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Thompson Document 18: Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Bridget Croft, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A final letter from Henrietta Thompson to Bridget Croft. It seems that the telephone conversation that prompted this letter was not an entirely felicitous one, and that Henrietta’s recommendation that Croft publish A Sense of Purpose was perhaps mistaken for a promise that Thompson would act on Croft’s behalf to that end.

Thompson Document 17: Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Bridget Croft, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Henrietta Thompson to Bridget Croft warmly praising Croft’s A Sense of Purpose, which she had just received, and expressing her hope that Croft will attempt to have it published. Thompson also includes the abstract from her thesis which details the process by which she found Jack Croft and began corresponding with him in 1973.

Thompson Document 16: Letter From Bridget Croft To Henrietta Thompson And Two Selections From Croft's Manuscript, Bridget Croft

Henrietta Thompson Papers

Two selections of the manuscript that Bridget Croft sent to Henrietta Thompson on Feb 16, 1997. The first page describes Croft’s childhood in Ireland. The second selection is Croft’s description of the “allied” retreat from Burma. She describes the “hot and tough” trek by the Stilwell group, quoting sections of Henrietta Thompson’s work, but she also describes the retreat of the British Army. She takes the position that “the retreat [of the British Army] was made more difficult by large numbers of refugees trying to escape from Burma.” She fails to mention that the refugee families fleeing their bombed cities …

Thompson Document 15: A Letter From Bridget Croft To Henrietta Thompson, Bridget Croft

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Bridget Croft to Henrietta Thompson. Bridget promises to send Thompson a copy of her record of her life, which touches upon the experiences of her husband, Jack, who walked out of Burma with Stilwell in 1942.

Thompson Document 14: A Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Bridget Croft, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Henrietta Thompson to Bridget Croft. Thompson expresses surprise at hearing from Bridget Croft, the wife of a Walkout participant, Jack Croft, with whom she had a brief correspondence in 1973. Thompson warmly responds to Croft’s request for permission to quote sections of Thompson’s Walk a Little Faster, and asks to read Croft’s work when it is complete.

Thompson briefly refers to a perplexity inconsistency; Bridget writes: “Jack died on the 26 November 1955,” and yet Thompson tells Bridget: “I enjoyed so much my correspondence with him in 1972-73 and that he was pleased to receive a …

Thompson Document 13: A Letter From Bridget Croft To Henrietta Thompson, Bridget Croft

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Jack Croft’s wife, Bridget Croft. Bridget asks Henrietta Thompson’s permission to use a few sections of Thompson’s Walk a Little Faster in her account of her childhood and of her experiences as a nurse in India in the 1940s, where she met Jack.

Thompson Document 01: An Introduction To The Henrietta Thompson Collection, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A very brief introduction to the Henrietta Thompson collection.

Walk A Little Faster: Escape From Burma With General Stilwell In 1942, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

Henrietta Thompson's thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in History from the University of Maine, December, 1992.

Thompson's abstract: This paper describes why and how from 1971 to 1974 I traced the members of a group of 114 men and women who, like hundreds of thousands of others, were fleeing from Burma after the Japanese invasion of that country in January, 1942. The group walked approximately two hundred and fifty miles from Burma to safety in India under the leadership of Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell of the United States Army …

Thompson Document 21: A Letter From Ruby Johnson To Henrietta Thompson, Ruby Johnson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Ruby Johnson to Henrietta Thompson. It seems that Johnson is here responding to a request from Thompson that she send some Burmese phrases for Thompson to include in her Walk a Little Faster history of the Walkout.

Thompson Document 20: A Letter From Ruby Johnson To Henrietta Thompson, Ruby Johnson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Ruby Johnson, a nurse who participated in the 1942 Walkout from Burma to India, to Henrietta Thompson. Johnson was the first of the Walkout participants Thompson interviewed, and Thompson particularly enjoyed this meeting and was indebted to Johnson not only for offering an account of her own experiences, but also for making Thompson aware of a number of nurses who had participated on the Walkout in Burma and also Hla Sein in the U.S. who initially resisted being interviewed about the Walkout. In this letter, Johnson mentions having recently seen Hla Sein, who was by then their …

Thompson Document 09: A Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Jack Belden, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Henrietta Thompson to Jack Belden following his letter of Dec. 1973. Here Thompson is asking for Belden’s version of an account she has heard, she says, “from a dozen or more people,” of American officers proposing to leave the nurses (most of whom were refugees) behind at the start of the walk out of Burma, and to escape without them. Unfortunately we do not have Belden’s response to this letter (if he wrote one), but in the “Addenda” Thompson provides a new version of this story, which may summarize Belden’s recollection of the event.

Thompson Document 10: Henrietta Thompson's "Addenda" To Jack Belden File, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

Henrietta Thompson's notes on Jack Belden. These notes seem to be a combination of Thompson’s memories of meeting Belden and perhaps a summary of Belden's account of an argument that took place at the start of the Walkout; several of Thompson's interviewees mentioned this argument that revolved around the suggestion, by one or some of the Americans, that they leave some of the group behind in order to expedite their own escape from Burma.

Thompson Document 08: A Letter From Jack Belden To Henrietta Thompson, Jack Belden

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Jack Belden to Henrietta Thompson. About the Walkout, Belden writes to Thompson: “The only way such a small affair could have significance is a from a human standpoint where it could be fictionalized into a symbol.” On the whole, Belden seems to wish to convey that he regards Thompson's project with ambivalence. As he does in all of the letters in this collection, Belden refers to his poverty, here he also mentions being badly treated by his publishers.

Thompson Document 07: A Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Jack Belden, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Henrietta Thompson to Jack Belden dated Nov. 12, 1973. Thompson writes to Belden with characteristic warmth, mentioning a mutual acquaintance and a recent review of Belden’s China Shakes the World (1949).

Thompson Document 12: A Letter From Jack Croft To Henrietta Thompson, Jack Croft

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A response from Jack Croft to a letter from Henrietta Thompson. Croft was a British officer who had attended the Maymyo Military School in Burma, and in May 1942 walked out of Burma with General Stilwell. Here, Croft is evidently responding to a letter of inquiry from Thompson, who was attempting to discover more about various participants of the Walkout.

Thompson Document 04: Letter From Jack Belden To Henrietta Thompson, Jack Belden

Henrietta Thompson Papers

This is the first letter Jack Belden wrote to Henrietta Thompson. Responding to Thompson's letter proposing that they meet to discuss the Walkout, Belden describes himself as “sympathetic to but not overly excited or approving of your [Thompson’s] project.” Nevertheless, Belden writes that he will be at his address "most of the time," and that Thompson may visit him there. The letter is undated, Thompson notes that she received it on October 3, 1971.

Thompson Document 26: Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Tun Shein, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Henrietta Thompson to Tun Shein, which is evidently in response to a letter Tun Shein had sent her. Thompson mentions some of their mutual acquaintances and asks whether either Tun Shein or his wife Lulu recognize any of the names on a list of Walkout participants who were then presumably still living in Burma, but whom she had been unable to meet during her brief visit.

Thompson Document 25: Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Tun Shein And Lulu, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Henrietta Thompson to Tun Shein and Lulu. Thompson thanks Tun Shein and Lulu for their hospitality and refers to a few details of her trip to Burma

Thompson Document 24: Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Tun Shein, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter from Henrietta Thompson to Tun Shein, in which Thompson discusses her upcoming visit to Burma. She mentions a number of Walkout participants in Burma whom she hopes to meet, and asks Tun Shein to help her by writing to them.

Thompson Document 03: Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Jack Belden, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

Henrietta Thompson's second letter to then-retired war correspondent Jack Belden (Henrietta had apparently received no answer to her first letter of inquiry). Belden had walked out of Burma with General Stilwell in 1942, and published Retreat with Stilwell in 1943. Thompson had obtained Belden’s address by sending a series of letters to his publisher, Harper & Row.

Thompson Document 23: Letter From Henrietta Thompson To Tun Shein And Lulu, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

A letter of introduction from Henrietta Thompson to two Walkout participants, Tun Shein and Lulu—who had since married and re-settled in Burma—proposing that she meet them in Burma in the summer of that year, 1972.

Thompson Document 05: Henrietta Thompson's Notes On Interviewing Jack Belden, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

Undated notes, written by Henrietta Thompson sometime after she interviewed Jack Belden in October 1972. Her attempts to put down the “essence” of Belden, and the prompt she assigns herself: “What do I know about Jack Belden now?” suggest that these notes were written not long after the interview, or at least were written in an effort to preserve her memories of the interview.

Thompson Document 06: Henrietta Thompson's Summary Of Jack Belden's Activities Before The Walkout, Henrietta Thompson

Henrietta Thompson Papers

Henrietta Thompson’s attempt to narrate a version of Jack Belden’s account in the third person. Her several thoughtful accounts of her interview with Belden seem to suggest the great importance Thompson attached to her meeting with the writer.