For the last one year I am in search for reports on the Assam earthquake of

1943. Documents so far retrieved through painstaking internet browsing are

given below. I request the residents of Jorhat Nagaon, Tezpur and other places
in Upper Assam to mail me authenticated information on this earthquake. It will
be duly acknowledged. sujitgsi@gmail.com

Archive List > Diaries > 1941-1945 Eastern Travels

1941-1945 Eastern Travels Part 7 by Cecil John Callis
Article ID: A4428272
CHAPTER TEN

In May 1943 Ginger Ritchie and I were posted to a "Line of Communication"

Company based in Gauhati, entitled "R" L of C Signals. It was part of the only
communications and supply route stretching hundreds of miles from Bengal
to the Front Line Forces holding the central and Northern sectors of the
Assam-Burma border. ("202 Line of Communication Area")……………………

All supplies and reinforcements had to pass through Gauhati, it being a river
port and standing on the only road and rail route. This naturally kept "R" of L
and C Signals very busy…………. Our accommodation on first arrival was
under canvas, on the extensive lawn of a large bungalow that had been
taken over as Company Offices………. After a few weeks we moved to a
basha, with charpoy beds, spacious enough to accommodate all members of
the Maintenance Section. We occasionally went out for a meal at the only
cheap eating place, a Chinese restaurant, or to the cinema, which only rarely
showed an English film.

Whilst at Gauhati I succumbed to a bout of dysentery, which put me in

hospital for a week (perhaps too many mangoes!). For convalescence I went
to Shillong, a Rest centre up in the hills among the tea plantations. One
night I woke to find my bed rolling about like a boat at sea. A deep,
rumbling noise like thunder grew louder, enveloped the house, then
gradually faded away. It was similar to an underground train roaring
through below the house. It was a small earthquake, not violent
enough to cause any damage, but down the river valley it disturbed
over 100 miles of railway, buckling rails and shifting bridges, which
slowed up even more the leisurely pace of the Indian-run railway
system. Early in 1944 the Bengal and Assam Railways were taken over by
American Railway Battalions……………

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http://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/china-burma-india/misamari.htm
Information and photographs about Misamari
http://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/china-burma-india/morreale-1.htm
Charles Morreale at Misamari

In August of 2007, Charles Morreale Jr. wrote about his father experiencing the
earthquake at Misamari [26° 48′ 0″ North, 92° 36′ 0″ East], India. Charles Morreale Sr.
is now 88 years old.

The offices and barracks (or bashas as we called them) were of teak frame, infilled with
straw and plaster of some sort. Back in October of 1943 we had a very heavy
earthquake with lots of damage in neighboring communities; it was my first and I recall
heavy noise as the earth rumbled and the office building where I was on duty just shook all
over - hanging lamps swung widely and we all jumped through the windows and out onto
the runway. Luckily for us, we had no window glass—just wooden shutters which we
closed at times that the dust storms came—but these are other stories.

[Editor’s note: an earthquake rocked Assam, India about 11 p.m. on October 23, 1943].

The epicenter of the earthquake of 23rd October 1943 was possibly located near 26°N:
93°E. Origin time- 17h23m16s UTC [22h53m16s IST]; Magnitude Mw 7.1

I remember once saying "Well, that railway's been washed away by floods, put out by
bombing, swept away by landslides, closed by train wrecks; there's not much more that can
happen to it." But there was. We had an earthquake that buckled the rails and shifted
bridges over a hundred miles of it. – General Slim (Defeat into Victory IX p171)

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 VOL. II NO. 9 REG NO. L5015 DELHI, FRIDAY NOVEMBER 12, 1943

TAKES MORE THAN EARTHQUAKE TO

WAKE G.I. RIP VAN WINKLE
By Cpl. J. A. SULLIVAN

SOMEWHERE IN ASSAM - Up until the night of Oct. 23, 1943, Rip Van
Winkle was the only nationally-known figure who gained immortality for his ability to
sleep. Twenty years was the mark Rip set - admittedly a long time. But old Van Winkle
won his horizontal championship in a quiet country glade, with nothing to interrupt his
slumber. Also, admittedly, many G.I.'s could equal or better this record, given a quiet
country glade and non-interruption.

But here is a new phenomenon. In this corner, at 164 nasal exhilarations a minute, we
present T/4 Earl McKeenam, of Council Bluffs, Ia., and sometimes of Omaha, Neb.
McKeeman's claim to the sleeping title is brief, but indubitably impressive.

Not only did he sleep on while the ground rumbled and heaved beneath his bed, and the
old "shack" shook like the tail man on a conga line, but he continued to saw wood in the
ensuing uproar that followed a host of G.I.'s first experience with an earthquake.

Man yelled and words clashed against words:

"I thought it was an air raid," bawled a leather-lunged sergeant.
"I taut de woild was comin' to an end," screamed a Dodger fan.

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Added to the fierce vocal nonrestraint was the intermittent sound of bottles of "Fighter
Brand" bouncing on the concrete after being impulsively hurled out of various windows.
Later, regrets were audible as the throwers learned that it was really a phenomenon of
nature and not the discarded brew which caused the rumbling.

On slept McKeeman.

Everywhere men were cornering others to give them their impression of the quake.
"At first I thought it was someone driving a Mack truck through the barracks," was one
corporal's story.

Everybody wanted to tell everybody else what they did and what they thought when the
earth began to tremble and shake convulsively. But nobody gave two hoots in hell what
you thought or what you did. What they did mattered.

And still McKeeman slept on.

Finally, someone discovered Mac. Gad! What an opportunity. Here was someone who
hadn't heard anyone's version of the earthquake - and what's more, could not interrupt the
speaker with one of his own.

"Hey, Mac, wake up!"

Ah! If it were that simple. But Mac, who had slept through the earthquake, was not to
be aroused by anything so refined as the hoarse croak of an hysterical first sergeant's
voice.

To conserve space and avoid repetition of "Hey, Mac, wake up!" and the narrating of
how men took turns shaking Mac, bouncing the bed and swearing, we must come to the
point where Mac finally did wake up.

Whereupon, he berated the noisy hoodlums who had awakened him and, in a soft
undertone, invited them to kindly get to hell from out of his room.

And that is why we say McKeeman's claim to the sleeping title is impressive, why we
insist that Van Winkle must move over to make room for the new champ.

To what does the champ attribute his success? Says T/4 McKeeman: "I've been in India
just about two years now. That's enough to make anybody tired."

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AROUND THE WORLD BY WATER IN 34 MONTHS
By SSgt. William Jacoby

…………………….We continued on and arrived at Jorhat, India, 11 October1943.

I was assigned to shipping and receiving in the Air Corps supply section. While at
Jorhat we had English tents pitched on cement slabs for a floor. There were trenches dug
between the rows of tents. One night I just fell asleep and awoke thinking I was having a
nightmare. I called to one of the guys, Troop from Lancaster, PA and asked him if he was
awake. He answered and asked me what was going on. Our mess kits fell down on the
cement floor; our cots were bouncing and the floor rolling. We did not know what was
going on. There was a fellow from California sleeping on the opposite corner and when
he woke up he stated that we were having an earthquake. This was my first experience
with an earthquake. He yelled for us not to go to the trenches but to just stay where we
were. It lasted only a few minutes but it seemed like a long time. Mahatma Gandhi was
being held as a prisoner in the jail in Jorhat at that time. When we got a chance to go
to the town of Jorhat we saw the damage the earthquake had done to the brick buildings
and the wall at the prison.

PERSONAL STORY OF WILMUR M. McMILLAN

While at the station near Jorhat, an earthquake struck. The station was not damaged
and some of the men slept through it. I was having‘toddy’ with the tea planter in his
bungalow with the GI malaria control sergeant. We were sitting at the dining room table
with a kerosene lamp on the table. The three of us went across the verandah and out in
the yard. The lamp fell over but we were able to get the lamp upright before a fire
started. We wound up at the Planters Club where the bar was still open.

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www.heritagetourismindia.com/

Thengal Manor – the 72 year old mansion in Jorhat. Its name is written in the annals
of history because on 12th August 1935, the first daily newspaper in the Assamese
language, ‘Dainik Batori’ was launched from here.

Thengal House was constructed in the year 1929 by Rai Bahadur Siva Prasad Barooah. It
was meant to accommodate the two brothers, Siva Prasad Barooah and Sashi Prasad
Barooah and their families in the joint family set-up. At one time when both the brothers
with their families were living there, there used to be about 100 people for lunch and
dinner every day, including many people who came to stay as guests. In 1943, this
building was damaged by a severe earthquake when the house had to be abandoned
temporarily for repair. After repairing the building, the families started living in this
house till 1950 when the biggest earthquake so far in the North East damaged the
structure severely. The house was abandoned and the members of the two families
moved……..

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