Evening star., 1948-06-27
By Jessie Font. Evons

A letter from Mrs. Marie L. Burch,
living in one of the Bible lands
"hot spots," has just been received
by Miss Katharine Corbett OF the
National Geographic Society's sec
retariat. Their friendship goes back
to World War I, when both trained
here for service with Military Intel
ligence. Mrs. Burch is the widow OF
Mai. Philip D. Burch, an officer with
the British 29th Lancers, whom she
accompanied to Egypt, Palestine
and other military outposts. Now
she is resident manager and hostess
for the Iraq Petroleum Co.. whose
parallel pipe lines extend $50 miles
across the desert to Haifa and, Ke-
kue, thence across the Euphrates to
Lebanon in Tripali. When Mrs.
Burch was visiting here year ago
she was interviewed by me.
After my return in September. y
she writes from Beirut, Il took up
my residence in the Security Zone
on Mount Carmel, but even there
the bullets and bombs were finding
their way in and life was anything
out pleasant From time to time l
mad to go out of the zone into the
mixed part of the town where shops
had only half a shutter, where
there was practically no one in
the streets but soldiers and where
snipers were at work from roof tops.
V~l,;oIo~ osf IL. VNQr
IN February the company de-
cided to leave Palestine except for
one department. Our Lands and
Legal Department set to work to
find Offices and housing for our peo-
pie; and did yeoman service in get
ting our stuff moved by boat, land
ing craft, plane and few long con-
voys by road. Apart from the
danger on the roads. cars and
trucks were being continually ap-
propriated, and as we had lost some
So cars and trucks, including a
brand-new ambulance, all taken
from us by both Jews and Arabs for
their armies, we moved what We
could by sea to Lebanon, the Stores
and Transport Department to
Beirut, and the main office to
Tripoli. 1t was gigantic under
taking.
ITO house the Stores and Trans
port Department and their families
as we'll as women and children, the
heads of whose families would
eventually be stationed in Tripoli
we took a large hotel at Beit-Mery
in Lebanon above Beirut, 1000 feet
up. IL is a tremendous place foI
these parts with 81 rooms. capable
of housing about $50 people. I was
posted to get it ready and manage
the place. (Although Mrs. Burch
makes no claims to linguistic ac-
complishments she admits some ia
cility with German, French and the
Arab and Berber dialectsD
AT the end of February I came
up with the head of my depart
ment, and together we called a staff
of some IS out of the hundreds who
came claiming we can do any
thing
thing"
Risky Trip On Ancient Road.
The place had to be ready in
exactly seven days Since I had to
bring some things back for immedi-
ate use l dashed back to Haifa by
air to finish up there, and came
back by car at considerable risk
(Risks are no novelty to Mrs
Burch for she came through the
bombings of Haifa in 1941D On
that dangerous Haifu-Acre-Ma-
kourah road I expected to have the
car taken from under me at any
minute. My Arab driver was both
ingenious and amusing. He went
haUless when passing through a
Jewish village. and put on his little
Arab skull cap when in Arab
territory"
The winding road referred to here
is one of the oldest and most famed
traffic arteries in world history, dat
ipp hook ta eor1v Old ToSt ment