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The Trek out of Burma 1942
Memoirs and Recollections

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Our sincerest thanks to Jill Ford for permission to publish the memoirs of a life-long friend.

Ever since, in March 1942, when I was evacuated from Burma under very trying circumstances, people have suggested to me that I write the story of my experiences. And now, for my own benefit, in order that the memories of those dreadful days shall never fade from my mind, I am going to set down all that I can remember. It is now two years ago and I can look back clearly on all that took place and see the events in their proper perspective. This narrative therefore is not to gain fame and is not intended to be generally read, but is to help me to retain, in my own mind, a clear picture of the early days of the Japanese entry into the war, and what that entry meant to us, who up to that time had felt little or no effects from the European conflagration.

Now, we are able to look back on, laugh at, and enjoy many of the incidents of that hurried flight over the Burma border to India and safety. But at the time it was indeed no laughing matter. But our experiences were mild in comparison with those poor unfortunates, many of them through no fault of their own, were left to walk, as best they could, into India. For the most part of their story is a tragedy which will never be told and could certainly never be a matter for reflective laughter or enjoyment, and we have learnt to be thankful for the comparative comfort in which we travelled and to realise how lucky we were. I value now the experience, realising what a lot it taught me. At such a time one finds out who are real friends. It brings out the best or the worst in everyone.

In order to include all the small events which led up to our actual evacuation, I intend to go far back to what was known, in our office, as the “September Flap”. Annabel (Annabel Elsie Ford, nee Couper) and I were, by that time, trained cypherettes. We had learnt to decipher and encipher telegrams and paraphrase the messages received and knew the requisite number of carbon copies to be made of everything, but had not yet taken up regular cipher duties. We were in readiness if we should ever be needed to do our job at any hour of the day or night. In the September of 1941, though it looked dark and gloomy in the Japanese direction, we all hoped that actual war would be avoided.

Frank (Lt.- Col. Frank O’Neill Ford, Kachin Levies) was granted ten days leave. He and Annabel therefore set off, in the Hillman, to Rangoon, a matter of 500 miles away, to do some Christmas shopping. Two mornings after they had left, I was out giving “Fraulein” the dachshund her before breakfast stroll, when I met Bill Williams, Frank’s Adjutant. I had noticed a certain amount of activity, troops and lorries seemed to be buzzing about all over the place in an unaccustomed manner. Bill said “Do you know Frank has been recalled, I am afraid the balloon is going up”. A perfectly strange young officer came up to us, while we were talking and turned to me and said “I say, would you like a car, I want a home for mine”.

I had never seen him in my life before nor had he seen me, but he had his orders to proceed along the Kengtung Road to the Burma-Siam frontier and a car was of no further use to him. However, I declined his offer preferring in the circumstances, not to have the responsibility of anyone’s goods and chattels. Everywhere men were fiendishly running around trying to find suitable homes for their cars, and the dogs followed their masters to their destinations.

Soon after lunch that day a tired and dusty Frank and Annabel arrived home. They had reached Rangoon the previous midday, driven straight to the address Frank had given, to find the recalling wire. The afternoon they spent in hurried shopping and had driven through the night, back again to Taunggyi. Annabel and I were immediately required for cipher duty and we did 3-4 hours at a stretch

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

The “September Flap” subsided and life returned to normal. Frank was again granted leave and this time he and Annabel made a successful and less exhausting trip to Rangoon.

In November the anxious days returned. I was due for my holiday and wanted to go to Rangoon, where I had been invited by the Bryants to stay, but I was half afraid to go. We thought war might be declared and the railways taken over, and that I should be unable to get back. But in the end the way was made clear by the Brigade-Major, who promised to recall me, officially, in the event of a declaration and thus enable me to board a troop train. Annabel and I also agreed that should she, in her capacity as cypherette, hear anything which she considered entailed my speedy return, she would send me a code wire saying “Jill has measles”. I arrived in Rangoon to find that anyone from my part of the world was regarded as an oracle. Rangoon was the Metropolis, but in those days Taunggyi was regarded as the hub of the war activities. People asked me what the Taunggyi authorities thought were the chances of peace. Everybody at that time thought the Japanese threat to Burma would come through Siam in the Shan States direction and thus through Taunggyi, little did they know that less than four months later Rangoon would have fallen to the enemy. People there continued their lives much as usual, some took the precaution of digging slit trenches in their gardens and many shops had built blast preventatives in front of their doors and windows. I stayed down there for 10 days and on December 3rd I returned to Taunggyi. Frank met me in the car at Shwenyaung. I found he, and the whole area, were on a real wartime footing. He had an armed orderly in the back of the car, his own revolver was in the dashboard pigeon-hole. From that time onwards life became very full. We were wanted immediately for cipher work. I was still teaching all morning, so by arrangement between us, Annabel took all my morning duties and I all her evening ones. We worked in morning, afternoon , evening or all night shifts. Four days after my return came the news of Pearl Harbour, and consequently our declaration of war.

Somehow, those last few weeks in Taunggyi were extraordinarily happy. Perhaps it was that subconsciously we knew our days there were numbered and were determined to get the best out of them, though there was certainly no defeatist attitude about us. There was tension and danger in the air, but never for one moment did we really believe we would have to go. Maybe we knew we would have to if things got bad, but we never believed it would really come to it. What kept our morale so high I do not know. There we were situated half way between the aerodromes of Namsang and Heho, neither of which was occupied by the RAF but were guarded only by a handful of men. It did once or twice occur to me that paratroops were simply being invited to descend. We had literally no protection against air-raids except a few Lewis guns. There was one hand blown air-raid siren, which could only be heard at our end of the station if we were already out in the garden. Our chief fear was undoubtedly air-raids and Annabel and I never went out both at the same time. We had many enemy planes overhead, and many hurried flights to our trench, but fortunately no actual bombing took place until after we left.

The Japs crept up the Mergui peninsular from Victoria Point to Tavoy, from Tavoy to Mergui, from Mergui to the Salween and then finally Moulmein fell. Things were beginning to look rather bad. Stories of evacuation were rife. All the BOC families had been flown out by air, panicking we thought. Life as it was seemed to become even more precious. We prepared for a siege. Even if lower Burma fell we would surely hold upper Burma. We had sufficient stores and food to last at least 6 months and longer if care was taken. In the Office we tried to keep up a cheerful face, though we knew things were going badly. We made all the usual jokes about purchasing running shoes, carried on with our jobs and hoped for the best. Cypher work became more difficult and involved. The Japs captured the code words, the key word changed daily. The people up the line in Kengtung direction took days to get this information. It was well-nigh impossible to find out what code all the different units were using. Every family in the place was talking of leaving, but we were determined not to go until we were actually ordered away.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Above us, on the hill, living in the Donnison’s cottage, was an old friend of mine, Frances Wood. She was expecting her first baby. She had intended that it should be born in the comfort of the Mission hospital in Moulmein, but the Japs had decided otherwise. Her husband was in the Port Commission and was therefore bound to stay in Rangoon until the last possible moment. I used to go up and see her in any spare moments I could find. Her courage and calm were amazing. Everyone around her was discussing evacuation, and evacuation, not by air, but by road. She knew she would have to wait until the baby was born anyhow, and that a new-born baby would stand no chance on a trek to India. But I suppose, like all of us, she hoped for the best and certainly, outwardly, remained quite unruffled. The baby, Oliver, was actually born early on the morning of February 19th, the Donnison’s arriving, providentially on the morning of the 18th, to take up residence in Taunggyi. Frances was unable to communicate with her husband through the ordinary channels as the posts and telegraphs were hopelessly out of order. Eventually Mrs Donnison managed to send Geoffrey a message through the railway. Some days later we heard over the wireless from Rangoon, that Geoffrey had received the message. Frances, naturally, wrote daily to Rangoon, but no letters were received by either she or Geoffrey, between the baby’s birth and our arrival in India. Nor was Frances ever able to find out what had happened to Geoffrey, until we arrived in Chittagong, to find someone who had met him the previous day in Calcutta.

One afternoon, shortly before the fall of Rangoon, I was having tea with Frances and Mrs Donnison when a visitor arrived. He was a man by the name of Bennidetti, a German Jew refugee, who had been a professor, for some years, at the Rangoon University. He joined us at tea and proceeded to tell us the most hair-raising details, true or otherwise, of the happenings in Rangoon and lower Burma generally. He had just made his way up from Rangoon and had arrived that afternoon. Having told us a story of how all the convicts had been let out of the Rangoon jail, and had armed themselves with Tommy guns, stolen from an army dump, and were laying in wait for every European they could see, he then turned to Frances and said “where is your husband Mrs Wood”.

Frances told him in a mild tone that Geoffrey was in Rangoon and I could see he was discomforted. Imagine telling such tales to a woman, who had no news at all of her husband and who was recovering from child birth 10 days to a fortnight earlier. Mrs Donnison listened seething for some time and then she said “Haro you are an old friend, so you will not mind if I speak straight to you but you happen to be talking this afternoon to 3 very level headed sensible women and we have a shrewd idea of what is going on in Burma today, but I advise you not to go round talking to other people in such a way”. Shortly afterwards I took my leave. I was extremely worried as to what to do, the man was a 2nd Lieutenant in the army, but I thought he ought to be reported as an alarmist, if for nothing else. But I hated to do so when he was a friend of the Donnison’s. I decided to sleep on it. Before breakfast the next morning Mrs Donnison was at the door – she also had slept on it. I told her my qualms and she said “do report him, get Frank to see about it, he is a German Jew, and he has never been sufficiently grateful for the harbourage which he has received”. So together she and I told the whole story to Frank and he made a report and sent it in. Subsequently, Bennidetti was given a terrific raspberry and sent off into the jungle to work where he could do less harm.

When Rangoon at last fell to the Japanese we still felt that there was hope of holding the enemy south of Toungoo. But schemes were now being drawn up for free evacuation by road or by air in the event of the people being unable to afford the fare. Lists were taken of all families, European, Anglo-Indian or Indian in the Southern Shan States.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

We put down our names to walk and the Young’s, Ruth and her children, Helen and Billy, and also the Donnison’s as well.

We decided to travel as a party. Those who had applied for air passages were told to be ready at a day’s notice. Annabel and I began to pack boxes of stores and decide what to take. Peter was strictly dieted and Sally was under a year old so our chief consideration had to be food they could eat. Jill, Susan, Annabel and I could live on the dahl and rice provided by the authorities.

On Saturday, March 7th 1942, I went to the last party I was ever to attend in Taunggyi. I remember it well for that reason and also because it was so typical of the days in which we lived. Sometime during the morning I received a note written on a bit of army-ration toilet paper from Ronnie Clark to say he and MacPherson were giving a party and he would call for me at about 8.30. It was a night free from cipher duty so I accepted the invitation on another piece of toilet paper, and sat down that evening to await my escort. I was ready by 8.30 as directed but I sat and sat and no one appeared. Annabel and Frank had their dinner and pulled my leg about having been forgotten, but I know my hosts and was unperturbed and at 9.30 a car drove up to the door. It was Mac, not Ronnie, who sent his apologies but was not yet bathed or dressed.
Mac explained that they had spent the evening trying hard to obtain drinks and food for their party and that was why they were so late. Ronnie and Mac lived in the lines in a little bamboo hut. They had a bedroom and a sitting room each. One sitting room was made, for the occasion, into a drawing room, the other converted into a dining room, the food to be sent over from the Mess. On arrival I found the other guests had got there before me, Ronnie, neither washed nor changed, was entertaining them. Biddy Scott and Pat Craw were the other ladies, both grass widows at that time. Nigel Loring and Hutchinson were the other male guests. Michael Geraghty was also expected but had not arrived. We sat down to wait for him and Ronnie went off to get dressed. When he returned someone volunteered to go and find

Geraghty while the rest of us sang to Ronnie’s accompaniment. It turned out that Geraghty had forgotten the party and had already dined and gone to bed. So we drowned our sorrows in further song. It must have been nearly eleven o’clock when someone suggested dinner and then great consternation occurred when one of the ladies suggested we’d like to tidy first. Our hosts confessed to having forgotten to “organise” the bathroom, and each said the other had promised to do so. At length an arrangement was made and we went to Ronnie’s room to prepare for dinner then somehow our memories temporarily lapsed and we began to discuss the possibility of Pat and Biddy being flown out of Burma at a moments notice. I felt safe as walkers had not yet been given any warning. I remember Biddy saying that much as she loved her son Christopher, she wished now, she had never had him, as but for him, she would not have thought of leaving. Our spirits returned over the meal, which was served to us partly by our hosts and partly by their orderlies, with the washing up being done between each course, and shortly afterwards we drove off to the club.

There seemed nothing special in the atmosphere at the club that night, everyone behaved much as usual. None of us knew it was the last Saturday night that we were to have in Taunggyi. I remember asking Mac if he had heard the rumour that women and children were to be turned out. I remember his reply so well, it showed then that below all the gaiety and fun of these days, people were really thinking of what might happen. He said “Well, I am glad to hear it, it’s time you were all away and that the men got down to thinking about fighting the Japs, no-one enjoys these evenings more than I, but it’s not the way to beat the enemy. You should all be away and we should be living out in the jungle, toughening ourselves and preparing for the fight that is to come. I did not know that you were going to be sent away but I think it is the only thing”. The evening ended, I remember, in Mac and Ronnie taking me home in the early hours.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

When we tried to leave the club, there was no petrol in the car. I cannot remember if we got any or what happened, but I do recollect Ronnie and I pushing the car to the top of the hill and I know we got home.

At the beginning of the next week realization came to us that we should have to go. I remember

Padre Slater coming to the house and saying to Annabel “I think you should realise now that it is time such a family as yours was out of the country”. It was not so much fear of the Japs which made us know we could stay no longer, it was the general unrest that there was amongst the Burmese. Though we were safe enough then in the Shan States. Burma and Mandalay especially was in a very bad state. I felt however like a rat leaving the sinking ship. I had previously made up my mind that if Annabel could by any means obtain an air passage, I would remain behind. My life was my own and if there was anything I could do to help in the general effort, I intended to do it. But during that last week Annabel told me that she very much feared she had started a baby and I knew that in that case there was no choice for me, it was essential that I accompany her. I hated doing it, but have now no regrets as having made the journey with her I know it would have been an impossibility for her to have accomplished it single-handed. As it was, it is nothing short of a miracle that we managed to get Sally and Peter through alive.

The news came through that cholera had broken out on the road to India and the Commissioner of the Shan States took matters into his own hands and decided that all those who lived in the Shan States whether they could afford the fare or not should be flown out by plane. Those who could afford the fare were called upon to pay it. Army people and those who were unable to give much or anything towards the fare were paid for out of the Treasury, with the intention of regaining the army families fares afterwards. Actually this never happened and so the people from Taunggyi and Kalaw were the only people in Burma who were flown out, in many cases free of charge to themselves. This showed extreme forethought on the part of the Commissioner. It was a disgrace that all women and children were not similarly treated as the amount of money which was actually left in the Treasuries would easily have paid the air passages of those unable to afford them.

Mrs Atkin was sent to Shwebo to arrange accommodation for us all. An officer was sent to Mandalay with letters from all those who wished to communicate with their banks. Posts were, by this time, practically non-existent and the only means of finding out anything was by sending an officer in person to gain the information required. We were sent down in droves to the hospital to receive injections for TAB and anti-cholera vaccinations.

We had 36 hours notice of our departure. That last day was so crowded we had no time to think. We had to pack and weigh what little luggage we were able to take, 33lbs for each adult and 16lbs for each child over two. This meant that Sally, who needed nappies and all kinds of extra things was actually allowed no luggage at all. All our surplus clothes we gave to the servants or at least those of them for which we thought they would have any use. Evening dresses, shoes, coats, hats sewing materials and toilet articles were just left in our bedrooms as if we were returning the following day. Two puppies which we still had, had to be given away. We found homes for them with the Nursing Sisters. Food for the journey through Burma had to be prepared and packed up. Through it all we were feeling so ill from injections – we could hardly stand. That evening Sergeant Stanley came round to the house to pay us our cypherette’s pay. It brought back to me all our pleasant hours at the office. I remember how often he had come to me in the middle of the night with a bunch of wires in his hand, waken me gently and say “sorry Miss you’ll have to get up.”

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

I thought of Sergeant Robinson and how often, at slack moments, he had stayed to talk to me and how he told me he was training to be a teacher in Cardiff. We were abandoning them all. I congratulated Stanley on his Sergeant’s stripe which he had just acquired and asked him would I see him in the morning, he replied “Aw yes Miss, we will all be at the station to see the Japs don’t get you”.

The day of our departure still hardly bears thinking about. I hope never to have to go through such an experience again. I look upon it as one of the blackest days in my life. Annabel’s courage and strength were to me, quite unbelievable. I know by this time, though we said nothing, we all thought it was quite on the cards that we should never see those we were leaving behind again. The chances were they would be cut off entirely or would have to retreat into China and be cut off there, perhaps for years.

We left the house by car, driven by Frank as far as Shwenyaung. Kitty kissed her beloved babies “goodbye” and gave Sally to me and Susan to Annabel. The servants all salaamed and we drove away from the house we had all loved so much. I was thankful for my dark glasses and am sure Annabel was too. Of the servants we left behind, two we know died on the way to India. Of Kitty we still have no news. She was a marvellous and devoted nanny and we hope and pray she is unharmed and safe and well. Somehow we had to control or feelings in order to answer the questions of the children, who, being all too young to realise what actually was happening, were wildly excited at the prospect of a train journey. Jill was at that time 7 years old, Peter was 5 and very delicate. He had been in bed for the last 4 months on a very low diet and was therefore actually a carrying case, though in practice he was unable to be one. Susan was just 2 and of an extremely independent nature and Sally was still under a year old. On the way down the Taunggyi Hill, Jill said “It’s just like going for a picnic, isn’t it”? Somehow I answered her in the affirmative, though to me nothing was more unlike a picnic.

We did not know it until afterwards, but just as we left Taunggyi the air-raid siren went, putting those who were responsible for our safe departure, through many anxious moments, but fortunately no planes transpired.

Lewis guns were mounted and trained on the sky at Shwenyaung station against this contingency but fortunately were not needed. There was also some kind of anti-air-raid protection on the train itself, I believe.

One lorry bringing Indian and Anglo-Indian families down from Taunggyi overturned just before Shwenyaung killing 1 Indian child and very badly bruising most of the others. The dead child was buried there and then beside the roadside. One of the injured families actually flew on our plane and their nerves were in an extremely bad state. It was, indeed, a bad beginning to their journey.

We arrived at the station to find the train in and a bustle of departure on the railway station. I suppose we were lucky to find that we were to be in a 2nd class compartment, so many families were in 3rd class, but we did not consider ourselves so, especially as we found we were to share it with a group of old people, Dr. and Mrs St. John, Miss Hughes and Mrs Kingsley. Mrs Kingsley was both deaf and blind and consequently needed as much care as a baby. When Frank discovered her presence in the compartment, he went at once and said she was to be removed. It was out of the question that we should care of her in addition to what we already had to do. So Doris Williams, in the kindness of her heart, who was in the adjacent compartment took her on.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

She should, of course have been sent with an attendant, as she was one person’s entire charge and Doris who was herself, far from strong should not have had to look after her. Doris also very sweetly took over the care of Jill, for the train journey through Burma. She knew the constant friction there was between Peter and Jill and also her compartment was not quite as full as ours. So she saved us for 24 hours from the constant bickering, which so got on our nerves during the rest of the journey.

I busied myself with the children inside the carriage so that Annabel might have her last few moments with Frank. Just before we were due to leave Frank came in and said goodbye to the children. He told Peter he was the only man now and to look after us all, a charge which even to this day the poor little boy has never forgotten and has loyally carried out. He said goodbye to me, somehow managing to make jokes about my weight in the aeroplane, which I was quite unable to answer and then descended to the platform again. But as we were leaving the station I felt I could not leave without having a last glimpse so almost throwing the baby I was holding to Miss Hughes for a minute, I rushed to the window in time to clasp Frank’s other hand as he ran beside us and to put into and get out of that clasp all we had been unable to say in words and to see all the familiar faces of friends who had come to see us off. The way Annabel bore up through the strain I shall never forget, she was really wonderful. I had to make Susan an excuse and take her into the bathroom until I recovered. I can see her little face now looking up so wonderingly at me. But we at least had lots to think about and occupy us. Poor Frank had nothing to do but to drive home to the house as we had left it, toys, cots, prams, playpens, just left in their accustomed places, a small dog nearly frantic with worry at being left, a hollow empty house with its occupants gone forever.

We were very well cared for on that journey through Burma. We had to reach Shwebo just north of Mandalay, where we were to get the plane. Every detail had been thought out and arrangements had been made whereby to avoid the dangerous region of Mandalay. The train was to be taken to a junction outside Mandalay and be sent to Shwebo from there. We left Shwenyaung at midday and were to arrive at Shwebo in the early hours of the morning where we would be put in a siding and allowed to remain in the train until we were due to leave in the plane. At least that was what we were told and what we expected but events turned out quite otherwise. We had on board the train with us a Doctor, a Padre, a British Officer in Charge and several well armed British and Indian other ranks. The devotion and care given by these men to all the women and children on the train was remarkable. Their responsibility was great, but their humour and their cheerfulness never failed us. In fact I heard from the Padre himself, that at one of our rather prolonged stops, the Tommy’s had been asked by some woman to wash her baby’s nappies. That any woman could make such a request is hard to believe. But with characteristic British humour, one of the men said “come on chaps, we’ll have to do it when we get home again, may as well get used to it”, and the job was done.

In our compartment we were, I suppose, fairly comfortable. The St. John’s were an old couple, they had given their lives as missionaries to Burma, had retired in Taunggyi and had put all their savings into a house in which they were to end their days. They were querulous, perhaps, but I think had reason for it and it must have been hard for them to be in a confined space with young children. Miss Hughes, what can I say to describe the unselfishness and sweetness of Miss Hughes.

Ruth Young told me some months later that she had said to her “well Ruth I guess we all feel pretty miserable, but the best thing for us to do is to try and forget ourselves in looking round and doing all we can to help others”. I never shall forget how wonderful she was. She is an old lady, who had also spent her life as a missionary in Burma, she couldn’t have been used to children, yet on that journey she held children, she fed children and comforted them.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Never once did she complain, however fractious they were, never once did she appear to regret what she had left behind.

The first part of the journey was not too bad. We had brought enough food and water to last, as we thought, until we boarded the plane. When evening came we bedded the children down, Susan and Sally were tied end to end with their straps on one of the top bunks. Peter and Annabel were to share another. Miss Hughes was allotted the second upper bunk and the St. John’s were to share the other lower one. I volunteered to sleep on the floor crosswise between the two doors. This was inconvenient in a way as everyone who wished to enter or leave the bathroom had to step over me.

We had just got the children washed and into bed, though not asleep when we arrived in Thazi. It was dark by then and as we slowed down to go into the station we saw that the whole of Thazi was in flames. The scene in the station was indescribable. Panic predominated. There was a rush to board our train, but our gallant protectors were not backward in using their bayonets and managed to keep the footboards clear. Goods trucks on adjacent lines and sidings were packed with men so close they could hardly move. What hope they had of the trucks ever being moved or of them being allowed to stay in them I never found out, but they were there.

Then from our point of view complications arose. Our train driver and fireman and also the guard took flight and vanished. Whether it was that they were Thazi men and anxious for the safety of their homes or whether they took flight or wondered what further penetration into Burma would bring to light we never found out, but as far as we or our train was concerned, we saw the end of them. Our British Officer, Lt. Ellis and the Padre went off to try and find another driver, meanwhile the train had perforce to remain where it was. We settled ourselves for the night and I believe most of the occupants of our compartment managed to get an odd forty winks here and there. Certainly there was no lack of snoring. I was not so fortunate, the noise on the station was terrific though it was comforting to hear during the night the British voices of our guards warning the crowds not to approach the train and to hear the sound of their boots as they ran up and down the platform. It was not exactly pleasant to realise that such vigilance was necessary when we were responsible for the safety of such small children.

In the early hours of the morning another driver was found and we continued on our way, but of course by this time we had missed all connections which had been arranged. With all the lower part of the line in Jap hands it was naturally not easy to run any train to schedule and we had wasted so much time we could not hope now to be given any further special facilities. Soon after dawn the train again stopped at some junction. It was very quiet and very hot. This was March and the middle of the hot weather. Many parents and children got out to take the opportunity to stretch their legs by a walk along the tracks. The Padre came up and asked us how we were and promised us a cup of tea, which the troops were then brewing. When it came there was only one cup, so we took turns to have it refilled. It was real troops tea, strong and sickly, I hate sweet tea, but how delicious it was.

That day will always remain in my memory as a day of extreme thirst. That day I learnt something of what it must feel like to be waterless in the desert. What little drinking water we had left from the day before had to be conserved for the children. Poor little Sally had cried most of the previous day and night and it was some time before we realised that it was a drink she required, we thought it was the strangeness of her surroundings or the loss of her nanny, while all the time the poor little thing had a terrible and recurring thirst. Our journey was slow and full of stops and at one station we managed to buy some oranges.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Life savers as they appeared to be momentarily, their effect so quickly wore off and our thirst was worse than ever. We had two chatties (earthenware bowls) of water in the bathroom in which we had kept our drinking water bottles to keep them cool. I remember I kept saying to Annabel “I am going to drink that chatty water” and she kept telling me I was not to do so. Floating on top of it there were inches of smoke, dust and grime but I was past minding that. Only the thought of the inconvenience to all concerned of me contacting enteric prevented me drinking it.

To work as hard as Annabel and I did caring for those children throughout the middle of a day in the hot weather of Burma, with only a couple of oranges as liquid refreshment, takes some doing. At one stop we handed our thermos to an engine driver and he filled it with water from the engine boiler. There was no harm in that for though it was rusty it was well boiled. Forgetting in my extreme desire for a drink all my commonsense, I tried to fill one of the empty water bottles to put in the chatty to cool. Naturally with the extreme heat of the water, the bottle broke and it was all wasted. What remained in the thermos I measured out carefully in two bakelite mugs, half a mug for each of us. I stood them in the hand basin in the bathroom in cold water and returned to the compartment to dream of the drink we should soon have. But no, the train got up speed, the mugs turned over in the basin and the water was lost. In the evening at about 5 o’clock we eventually arrived at Shwebo station, more than 12 hours later than we had expected. On the station was Edward Simmons. We had been asked to remain in the train until ordered to get out so I chatted a bit with him. I knew his wife Molly and their baby son had left some weeks before with BOC wives. I asked him if he had had news of her and he said he had heard not a word. I said “where do we go when we reach India” “Turn to the right and go straight on” he replied. We had no idea that there was a perfectly good evacuation plan on the other side. We just imagined that we would leave the plane at Chittagong and find our way somehow to Calcutta.

While we were sitting patiently in the train we watched the Brigadiers’ wives being driven off in private cars to spend the night in private bungalows, while our thirst became excruciating. We had been told that we would not fly until the following day but were to spend the night in a camp. So as no-one seemed to be coming to our aid, we decided to disobey orders. Annabel descended to the platform went over to a bus and asked the driver if he would come and fetch the luggage. But we were in Burma now and were to learn that the Burmese had suddenly become sullen and disagreeable. This man had been hired as a bus driver and would do nothing else. So Annabel and I put all the old people into the bus, gave them the children to hold and then moved all the luggage out of the train and into the lorry between us. After some delay we managed to get permission to drive to the camp and a more hair-raising drive I never before encountered, the driver not caring how many lives he risked. Fortunately our thirst was still so insistent that we could think of nothing else.

On arrival at the barracks, where we were to spend the night, I left Annabel with the children and the luggage while I rushed into the barracks to try and secure some beds. My efforts were in vain. We spend the night on the floor. When we eventually got the children and the luggage into the barracks, we marked off a portion of the floor space with our luggage , as a camp site and went off to get a drink of water – it was badly smoked but oh how delicious.

The camp was very efficiently run by some missionaries. Downstairs there was a large room given over as a dining room, with benches and wooden tables, where meals were dealt out at appropriate times. Upstairs the larger rooms were dormitories, with a few beds and one smaller room was converted into a wash room, with long trestle tables to hold jugs and basins.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

The sanitary arrangements were across the barrack square and were just what the native troops had been accustomed to using. We were all very tired so after the children had been given some tea, we washed them well and put them to bed. We spread a sheet on the floor and tied the babies by their straps to the ropes around our Burmese pahs (baskets) which held our luggage, to prevent them crawling away. Then by sitting between them and patting each on the back and singing we eventually got them off to sleep.

My chief impression that will remain with me always. It was the crying of the children, the whole barracks echoed with it. Poor little things, so many of them were far too young to understand what it was all about. This was their second night in exceedingly strange surroundings. The evening before it may have been a novelty even to the babies but this night it was a grim reality and how they miss their nannies poor little mites and were not to be consoled by any mere mothers. The example which stuck me most dearly was Susan and Sally, though they were perhaps more inclined to settle down than most, but they were used to lovely cots in an airy nursery with Kitty close at hand, now sleeping on the bare boards in a troop barracks.

When the babies were asleep Annabel and I decided to go down and get our dinner and then turn in ourselves. So leaving Jill and Peter still awake but “in bed” and the sleeping babies in charge of Miss Hughes, who had turned in on an adjacent bed we went down to dine. There we joined up with Ruth Young and her children, Marie Turner and Margaret Franklin and swapped train stories.

Apparently they had all been in the same compartment, next to that of a Brigadier’s wife. This latter lady evidently had complained to the doctor on the train of little Gillian Turner’s persistent crying. Gillian was a little younger than Susan and not disposed to enjoy a train journey. Marie told us that the doctor came to the window and said “Mrs Turner, would you like something to make your little girl sleep”? Marie harassed, as always, gratefully accepted and took Gillian along to the doctor’s carriage, where he gave her something. Marie said before she’d got back to her own compartment Gillian was dead asleep and she wondered if she’d ever wake again. However, her fears were groundless. But more of this Brigadier’s wife later on. She travelled in luxury and spent the night in a commodious bungalow and had no-one to think about but herself and her 13 year old daughter Peggy.

Peggy was a dear and did all she could to help with other people’s young children as did Helen Young and Pop Beeches. These three girls were most unselfish and we relied on them a lot to take the children for an odd five minutes here and there.

Marie and Margaret Franklin had brought lots of stores with them and as, owing to the luggage restrictions, they were not able to take them any further, we helped them eat them up. Such luxuries, tinned ham and other things which we were not to see again for years. We enjoyed our meal and went back to the dormitory.

I remember encountering Biddy Scott looking worried and followed about by a police orderly. Her husband being in the police, had arranged for this man to help her at Shwebo. Biddy could not think what to give him to do, and I hardly know which she found most troublesome, her son Christopher, whom she had never before had to manage for longer than the space of a nanny’s day out or the orderly. She said to me “Oh Phyllis, don’t you miss Kitty, what are we to do without our nannies, is it true that ayahs give the babies opium so that they can be sure of a good night”? I told her I’d heard it was so. Little did we know, ayahs never even stay the night, 7 p.m. sees the end of their day.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Annabel and I were by this time absolutely dead tired, so we decided to go to bed. We had been told that we should not fly until midday the following morning and would have to weigh-in a couple of hours earlier. The first plane left at 8 a.m. but families with young children did not have to go on that. We were very dirty after a thirty-odd hours in the train, so I went off to wash. These were Indian troop barracks and there were therefore no lights. Along the trestle table where the basins were, was an occasional hurricane lamp. I heard someone in the dimness say to a friend “I say are you going to strip”? and the friend answered “oh rather”. So having been given the lead I followed suit, it was only when I had nearly finished my toilet that I discovered that my next door neighbour was a man. I vanished somehow into the darkness back to our camp on the floor, to recount my experience to Annabel, with much giggling.

I must honestly say I did get some sleep that night. Probably because it was my second night on the floor and because I had not had a wink the night before. Annabel did not get much rest. It was here that Ruth Young caused a mild diversion. She sat up far into the night writing an account of our adventures to send back to her husband, Harold, by our faithful protectors, who having seen all of us safely onto the plane, would return to Taunggyi. When Ruth had finished her letter it was 2 a.m. and as she and her family were leaving by the early plane and had to start to weigh-in at 6 p.m. she decided to collect her things before snatching a few hours sleep. A man also going by the same plane and sleeping in the same barrack room woke up, saw Ruth packing, glanced at his watch which had stopped, woke his wife hurriedly and began to dress and pack. Meanwhile other people thinking their watches must be wrong and anxious not to miss the plane all got up and did the same. Our peaceful dormitory was soon in an uproar, while Ruth all unconcerned turned in for her nights sleep. It was some time before order was restored and in the end Ruth did not even go on that plane as it was overloaded, but flew instead with us.

Such little incidents as these kept us going and helped us to forget what we were leaving behind. I was full of admiration for the courage of these women, who had left their homes and husbands and had no knowledge of what was to become of them or their children. Though a few, I believe wished they were dead, the majority of them showed no sign of stress or grief.

The following morning, by the time we had washed and dressed and fed the family and done all those many things which have to be done for very small children, it was time to weigh-in. We had been told that we could take more or less as much as we could carry in our hands, while on the weighing machine, with us. Therefore we looked more like Christmas trees than people. To wear a thick overcoat in the hot sun in the height of the hot weather in Burma, takes some doing. This we all did except Sally, and I carried hers. Added to this I had my corsets, which I never wear, two sets of underwear and a dress and a skirt. I carried Sally and a blanket, a mackintosh sheet and a Shan bag full of knick-knacks. Thus I stood on the scale and what I weighed I dare not think, I certainly dare not look. Annabel had a similar amount of luggage, but instead of Sally she had Sally’s buffer, in which we could strap her and know she was safe. While the children were weighed we draped blankets and Shan bags around them. But when the luggage was weighed, then the trouble began. We had weighed all our luggage on an Avery scale and knew it was correct, but this weighing was done on a common or garden bathroom scale and our luggage was said to be 15 lbs overweight. So poor Annabel had to unpack and had to discard there and then. It was awful having to choose in such a hurry, but she discarded the things she was carrying and took instead some of the more valuable clothes over her arm.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Meanwhile while she was doing this I had to get the two babies up the steps again to the barracks. It sounds a silly thing to say but it was just about impossibility. There was no-one to help me. Susan was too small to manage the steps, we were still attired in our winter outfits and hung about with blankets. I’ll never forget what despair I was in. I sent Jill to ask Annabel for the buffer. I thought I could park Susan in it safely while I carried Sally up and asked someone to hold her and returned for Susan, but Annabel had to keep the buffer to be weighed with her. I could not carry both children up at once and they were all crying with the heat and confusion. Eventually, I believe, I got Jill to go and look for Helen Young, who came and helped me. But never would I have believed that a flight of twenty steps could have proved so difficult.

After the weighing we had time to give the children lunch and get ready for our flight. We were driven to the landing ground in buses and then had to stand in the hot sun while the plane was unloaded and a roll call was taken of those who were to go with this batch. The heat was unimaginable and we seemed to stand there for hours. Not only did we have to carry what we ourselves had been weighed with but also the things the children had carried. Sally, in my arms was screaming her head off, I was trying to keep her head out of the sun under the shadow of the wing of the plane. I felt sure she wanted a drink and I had taken the precaution of bringing an empty gin bottle of drinking water with me, but I had not a hand with which to give it to her. At long last we got onto the plane. It was a Douglas troop carrier. We sat in bucket aluminium seats, there were no seats for the children and our luggage piled down the centre of the plane provided sitting places for them. We strapped Susan in the buffer on the floor at our feet. The men who had weighed everything before the flight had tried to persuade Annabel to leave the buffer behind. She refused and said that whatever else we went without we must take that. How right she was, it was the only place we could pack either of the babies for weeks to come. Sally was still screaming, I found places for all the things I carried and produced the bottle of water. Without waiting for me to fill a mug, she grabbed the bottle as I withdrew the cork and thrust it into her mouth and drank. Satisfied she immediately fell fast asleep. If the heat outside had been terrific, in the plane it was infernal. Annabel and I literally poured with perspiration, the midday sun streaming on the metal made the plane just like an oven. Annabel took one of the baby’s nappies and wiped my face and then her own, it looked as though it had been dipped in a bath by the end. At last we got under way and into the air.

The plane was piloted by an American, the wireless operator was Chinese. Everyone was naturally, after the heat, extremely thirsty, the Chinaman dispensed water. There was only one cup and a very little water on board, so we all took a sip or two and passed it on. My precious bottle was reserved for the children as we knew it was boiled. As we rose higher it naturally became cold and we were glad of our coats and blankets. The pilot took all the children into the cockpit and many of them were allowed to sit on his knee and “pilot” the plane. Even Susan did this. There was therefore more room down the centre, so I wrapped Sally in blankets and placed her on the luggage, she did not stir but continued sleeping. It gave me leisure to look around, but we were above the haze and could see nothing. Ruth Young got out her chewing gum and gave us some, she said it prevented earache, so it might have done if she had given to us at the right time. Ruth Donnison got out glucose. She gave some to Frances Wood and offered it to me. This was not Frances’ first flight, but she had her 3 weeks old son Oliver with her. He slept soundly, he might well have been born in the air. I have no experience to go on but do not think it was very bumpy. However, many Anglo-Indians probably through sheer nerves at the thought that they were flying, began to be sick. The only utensil was a communal kerosene tin.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

It was then that Ruth Donnison became, in my mind, saint like. She went round, giving them glucose, handing them the tin and comforting them. One old woman she made lie down on the floor while she ministered to her. There was no necessity for her to do it, it was just the kindness of her heart.

It was impossible to see where we were, as the seats were on either side of the body of the plane, facing the centre and our backs were therefore against the windows, which were anyhow low down, but word was passed back to us when eventually we crossed the border safely into India. When we approached Chittagong and began to lose height, I was attacked by excruciating earache. Poor little Susan was also, for she suddenly started the most terrible screaming. At first we thought it was sheer temper at being made to sit strapped in her buffer, when she wished to run around. Eventually just before we landed Annabel took her on her knee where she fell into a dead sleep. I was stone deaf in one ear for the 24 hours following. When we landed we had therefore to collect once more all our belongings and the elder children, Annabel carried Susan still sleeping and I Sally now awake. As we descended, fortunately some kind man took Susan from Annabel, as she was a dead weight, and she herded us straight to a bus where we sat while our passports etc., were examined. We were lucky in this as other people had to hang about in the hot sun.

Then came a terrifying ride over dreadful roads to the European Club in Chittagong. There we were met by some European women who took the babies out of our arms, took them away and fed them. After Annabel and I had also had a meal, she went off to change money and to get rail warrants etc., while I put the children to rest on mattresses on the library floor. We stayed at this Club until about 8 p.m. when we had to catch the train for Calcutta. Remembering our experiences in Burma, we resolved to get plenty of drinking water but it was not so easy. There were no empty bottles to begin with and apparently no boiled water. Eventually we managed to obtain 4 bottles, 2 only of which were boiled water and we marked these to give to the children. It was here I lost Susan. All the children were playing in the garden in the slit trenches. I was sitting watching with Sally on my knee, Annabel was still busy inside with the authorities. Suddenly I realised Susan was nowhere in sight. Hampered as I was by Sally there was little I could do, but I got Helen Young and Pop Beeches and Peggy to hunt for her. They found her at last, brought back by a coolie who found her wandering down the main road.

Before we left for the station to entrain for Calcutta we had time to bath the children. There was 1 bathroom between about 40 of us, but we took it in turns and most of the children were at any rate washed. Then we had supper and were shepherded into buses and thence to the station. It was here we got our first taste of luxury. For Annabel and I and the 4 children we had a 4 berth compartment to ourselves. We had no pillows or anything with which to make ourselves comfortable. Those blankets we had managed to carry on the plane we gave to the children and Annabel and I stretched ourselves thankfully on the seat using the children’s mackintoshes for pillows. The children were all exceedingly tired and soon fell sound asleep. I do not remember sleeping myself, there was a window which would not keep shut and I got up constantly to try to adjust it. The movement of the train created a breeze and we had nothing to keep us warm. About I a.m. we arrived at the terminus where we were to get on the riverboat to sail down to the Brahmaputra river. We woke and dressed the children and descended from the train. Fortunately we had been told this was a terminus, so had not hurried and had missed the rush, even so the scene beggars description.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

The platform was a milling mass of coolies, most of them refugees, like ourselves, all hoping to earn an anna or so towards their support, so that there was no lack of assistance with luggage, rather as a matter of fact it was difficult to prevent it being snatched from one and not at all easy to keep track of it, but as we had so little we were soon able to settle matters. Annabel somehow carried Susan, I do not know how, she was a tremendous weight. I carried Sally, we hoped Jill and Peter would be able to follow us and we made our way through the mass to the boat.

I always remember Kathleen Nicolson at this place. She had 2 children, John who was 6 years old and a baby girl of Sally’s age called Sheila. These children had been brought up exactly along certain lines, which Kathleen had read in a book and consequently they were in no state to undertake such a journey. John, the previous day, had been taken away by some kind stranger to be fed while his mother attended to the baby. He had been given tinned food which he had never had in his life before and consequently it had upset his stomach, so now he was ill. Kathleen when we met her, on our way to board the boat, was running round in circles looking for Sheila. She accosted us and said “Have you seen Sheila? I gave her to a coolie and now I cannot find her.” It was not surprising, there were more coolies in the small space than I have ever seen. She found her safely in the end, but of all the mad things to do, that was I think the worst.

We were so far behind all the other people, who had got quickly off the train, that we never saw them, they had gone on another boat. Certainly ours seemed surprisingly empty and we found a vacant 2 berth cabin. We settled Annabel and the babies on the bunks and Jill and I took the pillows off the bunks and went to try and find a sheltered spot on deck to occupy for the rest of the night. The boat still seemed very deserted and we wandered into the dining-room intending to stretch out there on the padded seat which surrounded the wall. It was here I had my first encounter with the Brigadier’s wife, whom I mention previously. She was in the dining room with her daughter and a friend complaining that they had not been lucky enough to get a cabin.

I told them of our good fortune and how we had left Annabel and the babies resting there. I then settled myself with my pillow in a corner and prepared to try to sleep with Jill beside me. It was then that this woman, who had been sitting at a table with her back to me, turned and said, “If you don’t mind I have reserved that corner. We haven’t even a bit of a cabin and we must have somewhere to spend the night” I am afraid I was by this time getting near the end of my tether and so was not altogether polite. This was my third night without a bed and my first off the floor, while I knew she had spent the night in a private house. I looked at her, I hope coldly, removed myself, Jill and the pillow and said “I am sorry, I had no idea you had reserved that corner, you put nothing there to reserve it but it does not matter at all to me. I have spent the last 2 nights on the floor and anywhere on this seat will be comfort to me”.

About 2 hours after we had boarded the boat another train load of people arrived. It was a pleasure to meet people we had left in Shwebo to come on a later plane and to know they were safe and well. They were all very tired and I guaranteed to look after someone’s 4 month old baby, while she went to find her luggage. She was so worried about where she would find sufficient privacy to feed her son, but I offered to take her to Annabel’s cabin when the 6 a.m. feed came round. The night seemed interminable and though there was food on board we were told we could have no breakfast before 8.30. Soon after the new people came on board we cast off and set off down the Brahmaputra river. That was probably the best part of our journey.

There was time and leisure to look around, meet people and talk. After we had breakfasted we spread a rug on the deck and lay on it.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

It was not much rest as Susan would keep running off around the deck and Sally crawled everywhere but it was heaven compared to the rest of the journey. I was so terribly tired I did not want to move and it was all I could do to summon up energy to go and have a bath in a lovely long bath with steaming hot water, but I did in the end and felt the better for it.

Soon after lunch that day we arrived at Kalingunge where once more we had to get on a train, on the last lap of our journey to Calcutta. It was midday and consequently very hot. We had to collect the babies, the luggage and the children and walk miles in the sun, to first find the train and then find accommodation on it.

We left the river boat about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It was exceedingly hot and the sun was beating down on the railway track where our train was in a siding. Two if not 3 other boats had arrived ahead of us and the people were already packed into the train like sardines into a tin. As we walked up and down carrying the children hunting for accommodation, there seemed little or no hope of us being able to board it. But eventually just as we were giving up all hope we found a small locked coupe. We called an official who after a great deal of trouble opened it and in we got thankfully, with the Bath family. The coupe was intended to sleep 2 and seat perhaps 4 or 5 but this time it held Annabel, myself, 4 children, Mollie Bath, her nanny and her 2 children. We pulled down the top bunk and put Peter and Jill up there to sit, they complained bitterly and quarrelled incessantly but it was better than having them annoying the little ones.

That last stage of our journey was, I think, the worst. We were so terribly tired, the children were fractious and out of hand and we could get no food or refreshment of any kind. Between the 2 families we had enough biscuits, dried milk and drinking water to provide for the children. We managed to get 2 cups of tea at one station which the four adults shared. It was a nightmare indeed. Annabel and I felt if only at the other end we could hand the children over to some kind soul who would look after them for 24 hours while we slept, we would be alright, but we knew there was no hope. A drink of water and a cup of tea and sleep were the be-all and end-all of our existence. When it got dark we put the children to sleep. Peter and Jill fell asleep without difficulty on the top bunk. Mrs Bath’s son and baby on the bottom bunk with Mollie Bath, Annabel and the nanny sitting on the extreme edge with the children behind them. The 2 babies, Susan and Sally were tied on to the luggage, 2 Burmese baskets tied up with ropes. Susan’s legs dangled over the edge on to the floor. I sat behind them on the floor and held them both down until eventually they slept. When they were asleep I made myself comfortable sitting on a space on the floor which was not occupied by luggage and we all prepared to wait for the end of our journey. On we went through the night, occasionally, uncomfortable as we were, we dozed. About 1 a.m. we realised we were approaching a city which must be Calcutta. We tried to rouse the children but shake and slap as we would we were quite unable to wake either Jill or Peter and it was not until the train actually stopped and we were getting out that we managed to get them on their feet.

We had no plans of what was to become of us on reaching Calcutta and we had visions of searching for hotels in the middle of the night. So imagine our delight when on descending from the train a voice said “any military families here”? We were taken over by a large comforting Sergeant-Major of the old type. He told us that he would give us a cup of nice hot tea while our particulars were being taken. In our case the hot tea never materialised but we seemed to sit for hours in rows on hard benches, while they took ridiculous particulars which certainly could have waited for the morning. He also told us we were being taken to Fort William where we would be fed and bedded down and that there would be plenty of fresh cow’s milk for the children.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

The latter statement was quite untrue. We were subsequently taken to Fort William in buses and without waiting to be allotted sleeping accommodation we made straight for the food and a glass of water. We got bully beef, raw tomatoes and bread – hardly a suitable meal for children at 1 a.m. – but even Sally, then not a year old, ate it with relish. After we had eaten we found a Corporal and asked him to direct us to some beds. He took us to a room in which were 4 charpoys. A charpoy is a bed composed of a wooden frame with a mattress of woven string. I asked the Corporal if he could scrounge any blankets to use as mattresses but he said he was sorry they were all in use. I do not remember what we did. Anyhow, we soon got the children, two to each bed, settled down and asleep. Attached to our room was a bathroom and lavatory, which was shared by 3 or 4 other rooms, but as at that time in Calcutta, there was a water shortage all the water was cut off at night so it was little advantage to us. We just had to go to bed filthy.

We had to approach our room through another room, one in which was the Brigadier’s wife, her daughter and a friend. As you may imagine she was not pleased and had the effrontery to suggest we should be much more comfortable upstairs. Presumably she did not relish the thought of having 4 small children in an adjoining room, waking her perhaps through the night or early morning. Before long everyone was in bed and asleep and all too soon the morning came. We took our turn in the bathroom and managed to get the children washed and clean and into fresh clothes, then we went to get breakfast. The chaos there was indescribable. There were thousands of refugees in the Fort, as it was a clearing house from which families were sent to hill stations in the north of India and all the people had to be fed and there was little or no staff. I went out to the kitchen across the yard, to find some food.

There was plenty there, I collected plates and dished out eggs and sausages and made a pot of tea but in the yard 2 BOR’s with a filthy bowl of water and even dirtier dish cloths were squatting on the floor washing knives and forks. The sight made one sick, but I took the knives and forks, found a tap and re-washed them and let them dry in the air. We sat down at a table on which was a filthy cloth and other people’s dirty plates and cups. Annabel said “I cannot stand this, we must get out if we can”. After we had eaten she went off to see the SSO about new accommodation while I took the children back to our room. She was away a long time, there were crowds of people on the same mission and once again all particulars were being taken. Meanwhile, I tried to keep the children from running onto the main road by keeping them in our room. Peter was, of course, meant to be in bed, he had had his breakfast there, so now I allowed him to get up and wash and dress. Sally I had to hold as she could neither stand nor walk. Every time my back was turned Susan ran out onto the road. I think they had previously kept coal in this particular room as before we had been in it 10 minutes, the children were as black as miners. Our pleasant “neighbour” came in, took one look at us and said “my dear, I am so sorry for you”. She might well have said “can I hold the baby for you for a bit” or “let Jill and Susan come and talk to me for about an hour” – but having consoled us she left us.

After a very long time Annabel returned to tell me that she had got a room at the Grand Hotel, (room number 338) so we packed our things, called a taxi, and drove away. We arrived just at lunch time, when we had seen our room we went straight down to the dining room. We were so exhausted and so hungry and in need of a decent meal that we never cared or thought what we looked like. We must have been a sorry sight. The children’s clothes and faces were smeared with coal dust and we were untidy and soaked through with perspiration and we entered a room full of smart people who had come in for lunch. The head waiter lost no time in telling us that children were not allowed in the dining room but we refused to take them out assuring him that we would not bring them again but this time we and they must be fed. Never was there such a meal!

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

We were at the Grand Hotel for about 5 days but I remember little of it. Certain incidents do stand out, the chief of which was Sally contracting dysentery. Our first night there she woke with a raging fever. I spent the greater part of the night giving her cold sponges but on the 2nd day it was only too obvious that the poor little girl was in for a bad time. I remember meeting Margot Chartrand one evening on the Maidan. I was there with the children trying to get a breath of air. I had no idea whether or not she had left Burma and was terribly anxious about her. She was the best friend I had in the East and her safety and that of her children meant a lot to me – to see her running towards me, with Lilla and Phillip behind her, across the Maidan suddenly brought a ray of sunshine into an otherwise bleak and grey period. We were both so thankful to find each other in a safe place. I remember Susan throwing all the shoes over the balcony onto the road below, while she was in the charge of an hotel ayah while we had breakfast and Annabel and I carrying the children along the street to Bata to refit them. I also remember Frank’s brothers coming to see us and their families. But the days went in a flash and we were neither rested nor in anyway encouraged. We just waited to go wherever we were sent.

Orders came that we were to be sent to Mussoorie which is in the Himalayas. We were glad because Margot had already gone there and we longed to be near someone whom we knew and also we had told Frank when we left that we might make for there.

Sally was still ill but the doctor advised us to take her, anything, he said, to get her out of the heat but that if she got radically worse on the train we should have to take her off and put her in hospital. The train journey to Dehra Dun was uneventful. It took about 60 hours. I know that poor little Sally did not sleep. She scarcely stopped crying and we had to continually change and disinfect and wash her nappies. We arrived in Dehra Dun in the middle of the morning and instead of being immediately driven up the hill road to Mussoorie we were taken to a camp in the Ghurkha lines to be sorted. We learnt afterwards that though Mussoorie said she could accommodate 250 vacancies, Calcutta had sent her 250 families, which was an entirely different matter.

The camp, on paper, was extremely well run. There was food, run by a contractor , hot water for baths, dhobies to wash clothes, a tailor, a shoemaker, and even a shop. We slept 20 or 30 in a large barrack with wooden charpoys and brick floors. Each bed had a grey blanket and a resai (cotton filled eiderdown). We put 6 beds in a row up at one end of the barrack and tried in that way to create a little privacy. The barrack had an outside veranda which was closed in with matting and in which were wash basins and drinking water. The sanitary arrangements were, in the usual Indian style, a row of commodes, emptied periodically by a sweeper, if and when he felt like it and I seldom remember seeing so many flies. I thought I had seen flies in Burma but until I landed in India I had really no conception of what they could be like.

As soon as we arrived at the camp we decided to take Sally to the doctor who we were told was in attendance. We did not mention her dysentery at this period but told the doctor she had not slept for 60 hours and asked her for something to make her rest. The doctor gave her some cough mixture which she said was a sedative. We laughed at her rather, but actually it did settle her down. After we had all had a meal, Annabel went off to enter our particulars and I took the children to settle them down for an afternoon sleep. It was then through my extreme carelessness that Sally fell off the bed. I put her on one bed and was just about to strap her down when out of the corner of my eye I saw Susan running full tilt out of the door.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Forgetting the smaller baby I rushed to stop the bigger and heard a thud being me as poor Sally fell over the edge of the bed and hit her head on the brick floor. Immediately I was surrounded by anxious members of the WVS who were there to help (?) us – clucking like hens at what presumably they considered gross neglect. However, a trained nurse pronounced Sally unharmed and some kind person actually helped me to get her and the others on to their beds where they all slept soundly for the greater part of the afternoon.

By the time night came, Annabel and I were just at the end of our tether. We knew we could expect to be up with Sally several times in the night but we felt, however uncomfortable our quarters were, at least we should sleep that nothing in heaven or earth could prevent us.

I had no sooner thrown myself on the bed and closed my eyes when I began to be bitten. I thought it was mosquito’s so wrapped myself in a blanket, in spite of the heat, and tried again to sleep. When I realised that I was getting bitten through the blanket I knew it was no mosquito so I flashed on my torch to find the bed and myself red with bed bugs. There is only one way to get bugs out of a charpoy and that is to boil it in a tank, especially built to do so. The authorities had no time in which to get these beds boiled. All night long I alternately scratched myself and killed bugs, while all around me everyone else seemed to sleep soundly. There were 2 empty beds in the barrack, I tried both with no improvement. Finally I lay down on the floor but that was even worse as the bugs came out of the beds and the walls to find me. There are, apparently, certain people who are allergic to bed bugs and I seemed to be one of them.

We were a fortnight in the camp. After the second day Sally was put into hospital. There were no nurses and the doctor was worse than useless, Annabel and I had to go in and nurse her, so every other day I got a respite from the bed bugs and a good sleep in a clean hospital bed. Sally went slowly downhill from lack of knowledge of her disease and the hopeless condition under which her food, which was nothing but whey, was prepared. The other children, in fact all the children in the camp became ill with dysentery symptoms though few of them actually got the disease.

Peter, on impossible food, became daily radically worse. Up till now, he had stood the journey far better than we had dared hope but now he was doing far too much and was paying the price.

Susan was miserable, she cried all day and walked round asking to be carried. She missed Kitty dreadfully and her regular orderly life.

Jill had made friends among some of the children and was picking up bad habits and bad language from them.

The news from Burma got slowly and steadily worse. Marie Turner’s little boy John, told her his daddy was dead. Marie, unfortunately, believed him. Daily, Jill killed off Frank or chopped off one of his legs. I tried not to listen and prayed Annabel would not hear. We managed to get a pram and could push Peter and Susan around in it. I remember going one evening with Sheila Maxwell and Mrs Stewart to the grounds of Vice Regal Lodge, we glued our noses to the window and gazed at the comfortable chairs and the carpets and pictures on the walls and compared it with our quarters. Each time I went to the hospital to relieve Annabel and take my 24 hours on, I saw Sally get paler and thinner and I was sure she was going to die. In hospital I spent my time grumbling with Gladys Lutter, who had her 2 children with her, about the running of the ward, which had no staff whatsoever, but which had been put aside for us.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

We enjoyed each other’s company and each other’s grumbles. Just as we were due to leave our camp for permanent quarters, the doctor in charge of Sally noticed she was slipping through her fingers and decided to wash her hands of the case. She despatched Sally and Annabel to the Coronation Hospital where she would be in the charge of the Staff Surgeon, so I moved the family across to 54 Rajpore Road. Annabel had already seen the houses and knew what they were like. Accommodation was not available in Mussoorie so these houses, which were the buildings in which the Italian Generals had been imprisoned, were taken over for us.

Our rooms were 3 rooms, one with no doors or windows and 2 bathrooms containing a tin tub a basin and a commode. In the bedrooms there was a bed each, 2 chairs which had to be taken with us to meals and were full of bugs, one shelf wardrobe, 1 hanging wardrobe and 2 small bed-side tables. We had to go for meals to a house about 4 or 5 minutes away. We had no curtains or carpets and the floors which had once been cement were now just rubble. The fan lights and windows would not open and the ropes which should have pulled them open and shut were missing. We did ask one of the WVS ladies if we could please have new ropes fixed as we found the bedrooms very airless at night. We were told we could get rope in the bazaar. I suppose it did not occur to her to remember we had no ladder with which to reach the window, which in usual Indian fashion were roof high.

A Mrs Aring Kin, a British woman married to a Burmese was for some reason best known to the WVS appointed as the leader of our group. She was tactless to say the least of it. She later told Annabel that I was very un-cooperative because I think I refused to take my meals over at the main house but had mine and the children’s brought down by a servant. I need hardly say she got no change out of Annabel. We were all extremely unhappy in 54 Rajpore Road and the local WVS did little or nothing to alleviate our distress. They were most unsympathetic. On a Sunday morning they brought their husbands round to visit us. It was like the “Lady Bountiful” visiting tenants. It never seemed to occur to them to offer to look after the children for a morning or to invite us into their homes. Annabel and I were in Dehra Dun a year in the end and during that time Annabel went out to one meal and I to two, both of us to the Padre’s wife.

Sally, as soon as she reached a decent hospital and doctor, began to mend but it was many weary weeks before she was right again. Annabel stayed with her now entirely, while I took over at Rajpore Road. Marie Turner and I managed to engage ayahs. The General’s wife sent them round.

We came to the conclusion that mine was a sweeper woman and Marie’s a beggar woman. They did not last long. Susan used to scream every time hers approached her. Gillian used to be told to “dance baba dance baba pisa dedo pisa dedo”, while she was jigged up and down. We dare not send them out alone, so Marie and I used to take them for walks. We used to walk at a brisk pace, quite unlike an ayah’s usual amble and at every standpipe we came to, the ayahs used to hand the prams to us while they took a drink of water and then came panting after us.

Annabel and Sally soon came out of hospital and we prepared to endure the hot weather. Things got blacker and blacker in Burma. Our troops in the Shan States appeared completely cut off. Annabel went up to Mussoorie to try and find hot weather accommodation. While she was up there a postcard came from Grace Tucker for her which I read and which said that when she left Burma by air some days previously, Frank was said to have reached Myitkyina with the little dog and was evidently walking out. This was the first news we had had that he was even alive since that day we had last seem him at Shwenyaung station. I sent Annabel a wire “postcard from Grace says Frank believed to be safe and walking to India” From that day the whole colour of our lives changed.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.

Evacuation Memoirs
of Phyllis Lattimer

Other wives were getting reports of their husbands’ safety and life took on a new complexion.

Shortly afterwards, after constant complaints on our side and remarks such as “they should be glad to have a roof over their heads” on the other, those of us in the lower houses of Rajpore Road were moved into Jubilee Hall.

It was a palace in comparison and had a lovely garden for the children. We were very cramped as there were 4 families of us in one house but to us it was paradise. There, eventually the men, one by one, joined us. We slept in sitting rooms, on verandas and in the garden but somehow found room.

Frank joined us quite by chance at the beginning of June. He had no idea where we were but we had mentioned before leaving that we might go to Mussoorie. He was handed a list of “abandoned wives” addresses on arrival in India but though my name was on the list as being at Mussoorie

(which I wasn’t) Annabel’s was not. On the off chance he decided to try Mussoorie of which Dehra Dun was the railhead. Annabel had gone down to meet a train of Burma wounded which we had been doing for some days when onto an adjacent platform stepped Frank. He had had none of our letters or wires. We had had none of his. For nearly 3 months we had known nothing of each other’s well-being or whereabouts.

He was well, remarkably so, after the nightmare walk he had taken. But for a few jungle sores which soon healed there was nothing the matter with him.

This is the tale as I remember it, of our flight to India and all it entailed.

As I said before we were lucky and in retrospect had much to amuse us.

Published by the Anglo-Burmese Library 2012. All rights reserved.