Hugh Paul Seagrim (1909 to 1944) was a major in the British Indian Army, 19th Hyderabad Regiment, later with the 20th Burma Rifles. He stood about six feet four. In the Karen hills that height, and the fact that he was older than many of the men beside him, became a name: Grandfather Longlegs. English accounts sometimes say Daddy Long Legs. Both names point to the same man. Ian Morrison’s 1947 life is titled Grandfather Longlegs.
When the Japanese drove the British from Burma in 1942, Seagrim stayed with Karen irregulars. Force 136 later dropped wireless and agents to him. He led sabotage in the hills. Japanese reprisals against Karen villages were brutal. His party was hunted down. In March 1944 he gave himself up so that the killing of villagers would stop. He was taken to Rangoon. On 22 September 1944 he was executed with eight Karen companions. He asked that they be spared as men under orders. They chose to die with him. The George Cross was gazetted in 1946. His brother Derek had already been awarded the Victoria Cross. They are the only siblings to hold both crosses.
Karen veterans still gather at his grave. He is not claimed here as a founder of Mu Aye Pu. He belongs to the longer memory of the hills, and to the Force 136 alliance named on the history page. That wartime loyalty is part of why a Karen national claim was spoken so clearly in 1947 and 1949. It did not produce a state. It did produce a name the hills still keep.