Tuesday, March 07, 2017

#4 Animal Farms


Posted by Buckles at 3/07/2017 05:35:00 AM

2 comments:

Chic Silber said...


Lin Wang died in the Taipei

zoo at age 86 which made him

the oldest elephant on record

07 March, 2017 08:30
Richard Reynolds said...

Neither Ken Kawata nor I believe Taipei Zoo’s Lin Wang elephant was anything like 86 years old at time of death on 25 February 2003.

Kawata said that an elephant that old should show signs of very advanced years such as sunken temples, frayed ears, and ribs showing. I agree. The Taipei folks claimed he was born “around 1918” - -only a guess on their part. I think it was more like the early 1930s. That would have made him around 70 at death - - nevertheless, very impressive. I have videotape of him from late in his life, and he is very youthful looking for what must have been a very advanced age.

This much we know - -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. As you know, with the Burma Road under Japanese control, we 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 (see above), 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.

09 March, 2017 18:31

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)