------------------------
>Post script: Rangoon born Maj. Caesar Menezes, Sangolda roots, retired from
>the Indian Army in 1970. He had kept a Jap cartridge that lodged in his spine
>to the end of his life.
