Lost for over 12 months
Some weeks ago two priests of St Columban’s dragged weary feet up to the Catholic church in Kunming, south-western China, finishing a trek that had begun 12 months earlier in the smoke of Burma’s battles, and had led them many a league through jungles and mountainous borderlands. Safe, free and anxious to get into missionary harness again, Fr William Kehoe and Fr Michael Kelly have got a message through from Kunming to St Colum-ban’s at home, their first message since the chaotic days of Spring, 1942, when Burma was ablaze.
Their story begins away back before the Pacific War. They were working in our Bhamo Prefecture, in northern Burma, when word came that the British authorities had interned the Italian priests who were staffing the Kengtung Prefecture to the south. Monsignor Usher was asked to lend priests to this and to another territory, similarly depleted. He lent Fr Kehoe and Fr Kelly to Kengtung: There they struggled to give at least the minimum service to a flock that had kept 15 priests busy.
Keeping things going
Their instructions were to return to their own missions of Bhamo, if the war should threaten to catch up with them. They waited in Kengtung, "keeping things going," until the last minute. When they left, the town had been bombed into ruins.
In the Jungle
They hurried north through the jungle, heading for Lashio, from which Bhamo should be fairly easy to reach. They were ahead - not far, but still ahead - of the advancing Japanese army, so they thought. In the jungle they encountered a Chinese force. They told the Chinese commanding officer where they were trying to go. He laughed. It was the only thing he could do. The Japanese had already reached positions ahead of them! To go to Lashio now was to walk right into trouble. The Chinese force was making a hurried withdrawal into China to avoid being completely cut off. The two priests ought to come with them.
They came
At the end of May (1942) they reached a Catholic mission somewhere along the border between China and Burma. Here they decided to stay, for the time being, and they said goodbye to their Chinese friend. For 10 months Fr Kelly and Fr Kehoe stayed with the French priest in that isolated mission. On January, 1943, their last Mass wine was used. They waited in hope and uncertainty until April, when they resolved to strike out on foot for distant Kunming, capital of the Chinese province of Yunnan.
300 miles on foot
Accompanied by two faithful Burmese parishioners, they walked for 22 days over steep mountain trails, sleeping and eating where they could, covering some 300 miles in that time.
That brought them up to the Chinese section of the famous Burma Road. There they were allowed to board a truck, on which they rode for three days, reaching Kunming about a year after their departure from the smoking ruins of Kengtung, Burma.
- Taken from The Far East,
January 1, 1944.
