Description
Object description
Fascinating collection of six ms/ts letters (51pp), June 1942 - June 1943, sent to him and his wife in New Zealand, where they had been on leave from his position in the Indian Civil Service, as Chief Administrative Officer for the Judicial Department of Burma, when the Japanese entered the war, from friends and colleagues who had escaped to India after the Japanese invasion of Burma (January 1942), describing the final hours before the fall of Rangoon (March 1942) and the evacuation of civilians and the government to Simla, India, with descriptions from those who had been airlifted by the RAF, evacuated by boat and those who had formed a convoy travelling by car and on foot through Northern Burma to Calcutta (March and April 1942). The letters contain references to the air raids on Rangoon (December 1941 - February 1942), looting of property and the loss of possessions in the scramble to leave, the rapidity of the Japanese advance, while one correspondent voices concern over the welfare of the tribal people they had to leave behind to face the Japanese, and another refers to the high number of civilian casualties seemingly caused by the lack of a comprehensive plan for evacuation; together with a ts article (15pp, written in 1952) by him about Burmese independence and the effects of the Second World War on the country, a ts extract (1p) from the official history of the RAF regarding his role in the recapture of Akyab from the Japanese (January 1945), a copy of a photograph of him n uniform with his wife and daughter (1944) and photograph from a New Zealand newspaper of him on Aykab (undated).
Content description
Fascinating collection of six ms/ts letters (51pp), June 1942 - June 1943, sent to him and his wife in New Zealand, where they had been on leave from his position in the Indian Civil Service, as Chief Administrative Officer for the Judicial Department of Burma, when the Japanese entered the war, from friends and colleagues who had escaped to India after the Japanese invasion of Burma (January 1942), describing the final hours before the fall of Rangoon (March 1942) and the evacuation of civilians and the government to Simla, India, with descriptions from those who had been airlifted by the RAF, evacuated by boat and those who had formed a convoy travelling by car and on foot through Northern Burma to Calcutta (March and April 1942). The letters contain references to the air raids on Rangoon (December 1941 - February 1942), looting of property and the loss of possessions in the scramble to leave, the rapidity of the Japanese advance, while one correspondent voices concern over the welfare of the tribal people they had to leave behind to face the Japanese, and another refers to the high number of civilian casualties seemingly caused by the lack of a comprehensive plan for evacuation; together with a ts article (15pp, written in 1952) by him about Burmese independence and the effects of the Second World War on the country, a ts extract (1p) from the official history of the RAF regarding his role in the recapture of Akyab from the Japanese (January 1945), a copy of a photograph of him n uniform with his wife and daughter (1944) and photograph from a New Zealand newspaper of him on Aykab (undated).
History note
Cataloguer KM
History note
Catalogue date 2005-11-04
