Word: prome
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Rich and poor alike, the passengers in Rangoon station were in a festive mood last week as they boarded the crack Prome Express, homeward bound to celebrate waso, a Buddhist holy season. Every seat in the expensive compartments was taken, and the railroad had hitched on extra cattle cars to accommodate hundreds of poorer men and women laden down with baskets of food. At outlying stations, scores of waso pilgrims climbed aboard, further packing the train...
Vain Hope. At 9:44 a.m. all was gay chatter aboard the Rangoon-Prome Express. At 9:45 an earth-shattering explosion, followed in quick succession by two more, picked up long sections of the track and shook the cars in the air like wet laundry. Gunfire poured from the trackside paddyfields and jungle as two cars of the train plowed into the disabled engine ahead. Other cars of the long train overturned in a nightmare of confusion, as tumbled, screaming passengers were impaled on splinters or crushed in the press of twisted steel...
Lost in the Jungle. By the time the patrol train returned with doctors and reinforcements, the Prome Express was a smoldering sepulcher for some 100 dead. Its only living passengers were 30 wounded, who lay close to death, and the still unharmed guards in the rear compartment. As doctors worked over the wounded in a makeshift roadside hospital, some of the hundreds lost in the jungle straggled back to tell of what had happened. But troops combing the countryside could find no trace of the Communist bandits, the loot they had grabbed, or the dozens of hostages they had taken...
Last week LIFE Correspondent Elmer Lower cabled from Rangoon: "Experienced foreign observers here say that the Burmese government has improved its position more during the past year than either they or the Burmans believed possible. With the elimination of the Karens in Toungoo and the Communists in Prome (TIME, June 5), the government's campaign approaches being 75% successful...
Things were looking up a bit in Burma. The government had driven both the two chief rebel forces, the Karens and the White Flag Communists, from their respective strongholds, Toungoo and Prome. Last week the government had one less foe in its many-sided civil war: the White Band PVOs (People's Volunteer Organization) surrendered. PVO Leader Bo La Yaung (whose name means "Officer Moonshine") talked with War Minister Bo Ne Win (whose name means "Officer Sunshine"), then ordered his 7,000 troops to "emerge from darkness and work in the light in a democratic way." Thus ended Burma...