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hostilities and in captivity was of the highest order and had an enormous effect in inspiring patients and male staff. I have recorded earlier the gloom that descended on Bowen Road when the army and navy nurses and all the women volunteers who backed them up were removed to civil internment in Stanley in August 1942; it was three years before we saw them again. Miss Dyson became deputy head of the Army Nursing Service in later years. Miss Franklin became head of the Naval Nursing Service and others reached high positions in the National Health Service. Others still assumed family responsibilities, so that the splendid qualities which showed so clearly in Hong Kong had not been extinguished by their dreadful experiences. I publish their names in an appendix but as I have no records I trust that any whose names are not included will forgive me.
CONCLUSION
The future does come "one day at a time". I hope that the method I have chosen to present this story, involving the recording of much detail will allow readers to form for themselves a picture of the uncertainties and conflicting influences which constantly beset us. The story is not a smooth one, nor were the events it describes but the patients and staff in the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong, bore what happened to them in a manner in which their corps, services and the Colony can take pride.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have read widely in the history of the Second World War and in the personal stories by many who had experience in the Far East. I have had discussions with Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke and Miss Gwendolene Colthorpe who was, till recently matron of St. Stephen's Hospital, Chelsea. The Misses Elaine and Helen Ho have been good enough to read the section dealing with the efforts of our friends in Hong Kong to help us. While none of those named has any responsibility for any of the opinions I express I am extremely grateful to them for their help. My wife typed the earlier drafts and without the spur that she applied and without her industry the story would never have been completed. I gladly acknowledge a deep debt to her. I am indebted to Miss Beryl Brown for much valuable advice and help on the production of this account, and to Miss Lorraine Robinson for the final typescript.
London, W.8. March 1975.