Flight by Elephant

December 2, 2013
English columnist and novelist Martin leads a riveting and true jungle adventure story set amid the deep forests and fast plunging rivers of Burma’s northern border with India. In 1942, an exodus from Burma occurred as the population loyal to the British fled in the face of invasion from the south by the Japanese army. To escape, a few hundred refugees were forced to navigate the Chaukan Pass—a deathtrap consisting of hundreds of miles of dangerous jungle wilderness with no roads, trails, or native population—during torrential monsoon rains. Unable to carry sufficient food, the refugees’ only hope was that, once in the pass, a rescue effort could meet them and bring them out. Martin uses the diaries of the participants as well as period records to tell the story of how one man, British tea planter Gyles Mackrell, engineered the rescue effort against incredible natural obstacles, using a herd of trained elephants, the only animals capable of breaking through the jungle, fording the rivers, and carrying out the sick and starving refugees. Martin’s well-told account of survival and adventure reveals a remote, overlooked episode of WWII history.