From Richard Reynoilds #2

!cid_X_MA1_1233689394@aol, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. This photo was taken of Lin Wang at the Tai Pei zoo (Taiwan) on October 18, 2002. He certainly does not look anything like an 86-year old. Here is some interesting background on Lin Wang, a lot of it from Jane Wang in “The Taciturn Pachyderm - -Linwang the Elephant Veteran” (translated by Brent Heinrich). Lin Wang was with a group of logging elephants in the forests of Northern Burma when World War II came to that land. The Imperial Japanese Army commandeered him (and other elephants) during their April 1942 offensive, which led to their capturing Lashio and the severing of the Burma Road. [It linked Lahsio with Kunming (Yunnan Province) China.] With the entire Chinese coast under Japanese control, the Burma Road was the only route by which those at War with Japan could supply China with critical food supplies and war materials. The Soviet Union was not then at war with Japan, so its eastern Chinese border areas provided no access into China.. With the Burma Road under Japanese control, America then turned to air, flying the Himalayan hump. That was hazardous at best and not all that effective. Lin Wang went to work as a pack animal for the Japanese. According to author Wang, it was in 1943 when the Chinese India Corps got hold of him. They had been training in India with the objective of retaking Burma. (Given what I know about operations and engagements in that theater of the war, it must have been very late in 1943 or more likely well into 1944). The “capture “of Lin Wang happened near Namhkam Burma, north of Lashio. The Chinese sent out a scouting party to find some work elephants. Disguised as Burmese, they came upon Lin Wang and 12 other pack elephants in a thick bamboo grove. Burmese elephant drivers working for the Japanese were tending them - -no doubt under pain of death. One of the Chinese, an intelligence officer who could speak Burmese, pretended to be acting on orders for the Japanese. He directed the mahouts to march the elephants, but in a direction toward the Chinese lines. The mahouts figured out what was happening and fled. The Chinese then took the elephants and put them to work hauling ammunition and other supplies. On 7 March 1945 the Chinese Army retook Lashio. The next month, with the Burma Road once more in Allied hands, the Chinese India Corps used it to march Lin Wang and his pachyderm mates from Lashio into China. In 1947 Lin Wang was taken to Formosa (Taiwan). In 1954 he took up residence in the Taipei zoo.