Flight by Elephant

by Andrew Martin

First published 2013

Amazon

3.6(124)

In 1942 the Japanese advance through Burma drove soldiers and civilians towards India through mountains, monsoon rivers and jungle routes that became increasingly impassable. Among those responding to the crisis was British tea planter and former pilot Gyles Mackrell, who learned that groups of exhausted refugees were stranded near the Burma–India frontier.

Mackrell assembled elephants, mahouts and local assistance to reach people trapped by flooded rivers and bring them towards safety. Andrew Martin reconstructs the rescue alongside the larger collapse of British Burma and the desperate refugee exodus into India, showing how an improvised civilian operation became an extraordinary episode within the Burma Campaign and earned Mackrell the George Medal.