Flight by elephant : the untold story of world war ii's most daring jungle rescue

The incredible story of Gyles Mackrell and his Burmese, elephant-assisted wartime rescue mission. In the summer of 1942, Gyles Mackrell – a decorated First World War pilot and tea plantation overseer, performed a series of heroic rescues in the hellish jungles of Japanese-occupied Burma – with the aid of twenty elephants. At the age of 53, Mackrell went into the 'green hell' of the Chaukan Pass on the border of North Burma and Assam. Here, Mackrell and a team of elephant riders rescued Indian army soldiers, British civilians and their Indian servants, from the pursuing Japanese, directing the elephants through jungle passes and raging rivers, and territory infested with sand flies, mosquitoes and innumerable leeches. Those he saved were all on the point of death from starvation or fever: that summer was spent in a fight against time. Now in Andrew Martin's hands this never-before-told tale of heroics is given the shape of a suspenseful adventure, a wartime rescue whose facts are the stuff of fiction. 'Flight By Elephant' is a gripping chronicle of war and survival, starring everyone's favourite animal – the powerful, exotic and hugely loveable elephant. A decorated veteran of the Royal Flying Corps, Mackrell was a tea plantation overseer in his mid-fifties, with a taste for adventure. Hearing that the Chaukan party was stranded by the monsoon, he knew of only one way to save the fever-weakened and starving refugees. Mackrell undertook a rescue mission given no chance of success by the authorities. The astonishing true story of a middle-aged tea planter, Gyles Mackrell, who mounted an epic rescue mission, with the aid of a herd of elephants and their mahouts