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Margaretta B. Wells interview, about 1967, side 2.
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- speakerI went about seeing to get getting food ready and pretty soon the bus
- speakercame in again with all the men of the party, one of them was the Englishman
- speakerAnd then we heard boom. We knew the bridge [Mai Sai River] had been blown up.
- speakerAnd so we stayed there that night.
- speakerWe heard that over the radio that Thailand had capitulated. M
- speakerorning came in the next morning then we
- speakerwent on to It took us five days to get to Kengtung. We just hopped rides with empty ammunition lorries, which bring up munitions to the border
- speakerAnd then go back empty, so we could get in and ride part of the way, wherever they were going. And, we met.
- speakertwo or three camps. And quite a few people in them. all the way around, but that was.
- speakerEventually
- speakerwe got to Kengtung or to a place called Loi Mwe [Loi Mwe Hill Station] , a mountain hilll station just above Keng Tung.
- speakerHere we rested about two days,
- speakerwaiting for a convoy, that was going up on the edge of the Burma Road.
- speakerTowards Pangwai Lahu. And, we're just getting
- speakerdown to our first really good meal, when word came the convoy is waiting.
- speakerSo we took our food and all our stuff and ten lorries, going all the way from Keng Tung. We went down the mountain and
- speakergot
- speakerthe lorries. People would sit in the front cab. Men sit behind.This is
- speakerwhere we met Darrell Beragin on the
- speakerway. He had also escaped. He had absolute got out. All he had
- speakerwith him was his sleeveless sweater and his typewriter. It was getting colder by that time up. We were up seven thousand feet up in the hills.
- speakerAnd, then the road is so narrow that you could only go one way at a time
- speakerand then you have passing stations where you would pull in and the convoy
- speakergoing to the border would pass you. And we had to, had to cross
- speakerthe river on a boat, on a flat boat, take it
- speakertake us across. Eventually we got to Taunggyi, Burma after
- speakerthe wildest ride through the densest jungle I ever saw.
- speakerWe stayed there until the 4th of January [1942] and
- speakerit was. We were there while they had the Christmas bombing in Rangoon
- speakerand then the American consulate in Rangoon thought we should come down.
- speakerTo Taunggyi.
- speakerWell we had to take motors, lorries, to
- speakerthe railhead and therefore we had
- speakerto reverse the mountains were so steep.
- speakerSo the train would run up into a little curve and then it would back out.
- speakerAnd then it would go a little ways then it would run up into a curve. And then back out. Reversing all the way.
- speakerFinally we got down onto the main line. It was while we
- speakerwere there in Taunggyi that Dr. Seagrave [Seagrave, Gordon Stifler] came through with his first group of
- speakermusicians musicians and nothingness and
- speakermedical material.
- speakerFrom. The the docks, the docks in Rangoon. The docks
- speakerhad just been bombed to bits. All this wonderful new trucks. And all this stuff
- speakerjust lying around in the docks. And so the government said you can have as many
- speakertrucks. Here they are. You don't have as many trucks as you can get
- speakerdrivers for. So there were a lot of young short term teachers
- speakerat Judson College. And, he got them and they loaded as
- speakermuch material, medical equipment, as possible into these trucks.
- speakerAnd he drove them on up toward his hospital. And he used these trucks
- speakerfor motor mobile unit as they
- speakerused them in the fighting around there. So we saw him
- speakerstop by while we were there. When we got to Rangoon, the
- speakerplace was very much blown up. We hadn't been there more than two hours when the siren went.
- speakerAnd that meant we had to go to trenches. So we
- speakerwent down to the trenches but we had no roof on, so we sat up there and watch the fighting.
- speakerAnd finally my husband Wells, Kenneth] says, well, I'm going to
- speakerroof this over and find some. We were just sitting on the dirt. just find something to sit
- speakeron. We had four raids every day. There
- speakerwas always one at night. Then, we were right in the middle center of the
- speakercity. So he moved us out to the edge of the city,
- speakerbut we were only a mile and a half from the airfield, which, of course, they were bombing all the time. So
- speakerwe could feel. The earth would just shake from those bombs that would hit. And then
- speakerevery night the bombers would take off to. The Air
- speakerAmerican bombers would take off to bomb Singapore.
- speakerJapanese there. Every night they went a little later and later, on account of the moonlight.
- speakerand every night the other bombers would come over.
- speakerSo, I was really getting pretty fed up with it. And
- speakerfinally the consul said well we all do the best to get you on the first available
- speakertransport out. So a boat came along that had fifteen hundred .
- speakerIndian troops on it. And he said, Well, we'll send you to India.
- speakerSo we went down on a dark night.
- speakerNo lights. through crater-filled streets and got on this boat. It was supposed to sail at
- speaker10 o'clock at night. Well, eleven o'clock came, twelve o'clock came, Hadn't sailed.
- speakerAnd, there we
- speakerwere with the children. THere you were with the children. and the moon coming up. The river
- speakerlike a sheet of silver. My husband said, "Well, I guess this is it."So we bolted down thisthem.
- speakerWell I guess so we bolted down
- speakerthis cap thing over the window, the porthole. But that was the only
- speakertime in four months that the Japanese planes did not come over. We
- speakergot away at 5:00 o'clock in the morning.and got over to
- speakerCalcutta.
- speakerThen we went to Allahabad. and after being there about nine
- speakermonths, I took the children up to school in the hills in India. But then
- speakerthe civil disobedience came, why the
- speakerconsul said, well. All women and children must leave. So you were evacuated again?
- speakerWe were, we were evacuated again
- speakerfrom India on a big troop ship that had just brought
- speakerAmerican troops over to India. And then we
- speakerwent round Cape of Good Hope. And, we'd change course every seven minutes. You
- speakercan see it in the wake of the ship. A great big boat. It was one of the Maxim liners turned into a troop ship. .
- speakerYes. They got 300
- speakerpassengers, three hundred people on this. Besides some
- speakermental cases, soldiers that were being taken home.
- speakerWhen was that? That's 42. That was 42.
- speakerAugust-September 42.
- speakerThen we came up the middle of the south Atlantic, north Atlantic, and
- speakerinto New York. And then we had to. Before they let you off, you had to talk. The Army Intelligence, the
- speakerNavy intelligence, the F.B.I., in
- speakercase you had some kind of information that you even didn't
- speakerknow you had. and you had identify. In the first place you had to give some.
- speakerYou had to give your references. You had to fill out quite a paper before, while
- speakeryou were on the ship.
- speakerReferences, people who knew you in your organization, where you lived, and who your parents were, and
- speakerall that and then
- speakerthey followed this up.
- speakerThey had every answer by the time you got off in New York. Later on, I was
- speakertalking to a friend. And, they said, what is the matter? The F.B.I. were around
- speakerasking about you? and I said Well, I hope you gave me a good pass. I must have given
- speakeryour name as a reference when we were coming here.
- speakerSo then I went to. I went out to my father's home. Kenneth [Wells, Kenneth Elmer]
- speakerstayed in India
- speakerwith the Allahbad College. He came in the next
- speakerJuly. So I'm not. My time was spent at my father's home. And then, in July, he
- speakercame. And he was with O.S.S.
- speakeras chief of the Southeast Asia section and charge of the Thai, the Siam
- speakerdesk in in research in Washington. research in Washington.
- speakerSo we went to Washington and spent a good deal of time
- speakercooking steak and rice and
- speakerthings for
- speakerThai who had been smuggled out for training in the USA. They'd come
- speakeraround and say, thank goodness it isn't fish.
- speakerWe had a good friend that lived up above us. And she got coupons anyway, so she would outside office. S
- speakerhe was a good friend of these Thai. And
- speakerso she would give me her meat coupons so we could feed them.
- speakerYes so we could feed them. So that it was while I was there then
- speakerthat I got this request from 20th Century Fox for the costume for "Anna and the King of Siam."
- speakerAnd in that case I realized. And
- speakerso that was quite fun. They had brought.
