THE INDIA GENERAL SERVICE MEDAL 1908 TO INSPECTOR (LATER SUPERINTENDENT, CHIEF OF POLICE AT TAVOY, SOUTH-EASTERN BURMA) HERBERT GORDON SNADDEN, BURMA POLICE, WHO WAS TAKEN PRISONER OF WAR AT TAVOY, BURMA, ON 19TH JANUARY 1942 FOLLOWING THE JAPANESE INVASION OF BURMA.
PRIOR TO BEING TAKEN PRISONER OF WAR, SNADDEN HAD EVACUATED HIS WIFE, THREE DAUGHTERS AND MOTHER IN LAW TO RANGOON, IN THE HOPE THAT THEY WOULD OBTAIN SEATS ON ONE OF THE PLANES EVACUATING CIVILIANS FOLLOWING THE JAPANESE INVASION. THE TWO WOMEN AND THREE YOUNG GIRLS FAILED TO OBTAIN A SEAT ON ANY OF THE DEPARTING AIRCRAFT, AND INSTEAD TOOK PART IN THE "DEATH MARCH" OUT OF BURMA, SNADDEN'S THREE DAUGHTERS AND MOTHER IN LAW DYING OF STARVATION AND DISEASE DURING THE MARCH AND HIS WIFE ONLY SURVIVING AS A RESULT OF HER BEING RESCUED AND CARED FOR BY LOCAL VILLAGERS WHEN SHE TOO FELL ILL.
India General Service Medal, 1908, 1 clasp, Burma 1930-32 (officially named, impressed in plain block capitals: INSP. H.G. SNADDEN, POLICE DEPT.). Attractively toned, Extremely Fine and with a somewhat distressed length of original ribbon.
Medal accompanied by biographical details and various copied research.
Herbert Gordon Snadden (1898-1968) was born in 1898 in Bago, Burma. Anglo-Burmese, he was the son of Walter Gordon Snadden and Mah Thu Daw.
The Snaddens were an old Scottish Burma family, members of various branches of the family settling in Burma during late and early 19th centuries.
Herbert Gordon Snadden was the grandson of Walter Snadden (1825-1854), who sailed for India from Leith in June 1842 aboard the "Elizabeth Jane", landing at Calcutta on 30/12/1842 en route for Moulmein, Burma. In Burma Walter Snadden established himself as an opium trader, a lucrative trade underpinned by the East India Company's monopoly of the highly profitable importation of opium into China, tensions over which with the Chinese government, who strenuously opposed the trade, had led to the Anglo-China "Opium" War of 1840-42. Walter Snadden had one son, Walter Snadden (1831-1937), Herbert Gordon Snadden's father, who joined the Burma police and is recorded in 1895 as being a District Superintendent of Police in Pegu and in the 1931 edition of Thacker's Directory as being the Superintendent of Police Supplies at Rangoon. Walter Gordon Snadden had four sons, all of whom joined the Burma police; Duncan Gray (1888-1947), William Gordon (1888-1954), Arthur Gordon (1893-?) and Herbert Gordon Snadden (1898-1968).
Snadden married Nora Florence Josephine Bennett (1899-1984) in Rangoon, Burma, on 9/7/1924. They had three daughters, Georgina, Peggy Pamela and Betty Jean.
When the Japanese invaded Burma in January 1942, Herbert Gordon Snadden was serving as Chief of Police in Tavoy, Burma. At that time, Tavoy had a population of 29,018, of whom 163 were Europeans or Anglo-Indians. Following the Japanese invasion, most of the Europeans and Anglo-Inians, including Herbert Snadden, evacuated their families to Rangoon. The official report of the evacuation of Burma in 1942 records Snadden as being one of three senior police officers who were still in Tavoy when the town fell to the Japanese on the morning of 19th January, those three officers all being taken prisoner of war and Snadden subsequently being interned for the duration of the war in Maymo, central Burma. Snadden evacuated his wife, three daughters and mother in law to Rangoon prior to the fall of Tavoy, but they missed getting on the last evacuation flight out of Rangoon. Their nephew, who managed to get a seat on the last plane out, later recounted that he remembered having seen the Snaddens at the airport, but couldn't get to them because of the crowds thronging the airport.
Snadden's mother in law and three daughters are recorded in the official Trek Out of Burma 1942 Casualty List as having died on the march, his mother in law of pneumonia on 10/6/1942, and his three daughters, Georgina, Peggy and Betty (age 15, 11 and 7 years old respectively) dying at Tagap Ga of dysentery and starvation during August 1942, the report of their deaths being submitted by Snadden's wife, who arrived safely in Calcutta on 25/11/1942.
After being released from captivity in 1945 Herbert Snadden remained in Burma but eventually sailed for England with his wife in 1956, sailing from Rangoon for Liverpool on the Salween, arriving on 26/12/1956. Herbert Snadden died in Camberwell, London, December 1968, at 70 years of age (probate 15/1/1969, London).
For further information regarding Superintendent Snadden and the Snadden family, see the archives of the Anglo-Burmese Library (www.angloburmeselibrary.com), the repository of several of the documents referred to above.
