CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
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The Official History gives a break down of the Bowen Road casualties taken from tables which I compiled. The many patients, who had suffered severe wounds of the head, neck and spine, the chest, those who had suffered compound fractures, and penetrating wounds of the large joints and abdominal wounds can only have reached hospital as a result of the heavy and devoted work on the part of the Field Ambulance Companies.
Our defence of Hong Kong was therefore very costly in terms of casualties, and the medical services engaged in recovering the wounded achieved a degree of success of which all concerned can be proud.
RESPONSIBILITY WITHOUT POWER
Up to August 1942 my activities were recorded only in the case sheets of patients and the surgical records. Thereafter I kept a careful note of events.
I suppose I was chosen by the Japanese to take charge because of my seniority in the British Army, but up to then I had little contact with them and I can only conjecture now that they made enquiries of others and then decided on me. It was fortunate for me that my British seniority was undoubted, just as it was fortunate that the Japanese choice for the second in command never had to assume responsibility over the head of a more senior officer in the British army.
Having been "promoted" by Col. Simson to be lieutenant-colonel, before his departure he told me to take charge of the hospital. The Japanese order transmitted to me by Major Boxer was only that I should take charge and no clearer instructions were ever given. Looking back I seem to have slipped into a routine to meet the situation which existed. I operated my charge on simple lines. In all matters of importance affecting residents in the hospital, consultations took place between me and them. Sometimes this was achieved through formal committees, sometimes by personal chats with many individuals. In matters of internal discipline of course I retained my authority, though here again I tried to understand conditions and motives in the cases of individuals who had transgressed. I left the hospital only once between August 1942 and March 1945 and that was only to help a working party to unload from a lighter, patients coming from Kowloon. I had no say as to what patients came in; so far as discharges were concerned