Private Papers of Captain J N Perkins

An almost contemporary ms account (66pp) written by an officer in the 11th Sikh Regiment who was attached to Army Headquarters in Burma as a Staff Captain and covering his service during the fighting in April 1942, with some very good descriptions of the hazards of his journeys by road to visit places and locations close to the front line, strafing and bombing by Japanese aircraft, the denial of the oil wells at Yenangyaung and abundant other evidence of the deteriorating military situation; his arrival at Myitkyina in early May 1942 from where members of Army HQ were being evacuated by air and his assumption of command of a party of 65 Indian and British other ranks who were to attempt a 350 mile overland journey from Burma into India and giving a graphic account of how they first travelled by train to Mogaung, then on foot and by lorry to Shadazup, on foot through the extremely harsh Hukawng valley and then over the hills and ridges between Burma and India contending with heavy rain and atrociously muddy conditions, dangerous river crossings on makeshift rafts and bridges, insects and leeches and lack of sleep and food which cumulatively exhausted all the men in his party, their gradual descent into Assam, still in terribly difficult conditions, their first contacts with Assam planters who were setting up staging posts to receive the evacuees from Burma, and the eventual arrival in Lekepani in late May of almost all the party. The account includes tributes to the RAF for their supply drops to the evacuees and to the Assam planters for their unstinting practical help, and mentions the many deaths witnessed along their route out of Burma.

Cataloguer RWAS

Catalogue date 2004-07