by Col. Paul L. Jones, U.S.A.R., Rtd. as told to Hugh Crumpler

It is hard for me to believe that half-a-century has gone by since those chaotic, danger-filled days when Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell led his small American staff out of Burma. It was a touch-and-go time, for the Japanese were close on our heels.

The world has come to remember General Stilwell as "Vinegar Joe" because when he spoke he "told it like it is." No soft soap. No dramatics. No politically correct statements. No dress-up uniforms. No rows of medals. Joe Stilwell, was a rugged West Pointer who had spent his life as an infantry man. When we walked out of Burma, Stilwell led the way in his battered, old campaign hat. He could out-walk any man on his staff.

"Vinegar Joe" was a good enough public name for General Stilwell. It was a name that covered his spartan style as a field grade officer and his astringent use of the English language. But his staff officers never called him anything but "The Boss." And so I will often refer to Stilwell as The Boss in the rest of this report.

Let me put the time of action in some perspective. The Boss set up his headquarters in Lashio, Burma, and issued Battle Order 0001 to the Chinese Expeditionary Force in Burma on April 21, 1942. The next day, Stilwell and a part of his staff were at the front at Toungoo, Burma, on the Sitting River. Twenty-nine days later we reached Imphal, Manipur State, India, after the famous Stilwell Walkout.

They were 29 hard and weary days.

At first, The Boss and British General Sir Harold Alexander had hoped to hold the Japanese at a defensive line stretching between Prome, on the Irrawaddy River. and Toungoo. The Allied Forces engaged were Stilwell’s Chinese Expeditionary Force and Alexander’s British, Indian and Burmese armies.

But the Japanese were not to be stopped. They rolled up the Allied forces as they advanced up the Burma river valleys to Myitkyina. At the end of the Burma campaign, the Allied withdrawal had turned into total retreat. The Allied forces needed superhuman effort just to stay ahead of the advancing Japanese. Unfortunately, many brave men - Americans, Chinese, British, and Gurkha - did not make it out. They were killed or captured.

During the early days of the withdrawal, I was given the nickname "Casey" Jones by war correspondents because The Boss made me his railroad operations officer. I didn’t have the title, but I did have the job. We desparately needed trains for transportation of troops and supplies.

Chinese General Sung and I got three train loads of Chinese troops moved from the fighting area at Kyaukse. Even as we were loading the last of the troops, I counted 36 British tanks as they passed through. They gave me something to think about because the tanks were our rear guard! That same evening the tracks were blocked by a derailed car. We cleared the way by manhandling the car off the tracks and over the bank.

You need a lot of brute force to work with the Chinese. They didn’t trust the trains and some of them didn’t want to go aboard. But we got three trainloads out.

The night before had been a dandy. I drove a few hours in a driving rain to get the locomotive through to Thedaw to get the 22^nd Chinese Division out. I worked on this for three days and three nights with no sleep and little to eat.

When I finally got a chance for a few quick winks at a Burma railroad bungalow, I was awakened by the noise of Chinese looters. They are wonderful at looting. Sometimes, I think, looting was the prime aim of the Chinese army.

The Chinese on the march are enough to break your heart. They look like kids and they straggle along like rabble. They can walk unbelievable distances, but they have no discipline, not even their officers.

I was pretty tired, working on the railroad, and the food had been hit-and-miss. But I still had the energy to get the job done. I believe that vitamins kept me going in those frantic times. Loomis, my beloved wife, kept me supplied with vitamins. She mailed them to me through the APO. Later, when we were walking through to Imphal, I told The Boss I had some vitamins for him.

‘Have you got enough for everybody?" he asked. The Boss was always insistent that everyone share alike in food, drink, and work.

"No Sir. But we’re depending on you to get us out of here. I think you should take these vitamins."

I made the case that if didn’t get out of Burma, nobody got of Burma. So he needed the vitamins more than anyone. If he took those vitamins, I argued, it might save my life! After a while, he agreed to take "what you can spare."

On May 4, 1942, we were at Shwebo in central Burma, 60 miles north of Mandalay on the railroad. There was nothing behind us that could stop the Japs. The Boss had ordered aircraft to evacuate some of the staff. Col. Caleb V. Haynes, a big bear of a man and one of the world’s great pilots, flew into Shwebo with Col. Robert Scott. The Boss had made a list of 23 staffers who were to fly out with Haynes to Calcutta and proceed from Calcutta to their assignments in India and China.

Colonel Haynes took off in his loaded plane. We didn’t know it at the time, but that was the last plane from Burma.

The Stilwell Walkout is generally reckoned from that May 4 in Shwebo. We could travel some distance north from Shwebo along the railroad in vehicles. But after a certain time, the only way to get out of Burma was afoot. There were no railroads and no highways running between central Burma and India.

When we reached Shwebo, we had hoped to travel north to Myitkyina by train. The Boss sent me to scout out the rail line north of Shwebo. I found the railroad hopelessly jammed with wrecked locomotives and "waggons". I reported back to The Boss that we would have to begin our evacuation in trucks and jeeps.

Meanwhile, The Boss calculated that we could never beat the Japs to Myitkyina. (The Japs reached Myitkyina on May 8.) We would have to go north and west and take the difficult trails through the jungles, across the mountains and into Manipur state. The rivers, too, running north and south, were barriers as difficult as the mountains and the muddy trails.

We left Shwebo, faced with a 150-mile trip to safety in India. The convoy that pulled out of Shwebo was nothing you can find in an army manual. It was made up of private passenger cars, jeeps, pack animals and trucks. Dr. Gordon Seagrave’s ever-cheerful Burmese nurses gave us an appropriate marching song. The belted out "Onward Christian Soldiers" as we pulled out of Shwebo.

On May 5, we had a rough river crossing over a shaky, bamboo bridge. We lost one truck in the river. We were only a little ahead of the mobs of refugees and deserters that were clogging the roads everywhere in Burma. Later in the day, we caught up with the refugees. The roads were so dusty that I couldn’t always see the vehicle in front of me. Nevertheless, we made good time, driving about 50 miles beyond Indaw before we camped for the night.

On May 6 we had to abandon our trucks. We kept our jeeps, though, because the trail would still take them, with careful driving. We got the jeeps across one river on the flimsiest kind of bamboo bridge. We reached a small village that had excellent water - water that we didn’t have to boil. Believe me, everybody drank his fill.

We had to abandon the jeeps, our last wheeled vehicles, on May 7. At that point we also left everything we didn’t absolutely need or couldn’t carry on our backs. That made a big pile of supplies and equipment, including a radio transmitter that was our only means of communication with the outside world. May 7 was the day we started walking. My ingrown toenails were bothering me so I walked barefoot part of the time (I paid for that in some real foot pain a couple of days later). There was one unusual aspect of our march that day - the trail crossed and re-crossed small streams. I felt like we spent more time that day wading in water than walking on land. I noticed one surprising thing about all our wading. I had some weeping ulcers on my legs - started by leech bites - and the water seemed to cause them to heal.

I noted in my diary that our rations were then porridge, rice, corned beef, and tea. Not much but it kept us going.

We made pretty good time on May 8, mainly because we didn’t spend so much time in creeks and rivers. But everybody was plenty tired at the end of the day. I drew guard duty that night. The Boss put a guard on the food every night. We boiled all drinking water on the trail. Boiled water is flat and insipid. No stuff to cure a thirst.

May 9 was an unusual day for us because we saw an elephant tearing a swath through the forest as it fed on grass and tree limbs. Somebody had put a bell on this big, bull elephant. At least I guessed somebody belled that elephant because I never heard of an elephant being born with a bell around its neck. We speculated about that bell. The first idea was that the elephant had been belled by a teak company or the forest service. The second theory was that the elephant was a rogue, and natives had somehow found a way to put the bell on him. We played it safe and gave a wide berth to the feeding pachyderm.

We left the elephant behind in a hurry. The Boss pushed us hard all day and not just as we passed that elephant. The Boss never allowed anyone to fall far behind the main body of our party.

On May 10 we began a long trip on the Uyu River. Transportation was on rafts that we had built, with the help of native Burmese. The Seagrave Burmese nurses insisted that the rafts be constructed with roofs to protect us from the tropical sun. The nurses, always an inspirational group, pitched in with splendid enthusiasm to thatch the roofs. But raft transportation was slow. We had to pole in many places to get any forward momentum at all. Poling a boxy, home-made raft on a sluggish river under the hot, Burmese sun, is the kind of work that could cause a man to give up soldiering.

That night I had a fine visit with The Boss. The dinner was wonderful - not because of the food, which was short rations, but because of the opportunity to hear The Boss talk. He was worried for everyone in the party. He was annoyed at one of the British soldiers for throwing away an M-1 rifle. The soldier said it was too heavy to carry. If he had been an American, he would have been court-martialed.

May 11 was the Day of the Airplane. We were poling along at a nice pace, when we heard the unmistakable hum of aircraft engines in the distance. I stripped to my underpants, grabbed my M-1, and was ready to dive into the river and start shooting back if the aircraft was a Jap. When it came in sight it was a two-engine aircraft with British markings. I don’t know if it was an American-made medium bomber, like an A26A, or a British Blenheim bomber. The pilot made a couple of passes at about 200 feet and then dropped rations on the river bank. They turned out to be much-welcomed supplies of corned beef, cigarettes, canned milk and biscuits. Everything was intact except the biscuits. They were pulverized by the impact into something resembling biscuit meal. No problem. We mixed the product with hot water and had steaming mush for breakfast the following morning. Tasted great then, but I don’t recommend it for a steady diet.

We were still navigating the Uyu River on May 12. The Boss sent me off in a native dugout to look for a Chinese army mule train that had been traveling part of the way with us. I spent until 10:30 that night looking for the mules. The Boss and the main party disembarked, said a not-so-fond farewell to the clumsy rafts, and began a march to Homolin.

I spent the night of May 12 in a Buddhist temple. On the morning of May 13, I started out again to find the mules. Maj. Herbert E. Castens, one of our two British guides, made the trip with me. We found the mules across the Chindwin and headed them north. Castens thought we might find some horses in Homolin, but there were none. The town was famous for apricots and we had anticipated sinking our teeth into some of that ripe, juicy fruit. But apricots were as scarce as horses. None of either. The town was deserted. News of the Jap drive north had preceded the Japanese army. We caught up with The Boss. Stopped at a beautiful, clear stream. Rocks made a natural dam, backing up a deep pool. We had a wonderful swim.

A storm threatened us that night. It was a reminder that we were racing the monsoon. The storm blew over and we all said our thanks.

On May 14, the harbinger of the monsoons hit us. They were light showers but enough to soak everything we owned. And turned the trail into a slippery mudslide.

This was a big day. We were met on the trail by Tim Sharp, British administrative officer of Manipur state. Tim and Duncan, his assistant, met us with 24 ponies, rations, and some 500 tribesmen he had hired to serve as porters. Tim was prepared to have all our sick carried into Manipur. We had dinner with them that night at the village of Kollam. Present were The Boss, Maj. Gen. Franklin Sibert, Sharp, Duncan and me. Everything went along just great until Tim Sharp broke out the Indian rum. I was in no physical condition to drink much of anything except water, and not too much of that. So I drank too much Indian rum. A single sip would probably have been too much.

On the way back to our camp after the dinner and the rum, I veered off the trail several times and fell down a couple of times. The Boss was behind me. All he said was "A bit slippery, isn’t it, Captain."

So I got rescued and soused all within three hours. I slept outside that night and didn’t know it had rained until I woke up, soaked, the next morning.

May 15 was the best day of the walkout up to that time. Capt. Fred Eldridge and I went ahead 14 miles to the village of Saiyapao, where we were to prepare things for the arrival of the rest of Stilwell’s party. We had almost reached the village when it started to rain. Out of nowhere appeared a party of hill tribesmen carrying umbrellas for our protection. One thing I have to say about Burma - after you’ve been among the friendly Burman tribesmen for a while, nothing surprises you.

Tim Sharp and his men had prepared shelters at a day’s march apart from Saiyapao to Imphal. The shelters were for the refugees that would come pouring out of Burma soon after we had completed the walkout.

The Boss asked Tim Sharp how he had known that we would be coming out on that trail. Sharp said he had radioed for information about Stilwell. The answer was that Stilwell was "a brilliant tactician who gets all the information available before making a decision. The decisions he makes are always right."

With that information to go on, Sharp said, he knew Stilwell would come out on that trail because it was the only route that would keep the party out of reach of the advancing Japanese.

I told The Boss he seemed to have a reputation for never making a mistake.

"Don’t say that too loud," Stilwell said. "There are people with us who do not share that opinion." He was exaggerating to have a little fun.

Tim Sharp had put bamboo mats as flooring on all the refugee shelters and that got me in a little trouble. Maj. Felix Nowakowsky came clumping in with muddy shoes and scattered clods of mud all over the clean floor mats. Captain Jones, that’s me, got in an argument with Major Nowakowsky over that matter. General Siebert overheard the argument. So did General Stilwell. So I got in trouble with a major, a major general and a lieutenant general over mud on the floor. Funny thing, though, after the argument was patched up we had an unwritten understanding that no one would enter the shelters with muddy shoes.

On May 16 we marched 14 miles to Mattiying. Much of the march was uphill and downhill. But our men had become trail-toughened, and they took the hills in stride. Having a good supply of food makes everything seem easier.

My ingrown toenail had become infected and was giving me more than a little bit of trouble. Maj. Gordon Seagrave got out his surgical instruments and fixed it up. "Doc" Seagrave was one great guy to have around, believe me.

The next day, May 17, we traveled 17 miles to another village, Pushing. And The Boss was "Pushing" us to finish this walkout. Tim Sharp evacuated some local people and we took over one of their houses. We also took over their fleas. Or, rather, the fleas took us over. We scratched and slapped all night. One of the men sleeping near the door stayed awake most of the night keeping squawking chickens and oinking pigs out of the house. This livestock was accustomed to joining the family in the house for the night.

After a 17-mile walk on May 18, I was the first man in uniform to reach the village of Ukrul. Consequently, I got the military honors from the local dignitaries and a small unit of Assam Rifles. Those honors, of course, were intended for General Stilwell. When I told him about it, he thought it was real funny. Tim Sharp, though, was disappointed because he wanted to put on a big show for The Boss.

He compensated for the missed show by having us to dinner in a house with a flower garden and a fireplace fire. Tim broke out the scotch and water and we thought we were back in civilization.

We had a 21-mile trip on May 19 from Ukrul to the motor head at Litan. Cars and trucks travel to Litan from Imphal. After Litan, the road is fit only for jeeps and not always good enough for them.

That day was my longest and toughest trip. My feet bothered me a lot. If I had not been thinking of Loomis, determined to see her again, I would have had to be hauled in or left behind. It was muddy and sloppy all that day. We ate on the move. In all the mud and misery of the march, I was still cheered by the sight of beautiful wildflowers along the trail.

Two American officers, Eckert and Arnold, showed up in a jeep. They brought from the "civilizes world" about the Doolittle flyers, the evacuation of Burma, and the Russian attack on the Germans at Karkov. That was the good news. The bad news was that all of us thought the Japs could march through to India over the trail we had used in our walkout. Eckert and Arnold were doubly welcome because they brought a cargo of cigarettes and PX candy.

Reveille had been at 4 a.m. during the walkout, but on May 20 reveille was at 7. It was the last day of the walkout and darned if I didn’t get in trouble again. About 5:30 a.m., General Seibert, Col. Benjamin Ferris, and Col. Frederick McCabe got into a conversation. General Seibert asked me what time it was. I told him the time, and that was the extent of my part in the conversation. The talk bothered The Boss and he gave me a helluva dressing down in front of everybody. Seibert explained that I was not guilty. So we got that straightened out.

We reached Imphal by truck over a muddy road on May 20. The British had hot chow waiting for us. That night I had a hot bath, the first in a long time. As I was falling asleep on this last night of the walkout, I had one more thought:

I sure was glad that Loomis didn’t have to walk out of Burma.

Feature article from: Ex-CBI Roundup, May 1992