William Newton was born in India in 1887 and served with the Indian Medical Department...

William Newton was born in India in 1887 and served with the Indian Medical Department (responsible to the British Army in India) in East Africa and Mesopotamia during the 1914-18 War. In 1939, when his narrative begins, he was the Civil Surgeon at Loimwe in Keng Tung, a remote outpost on the Burma frontier and he notes that "for two years we went on as though nothing serious was happening" (p. 2). However, there was a gradual build-up of British military forces in the Keng Tung area and by late 1941 even the local population had become "war-minded" (p. 5). In November 1941 Newton and his wife went on leave to Rangoon so that he could have some specialist medical treatment, but, immediately war with Japan began, Newton was ordered to revert to military duty and was appointed an Assistant Staff Surgeon, responsible for the medical care of the personnel at Army HQ, Rangoon. Two heavy air raids on the city on 23 and 25 December caused extensive damage (pp. 10-12) and, despite a measure of Allied success in the air, Newton felt that the British military authorities were taking a far too optimistic line about their capacity to resist the Japanese advance (pp. 13-14). The military situation began to deteriorate rapidly in early February and Newton's wife was evacuated to Maymyo, though Newton remained in Rangoon with Advanced Army HQ. The final evacuation of the city took place on 7 March, and Newton described the emotions that overcame him as he left his home and all his belongings. Rangoon itself was in chaos - the premature release of convicts and mental patients had set off a wave of looting and arson - and Newton observes that, as they left the city, "huge dense volumes of smoke clouded the sky, obscuring the sun and making the atmosphere dull, heavy and oppresive" (pp. 16-18). Harried by the Japanese and frustrated by the lack of organisation, the British forces retreated up country to Thaukkyan, where General Alexander took over command (pp. 19-20), and on to Maymyo, from where Newton was posted to No 4 Burma General Hospital at Taunggyi, which was overflowing with refugees. On 11 April, the day after an air raid in which over three hundred people were killed, evacuation to Myitkyina got under way and Newton joined the staff of a temporary hospital there. As he was not fit to undertake the trek back to India, he was flown out to India on 4 May, just three days before Myitkyina fell (p. 29). The remaining British soldiers and civilians had to attempt to reach India via the Hukawng Valley ("the Valley of Death"), a 300 mile journey over swamp land on which many died. The strain under which Newton had been living had a very adverse effect on his health, and he was invalided out of the Indian Medical Department in September 1942. His account, written in Bangalore that November, contains many details about the fates of friends of the Newtons who were also in Burma when the war in the Far East began.

Appended to Newton's account is an epilogue in which are described the experiences during those months of other people with whom Newton and his family were associated. The first three narratives are first-hand accounts by friends from Keng Tung, all of whom successfully reached India, and the remainder are shorter, very sombre notes about other acquaintances, many of whom died in the Hukawng Valley or on one of the other six jungle paths from Burma into India (p. 59). The narrative ends with a brief biographical note on Major Newton and two maps of Burma in 1942. The document provides a convincing record not only of a military disaster, but of the tremendous upheaval which marked the end of a whole way of life.