Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.Army & Navy - OPERATIONS: Merrill's Mules
They arrived in Calcutta from Missouri, Texas and Tennessee—two shiploads of bewildered, seasick, lop-eared army mules. There was no time to train them for jungle warfare. Brigadier General Frank Merrill's Marauders loaded them with mortars, 755, ammunition, radio equipment, food, and started them off on a 700-mile trek to Myitkyina through the Burma jungles.
Few of Merrill's Marauders knew anything about handling mules. Several hundred unhappy G.I.s were pressed into service as muleskinners.
Colonel R. W. Mohri, theater veterinarian, advised: "A mule's every bit as intelligent as a human. To get along with him you need to have as much sense...
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