Title
Thompson Document 11: Introduction to Jack and Bridget Croft
Files
Description
Jack Croft was a British Officer Cadet who studied at Maymyo Military School in Burma. In 1942, the British army was ordered to retreat, and troops attempted make their way north to China or northwest to India, often blocking the fleeing refugees in order to expedite their own escape. Croft was among a group of British officers who together with a group of American soldiers, General Joseph Stilwell, the Friends Ambulance Unit, Karen and Burmese nurses, and surgeon Gordon Seagrave, walked about two hundred miles from Burma to India in May 1942.
By the time Henrietta Thompson corresponded with him, beginning in the early '70s, Croft was living in Australia with his wife, Bridget, whom he met in India.
Thompson exchanged a few letters with Croft and sent him a copy of her history of the Walkout Walk a Little Faster, but she never met him, and was quite surprised when his widow wrote to her in 1996. She and Bridget Croft corresponded between 1996 and 1998, often discussing Croft’s account of her own life, which touches upon Jack’s experiences as part of the 1942 Walkout.
Publication Date
11-12-1992
Keywords
Bridget Croft, Jack Croft, Stilwell, Walkout, Burma, Myanmar, history of colonialism, British colonies, Henrietta Thompson
Disciplines
Asian History | European History | Oral History | Women's History
Recommended Citation
Croft, Jack, "Thompson Document 11: Introduction to Jack and Bridget Croft" (1992). Henrietta Thompson Papers. 19.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/henrietta_thompson_papers/19
Rights Statement
