Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II

Susan and Treve stay in Williams’s brother’s home in Shillong while Williams returns to Burma—though not for long. The Japanese force the British soldiers to retreat, and Williams evacuates with them. The toll of the war in Burma is massive, and the Bombay Burmah Trading Company simply “collapsed” (219). Williams remains convinced that “the elephants would be vital to the Japanese and the British. It galled him to think of the animals falling into enemy hands” (219). But with the crush of refugees and soldiers fleeing the country, he has not managed to round up a troop yet. He sends Po Toke with Bandoola to hide in the jungle, as he hopes many of the other uzis will also do.

During his trek—on foot—back to India, Williams witnesses “misery and sickness everywhere” (220). He stops to help a young Indian woman with two young children; he cannot revive her, and she dies in her arms, leaving him to worry about the children. Williams hails a passing Jeep and insists that the captain “take them to a camp in Imphal” (221). He finds them later, safe in housing for orphans. The defeat is a blow to the Allied war effort: as an American general remarked, “[w]e got run out of Burma and it’s humiliating as hell” (222). At least Williams is with Susan in Shillong when she gives birth to their daughter, Lamorna.

Finally, the British army comes calling, asking Williams to serve as an “elephant adviser” (222). It seems that the Allied forces realize what crucial resources the elephants could be. Williams ultimately becomes a member of “the famous Fourteenth Army, which by 1944 is a million men strong, the largest Commonwealth army in the war, whose field of operation was about one hundred thousand square miles” (223). Williams’s knowledge and expertise are immediately recognized, and he becomes an invaluable resource. He knows how much the elephants can do to aid in the war. To that end, Williams is “assigned to the Special Operations Executive, the British dirty tricks department,” where “elite Force 136” will “sabotage[e] the Japanese at every chance, and liv[e] by their wits” (225). Williams wastes no time recruiting Harold Browne and Stanley “Chindwin” White to assist him in locating men and elephants to fight in the Allied cause. Of course, their first order of business is to find Po Toke and Bandoola. Once found, “Bandoola’s presence offered instant serenity” (230), and Williams feels that the great tusker is an omen for victory.

Williams sets about amassing enough elephants and uzis to make an effective Elephant Company. The “loyalty shown to Williams” by his men and their elephant charges impresses the generals (232). Soon enough, Williams has at least 40 elephants at his command, “the nucleus of No. 1 Elephant Company, Royal Indian Engineers” (232). He discovers that the Japanese have “put a price on my head” for rounding up elephants and loyal indigenous followers (232). He quickly and fairly earns the nickname that stays with him for the rest of his life: Elephant Bill.

Soon, the elephants are put to work building bridges. Williams knows that the elephants’ real value is in helping to move men and supplies over the harsh landscape “not just as draft animals or cargo bearers” (233). His elephants instead become “master bridge builders” (233). Williams and his colleagues are always on the hunt for more elephants—but so are the Japanese. “Chindwin” White and his men are almost killed by a Japanese ambush while trying to bring more elephants to camp. The stakes are high, and “[t]he Japanese were also becoming more aggressive” (237). The British Army brass decides to retreat, ordering the soldiers back to India before the difficult monsoon season.

Despite the burgeoning hope on the ground—generated by effective propaganda—the attempts to fight off the Japanese are “an expensive failure” (238). However, Williams cannot bear to abandon all of the men—who are technically civilians, volunteering their time and risking their lives for the Allies—and the elephants he had brought together. He and Harold Browne stay behind.

The popularity and utility of Williams’s elephant camp keep growing: it “soon became a hub of activity and information” (241). Journalists come calling, eager for Williams’s stories and a brief respite. The jungle is a challenging environment for those, unlike Williams, not used to its challenges, from insects to diseases. Despite a persistent pain in his abdomen, Williams engages wholeheartedly with the war effort, and his Elephant Company is crucial as “the tide began shifting” (243) in the Southeast Asian theater of war.

The Japanese had overextended themselves, just as the Allied forces manage to increase troop numbers, improve traveling conditions, secure more supplies, and garner the support of American air forces. As a result, “the work of the elephants increased” (243), which causes some concern for Williams. The more elephants used in the war effort, the fewer experienced uzis there are to handle them. Thus, the soldiers tasked with taking care of the elephants are not fully sensitive to their needs. Eventually, Williams “refused to supply his animals to any troops who consistently treated them improperly” (245). He also sets up an elephant hospital to care for wounded and sick animals.

Bandoola, of course, is instrumental in the war effort, belonging to the most elite group building the most complicated bridges. This group is often “shown off to reporters, which meant that just as Williams gained fame, so did Bandoola” (246). Fame also breeds exaggeration, and some journalists claim the massive tusker had killed at least five keepers. At the height of Elephant Company, Williams oversees 1,652 animals (246).

Williams takes a short leave during the Christmas holidays in 1943, indulging in comfort food and cocktails with his wife and playing with his young children. Upon his return, the elephants “were called upon to work on improving the main road” (249), as the Allies are confident that the Japanese could be defeated at last. In February of 1944, the Allies win an auspicious victory—though one marred by heavy casualties—in Arakan. Soon after, however, Williams is asked how long it would take to have his Elephant Company “out of Burma” (251), which he mistakenly sees as a plan for retreat. Instead, the classified plans are to launch the “largest offensive against the Japanese to date in the effort to reclaim Burma” (251). The military commanders are only trying to keep the elephants safe.

It is time to evacuate the elephants in groups. They will head for Imphal, the military camp in India. However, Williams and his men are plagued with obstacles from the beginning. First, Browne’s group is stymied by a truck accident, and the elephants have to be left behind while he returns to report to Williams. The Japanese forces are pressing toward them, and Williams loses touch with the party containing Bandoola. After some chaos and confusion—during which the “Allied air superiority” makes some headway, unbeknownst to Williams—Bandoola’s group is found, and Williams plans to meet them in Imphal with his 45 elephants. From there, between them and the “safety of British-held Assam” are rugged mountains and rough terrain: “Even under ideal conditions the journey would have been nearly impossible” (255). It is quickly made more difficult by the incursion of Japanese troops on the main Imphal-Dimapur Road, as well as the appearance of 64 refugees, primarily women and children, who Williams pledges to take to safety—all on a route that “was merely a foot track” (256).

Still, the group sets out under Williams’s watchful eye and cautious optimism: “Williams had faith, though, and it wasn’t centered on other people. ‘The more I saw of men…the better I liked my elephants,’ he wrote” (257). They set out on the journey in April of 1944, intending to traverse 120 incredibly challenging miles. It is slow going and difficult, but the party of refugees, uzis, officers, and elephants perseveres. Until that is, they come upon an “escarpment” that “spread limitlessly, north to south, with no letup, as though the earth simply vaulted dizzyingly to a new height right there” (265). Not only is it impassable to most humans, but it is also impossible for the elephants. After two days of searching, no alternative route is found. Williams knows they cannot retreat—the horrors of what the Japanese did to prisoners had reached everyone’s ears—and he refuses to abandon his elephants. So, he devises the “Crazy Idea” of the title: “They would cut steps into the rock linking the natural ledges to create an elephant stairway. And they would complete it in two days’ time” (267). Knowing how unlikely the scenario was to work, Williams and his crew get to work anyway.

The gamble that Williams is taking—a precarious elephant stairway—would soon prove to be a success or failure. He worries about whether the elephants will be able to surmount their fears to ascend the steps, but he has to remain optimistic: “If panic could spread across a group of elephants, how about confidence? This was the lesson Williams had gleaned from the river crossing, and it was this insight that the entire operation hinged on” (269). But which elephant will be courageous enough to lead the others? The question has a ready answer: Bandoola, of course, would lead the pack with Po Toke to guide him. The old uzi reassures Williams, “All will be well, Thakin [Master]” (270).

Williams stays away from his elephants the night before the fateful climb. He does not want them to sense his anxiety. When it comes time for the ascent to begin, Bandoola cautiously mounts the first step, his four enormous feet barely contained by the crudely cut rock: “For nine full minutes, the elephant seemed to ponder his next move. And then he decided” (273). Slowly and cautiously, Bandoola climbs the elephant stairway, and after a time, the rest of the pack follows him. William rejoices as the elephants, the uzis, and the refugees make their way to safety. His elephants have proved him right: “Here was nothing less, he wrote, than the validation of his ‘life’s work’” (275). Once they are across, Williams decides to give them a day of rest—there would be water for drink and bathing—before completing the weeks’ long journey that lies ahead.

Finally, after toiling through the swamp on reduced rations, the group comes upon the tea plantation that Williams had targeted as their refuge: they have been on their arduous travels for three whole weeks, with only rations enough for 15. The Scottish plantation owner welcomes the group, feeding them and finding them places to sleep. Once everyone is settled and ready to return to their families and the elephants allowed to rest for a time at the plantation, Williams seeks out his family—and goes to the hospital for treatment of a duodenal ulcer. After his recovery, he returns to his elephants, who build a bridge instrumental to the success of the Allied forces against Japan in Burma. Williams’s elephants make the difference between “a standoff instead of a victory” (281).

As the war winds down, Williams also realizes that “[h]is life with elephants was coming to an end” (281). Not only is it time for him to retire from the harsh jungle life, but the effects of World War II will also splinter the empire. There would be no more English colonial masters running businesses and controlling resources worldwide. He likes to believe that his elephants will return to the wild—once a thought inconceivable to a teak-industry elephant wallah—to live out the remainder of their days in happy freedom. Of course, he cherishes his remaining time with the magnificent Bandoola: “Here, in this oasis of tea, as he passed his hands over the barrel of the tusker’s body, he had the chance to hold onto something fleeing, and let time stand still for just a moment” (283). He gives the order for Bandoola to stand, one last time, “[a]nd the great tusker rose up” (283).

Williams never feels quite at home in England, where he spends the rest of his life, sans a few excursions to America. He is awarded the Order of the British Empire (that is, he is knighted) and gains some fame from his memoirs and other books on elephants. His first, Elephant Bill, is published in 1950, becoming a best-seller, though Williams “longed to be with [his elephants] in the flesh” (285). Before leaving Burma in 1947, he says goodbye to as many of his elephants as he can track down. Sadly, Bandoola is not one of them: he had been killed before the end of the war.

The tusker had been missing for a few days, and Po Toke tells Williams he knows nothing about it. Williams shuts down the entire camp to launch an investigation. The elephant’s body is found with a bullet to the head, his right tusk missing. Over time, Williams “came to believe with increasing certainty that Po Toke had killed [Bandoola] out of a deranged attachment to the great animal” (288). Po Toke could not bear to have another uzi handle him or to set him free; he took the right tusk, Williams believes, as a token of his time with the elephant. Williams has the left removed and carries it with him for the rest of his life. Bandoola is given a hero’s burial.

Williams is able to fraternize with some circus elephants, but it is not quite the same—though he is said to have rubbed the lining of his jacket against the elephants’ hides, taking their scent home with him. He scouts some locations—near Burma, though not in it—for the possible filming of his memoirs, but no movie is ever made. Williams dies at the age of 60 from a burst appendix. He did not seek medical attention for his pain, assuming that it was his old ulcer acting up, until it was too late.