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

Born November 15, 1897, in Cornwall, England, Williams was a legendary figure in post-war Britain. His experience as a soldier in World War I “revealed to him his fearlessness, independence, and recognition that his happiness was of his own making” (14). Restless in his native Cornwall after the war, he feels called to embark upon an extraordinary career, one that is shaped by his abiding affection for animals of all kinds. Indeed, as a young man, he feels more at ease in the company of animals than with humans. Though his father wishes him to settle down into the life of a gentleman farmer, Williams feels compelled to seek a more exciting life elsewhere. Like many young soldiers returning from the Great War, Williams is disillusioned by the life that so-called civilization could offer him: “It wasn’t the high life but the forests that called to him” (19). Even the colonial city of Rangoon, with its British clubs and available female companions, cannot compare with the call of the elephants who become his life’s work. As Williams himself puts it, “‘Look,’ he told one reporter, ‘I’ve learned more about life from elephants than I ever did from human beings’” (xii).

The central figure of Elephant Company, Williams comes across as an archetype of the decent Englishman with the proverbial stiff upper lip. While he cares deeply for many of his indigenous servants and uzi workers, “he would not support the nationalist movement [in Burma] over his own country. He assures himself that the empire was helping the Burmese” (147). He overlooks, or underplays, how colonial rule robs the Burmese of their freedoms and resources, leaving them impoverished and divided. Still, he inspires great loyalty in many of his uzis, and his preternatural skill with elephants cannot be disregarded. As the author observes of his heyday, “Williams was a true jungle man—not a spare ounce of flesh on his bones, hair buzzed down to a military minimalism, skin browned by the sun” (113). His time with the elephants is truly extraordinary, and his service during both World Wars, especially the Second, is remarkable. His “exile” back to England is difficult for Williams, as “[h]e had found the best of himself in Burma” (284). Fortunately, he left behind many journals, several memoirs, and a treasure trove of mementos that speak to an exceptional time and an even more exceptional man.

Any recounting of this book's “Key Figures” would be remiss to exclude the great tusker who is central to Williams’s life story. As the author explains, Williams “would eventually know a thousand elephants by name during his years with the Bombay Burmah Trading Company. Of all of them, Bandoola is dearest to him owing to his intelligence, virtue, and strength” (4). Indeed, the two are intertwined in actual and spiritual ways, saving each other’s lives at various points on their remarkable journey. For his part, Bandoola must have been magnificent: the author devotes nearly two full pages to a lavish description of all his extraordinary features. He is, even at a young age, “taller than many of his elders,” with “perfect” feet and a back that is “the most suitable for logging” (23). Not only that, “he was beautiful,” his tusks being compared “to the arms of a Burmese dancing girl” (23). Bandoola “certainly possessed a physical refinement that elephant connoisseurs admired” (24). And Williams is nothing if not a lifelong connoisseur of elephants.

Bandoola is also unique among logging elephants, trained from a calf rather than captured in the wild. He is more domesticated and ferocious than his jungle cousins: he kills human handlers more than once, and he is victorious in battle with even the largest bulls in the wild. He is marked by his lack of markings, bearing no scars like the wild elephants brutalized in their capture and taming: “The tusker was the only unmarked working elephant Williams had come across” (74). From saving Williams’s life to crossing the elephant staircase as the leader, his heroic exploits are unmatched. When Bandoola comes to serve in Williams’s Elephant Company, Williams feels that “[j]ust having Bandoola on their side portended victory” (230). The man and the elephant are forever bound together in their legendary status.