CleanupBot II at 18:41, 15 August 2023

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{{short description|British army officer and forester}}
{{other people|James Williams}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = James Williams
| image =
| caption =
| birth_date = 15 November 1897
| birth_place = [[St Just in Penwith|St Just]], [[Cornwall]], U.K.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1958|7|30|1897|11|15|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Penzance]], Cornwall, U.K.
| death_cause =
| nationality = [[British nationality law|British]]
| education = [[Queen's College, Taunton]]
| alma_mater = [[Camborne School of Mines]]
| occupation = Soldier, Forester and Writer
| years_active =
| title =
| term =
| predecessor =
| successor =
| spouse = Susan Margaret Rowland
}}

'''James Howard Williams''', also known as '''Elephant Bill''' (15 November 1897 – 30 July 1958), was a British soldier and elephant expert in Burma, known for his work with the [[British Fourteenth Army|Fourteenth Army]] during the [[Burma Campaign]] of [[World War II]], and for his 1950 book ''Elephant Bill''. He was made a Lieutenant-Colonel, [[mentioned in dispatches]] three times, and was awarded the [[OBE]] in 1945.

==Early life==
Williams was born at St Just, Cornwall, the son of a Cornish mining engineer who had returned from South Africa and his wife, a Welshwoman. He was educated at [[Queen's College, Taunton]].<ref name = "TimesObit">{{Cite newspaper The Times |title= Lieut.Colonel J. H. Williams - "Elephant Bill" |department= Obituary|date= 31 July 1958 |page= 10|issue= 54217 |column= D}}</ref> Like his elder brother he studied at [[Camborne School of Mines]] and went on to serve as an officer in the [[Devonshire Regiment]] of the British Army in the Middle East during the [[First World War]] and in [[Afghanistan]], 1919–20. During this time he served with the [[Imperial Camel Corps|Camel Corps]] and as transport officer in charge of [[mule]]s. After demobilisation he decided to join the [[Bombay-Burmah Trading Corporation]] as a forester working with elephants to extract teak logs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/CORNISH/2003-02/1044247734|title=Jim Williams|accessdate=30 April 2009}}</ref><ref>Account of the author on cover of ''Elephant Bill'', Penguin Books, 1956</ref>

He served in World War I in the Devonshire Regiment; he was in the [[Imperial Camel Corps|Camel Corps]], and later Transport Officer in charge of mules. He had read a book by Hawkes, ''The Diseases of the Camel and the Elephant'', and decided he would be interested in a postwar job in Burma. So in 1920 he was in Burma as a Forest Assistant with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation which milled [[teak]], and used 2000 elephants. Initially he was at a camp on the banks of the Upper [[Chindwin River]] in Upper Burma. He was responsible for seventy elephants and their [[oozy|oozies]] in ten camps, in an area of about {{convert|400|sqmi|km2}} in the Myittha Valley, in the [[Htigyaing Township|Indaung Forest Reserve]]. The camps were 6 to {{convert|7|mi|km}} apart, with hills of three to four thousand feet high between them. To mill them, one tree was killed by ring-barking the base, then felled after standing for three years, so it had seasoned and was light enough to float. The logs were hauled by elephant to a waterway, then floated down to [[Rangoon]] or [[Mandalay]]. Elephants were essential to the harvesting of teak, a single healthy elephant could be sold for $150,000 (2000 U.S.), and thousand of elephants were sold this way.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Croke|first1=Vicki|title=Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II|date=2015|publisher=Random House Trade|location=New York|isbn=978-0812981650}}</ref>

==World War II and after==
[[Teak]] was "as important a munition of war as steel" so timber extraction was an essential industry. Williams was based at [[Maymyo]]. When [[Pacific War|Japan entered the war]], it was expected that they would be held in Malaya and Singapore. Despite criticism, the Bombay Burma Corporation arranged evacuation of European women and children, though the government had no such plans. In 1942, elephants were used for evacuation rather than timber extraction from February till the end of April. The retreat from Burma was to Assam via [[Imphal]]. The road to Assam went up the [[Chindwin]] to [[Kalewa]], then up the [[Kabaw Valley]] to [[Tamu, Burma|Tamu]], and across five thousand foot mountains into [[Manipur]] and the [[Imphal]] Plain. Williams was attached to one evacuation party, which included his wife and children. The Kabaw Valley was nicknamed "The Valley of Death" because of the hundreds of refugees who died there from exhaustion, starvation, [[cholera]], [[dysentery]] and [[smallpox]].

Williams was then employed in timber surveys in [[Bengal]] and [[Assam]], and raising a labour corps. But in October 1942 he joined the staff of the Eastern Army (later the [[British Fourteenth Army|Fourteenth Army]]) as [[Elephant]] Advisor to the Elephant Company of the [[Royal Indian Engineers]]. He was a Burmese speaker with knowledge of Burma, including the [[Irrawaddy River]] area and jungle tracks. He was initially posted to [[IV Corps (United Kingdom)#India .2F Burma|4th Corps]] Headquarters at [[Jorhat]] in Assam. While elephants were used as "[[sappers]]" i.e. as part of the Royal Engineers for use in bridge building in places where heavy equipment could otherwise not be brought in, the Royal Indian Army Service Corps wanted them to be regarded simply as a branch of transport, an under-utilization of the real benefit of elephants Williams believed. Many elephants were captured by the Japanese, and some recaptured elephants had to be cured after being attacked by Allied fighters, or from acid burns from wireless batteries carried on their backs in straw-lined boxes.

Williams was known as ''Sabu'', then ''Elephant Bill''. Sir [[William Slim]], commander of the [[British Fourteenth Army|XIVth Army]], wrote about elephants in his introduction to the book ''Elephant Bill'': "They built hundreds of bridges for us, they helped to build and launch more ships for us than [[Helen of Troy|Helen]] ever did for Greece. Without them our retreat from Burma would have been even more arduous and our advance to its liberation slower and more difficult."

After World War II he retired to [[St Buryan]], [[Cornwall]], as an author and market gardener. He married Susan Margaret Rowland in 1932 after they met in Burma; they had a son Treve and daughter Lamorna while in Burma.<ref>George Pritchard (RootsWeb)</ref> After his death, his wife Susan Williams wrote of her life with him in ''The Footprints of Elephant Bill''.<ref>(William Kimber, London 1962/[[David McKay Company]], N.Y. 1963)</ref>

==Works==
*''Elephant Bill'' ([[Rupert Hart-Davis]], London, 1950) (account of his experiences with elephants in Burma)
**''also published as:'' ''Elephant Bill'', [[Penguin Books]], Harmondsworth, 1956
*''Bandoola'' (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1953) (Bandoola, named after General [[Maha Bandula|Maha Bandoola]], was one of the elephants he knew; the content complements that of ''Elephant Bill'')
*''The Spotted Deer'' (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1957) (on forestry, in the Andaman Islands)
*''Big Charlie'' (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1959) (about elephants)
*''In Quest of a Mermaid'' (Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1960) (travel in Burma)

;Film project
A film ''Bandoola'' was planned in 1956 by [[Burt Lancaster#Directing and producing|Hecht-Lancaster]] and [[United Artists]]; it was to have been filmed in [[Ceylon]] from November that year with [[Ernest Borgnine]] and [[Sophia Loren]] in the leading roles.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lorenarchives.com/chronicles_1956.html |title=Sophia Loren Archives: 1956 |accessdate=12 July 2011}}</ref>

;Bibliography
*Vicki Croke, ''Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II'', (Random House, 2014)
*Susan Williams, ''The footprints of Elephant Bill'', (Kimber, 1962)

==References==

{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
*Obituary in ''[[The Times]]'' (London) of 31 July 1958 page 10.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, James Howard}}
[[Category:1897 births]]
[[Category:1958 deaths]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Indian Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:British Indian Army officers]]
[[Category:People from St Just in Penwith]]
[[Category:People educated at Queen's College, Taunton]]
[[Category:Administrators in British Burma]]
[[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]]

James Howard Williams - Revision history

CleanupBot II at 18:41, 15 August 2023