1959-08-29 — Page 8

I

THE CHINA "MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 1959.77

LIBERATION

LANDED in Hongkong with the reoccupying forces on

DAY-1945 by DAVID JOHN

September 17, 1945, as a subaltern in 5th Indian Anti-Tank 2. Dinner

Battery, part of 3 Commando Brigade.

Our first task was to guard 14,000 Japanese soldiers

and sailors in Shamshuipo camp, then after about five months we moved to Fanling and set up two frontier posts.

I was in charge at Shataukok. During this period the Officer's Megg was the Governor's House and the IORs-lived- in the Club house. We left Hongkong for Java after about a

year.

So began the letter of David John, author of this special Liberation Day feature from faraway Wiltshire.

Here he presents a number of Liberation Day, snippets -fragments from the past as a poignant yet happy reminder of that great day fourteen years ago when the Colony of Hongkong was liberated from Japanese occupation.

1. Heroes'

Reception

rapine before we arrived? helmet in one hand and re- We crouched in the bows volver in the other. I leaped equipped in all our milltary onto ground that neither accoutrements: below decks pitched nor rolled. I fell

the drivers revved their over. engines for a quick deploy- ment.

Dance

When the Japanese forces occupied Hongkong not all the civiliana were interned: some found collaboration expedient One such, a British woman engaged to a young man, tak frequently to be teen riding with a high-ranking Japanese officer in his staff ear,

It would be unjust to say she became his mistreat, hoe ever, for amalt congeniona over food and fuel she had her uses on a number of, social occasions,

Everybody got out

their

handsome

3. The Sensible Fish

Тудя

In 1945 Harry wanted to visit his relations In Canton, The authorities didn't spare his face when he applied for a new passport.

4. All's Fair

Three carpenters were pro- duced from the camp. Yen. they could repair the canoca and make some more paddles like this one.

For 2 week we heard nothing. Then the head car penter cams bowing to us, The canoes were ready, would we honour him by observing hia craftsmanship?

"Business as usual!" the cry in certain quarters: #Asia

We had a damn good mean for the Aslans!* *. echoed the

Japanese oc in the early days: even the trell-stocked Navy patroniaod cuplers.

Wo strolled to the water's our bar. By omitting the edge. The boats lay there little abbreviation (Ind) on glistening with new paint.

Naafi indent to toere

7.`On Parade!'

1

9. Mutual Aid

We established a frontier post a mile or so short of Shatankok. The guard. was armed with a list of articles prohibited to be exported.

A fat Chinese man arrived in a large American car. It wan hot-and-he-sweated-ns they brought him to my hut. He shook me amlably by: the hand. It was great to Bee us, he Bald. It sure was great to see you Britishers again. I winced and enquired his business while he mopped his face.

Over a cup of ten he ex-

way quite frequently. Ho would like to bring eggs and -fish, for the soldiers-he knew what Army rations 'were' like, ' be laughed. - Of thought that his official rocket' wan delivered with a

course there would also be a twinkle in his eye and a touch gids. Painted taxi-dancers, for me, whenever I wanted A slessy joint Hongkong regular supply of chicken of sadness in his voice.

none, in fuct.

In Harry's Parlour the the menu was now printed in drawing beer for 180 Other. They had done a good job. Japanese. Officers, looking Ranks and spirits for fifteen The paddies lay in a bundle Lallors' duramies in acnior NCOs, as well de mur with the original beside them. like their tight uniforms bowed officers' rations, And Moslem Idly too picked them up for

Each inspection.

DIA an and hissed to each other troops don't drink!

Paradise didn't last, how exact replica of the original. across the luxurious restau-

One day the Naaf An exact replica doten to the plained that he travelled this rant. Small man with handy ever. The liberating forers ar legs and hairy hands "anager spotted my Punjabi bad warp in the wood. ranged dances in the Penin- perched at his bar it was the bag. Fortunately-my-Bat- driver and the cat was out of onia Hotel.

Joke in the Colony that

tery Commander pulled some long-uns finery and made Harry had to get higher strings. werry. The women, aleck and stools. well-groomed an ever swayed It was not correct, they in the

arms of a Withopt ceremony I was Captain of Marines.

said, that Officers of the

and American sailors helped to my feet by a Ar the music stopped her Imperial Japanese Army Was the harbour mined? friendly hand."

of British Com- couple ex-flance aliambled through the should dine at a restaurant

From the boot of his car We had wallowed across Would we run ashore with-

A careless word, came three crates of eggs The first words I heard crowded ballroom, Gaunt and owned by a British subject.

an insult and a blow. Soon and a nice plump bird ready the Pacific in a flat-bottomed out difcully? Grin-faced

a matter of face.

Gets were flying and elit drawn. With a wave of his LST. On September 17, 1945 and with certainly one very as I reached our objective alot in rage after years of It was

privation and imprisonment

Shamshuipo 1945. Four- skirts scampering for hand my amiable friend de- Hongkong hove in sight. hollow stomach we prepared were, "You come my place, hin voice lashed through, the Swiftly Harry took the hint.

LIN? What lay in store for

suh. Velly good food, all sudden silence, "How does it There was a small ceremony

Japanese cover.

parted. Would the Japanese garrison

hot. Plenty dlink. Plenty feet he said, "to be dancing followed by a banquet and

A week later the first of The fight or surrender? Would

Dark-sklaned Pun. wire. crunched dancing girls. Velly nice, with somebody, faller than saki. Harry publicly dis- safely tucked behind barbed

avowed his citizenship. they commit murder and ashore. Clutching my steel sah."

yourself?"

Jubia prowling the peri. seized the trumpeter's in his lorries come through my It was laden with meter just waiting for one strument and blew a rally post.

they goods for China-all on the of them to try and escape. ing call Quickly

We had a visitor, a young came, From the street, export Black List. We turn- the driver round and Portuguese boy who had cinemas, cafes, bars, and ed

houses commandos pointed him back towards been interned in this

very 'dosa

Kowloon, camp. Might he see his old answered the appeal.

Alas, we never received hut, he asked? He was pale

Swiftly the American any more eggs or chickens. and deeply affected.

sallors were engaged. They

for the worst.

hows

ARE THE GOSPELS REALLY TRUE?

-PART TWO

The riddle of Christ's lost

years

THIS, the Arab explained, was the deepest place on the earth's surface. Deeper even than Death Valley. A quarter of a mile below sea-level.

The sun blazed down, the stifling air hanging without movement over the rocks and dust.

From my table at what was called the Lido I looked out over the inletor blue water of Dead Sea,

Heavy

the

desert

most ot

everything but Man and God martyred Teacher of Rightemis they studied and laboured and ness. that they 'foreshadowed walled for Israel's salvation,

other Christian Ideas such as a The religious life of the sacred communion.

which the Scrolls reveal 1zles exactly with Further researches have dis-

proved

this, and the what is told about John Ure Essene explanation of Jesus's Baptist in the Gonpels. John's urgent tone, his call to interesting guess.

Just year? remains only эл repent, his expectation of the

"preparing the

Jurdan near Jericho, just before the river reaches the Dead Sea, The distance from Narozeth is about 70 miles. He makes this long journey to be baptised by a another problem-the problem organisation of the

preacher, a cousin of of the "One greater than Church.

with dissolved snit popular and potash, it kills lish and his, about his own age, It is himself whom he is so fiercely offers no welcome to human John the Baptist.

expecting? Was Jesus In the swimmers, who bob clumsily. John tsu stern prophet out unable to sink, salt-raked

days afterwards. above it. Sticky on the beach.

desert during his lost years?

This suggestion was made long

Support

by

GEOFFREY ASHE

5. Revenge

Leen thousand

mandos,

One of the Commandos

We found a surly Japan- put up a good battle bul 10. A Good

ese Major. The boy re one by one they were. cognised him and told me a knocked cold.

story:

In a dance hall ons even- The Commandos collected

100

Ear For Music

ing the Major arrived the bodies and lay them Richard, my brother oficer, with an armed escort. He with military precision side emsidered himself musical. requested a dance with a by side on the floor, bools He and I met a charming lovely young Portuguese just touching the wall. Chinese family and were in- girl. She refused. The Major Silently they left, the last vited to their house.

Their daughter, Betty, teas segregated the sexes, In- British soldier pausing only Ing the men up on one side to ring the Military Police. the most exquisitely beautiful

girl I have over and the women on the

scen. Her "There's been a bit of face was round and smooth, other.

trouble," he said. "There's her eyes long black ellipeca He made a speech, the

above Yank sailors here, which twinkled some

her fact, very usual thing about the super but they're UE,

bloody embroidered cheongsam. of the Japanese drunk to move.”

Demurely she was presented to us. Demurely she was per- and the might of

aladed to play. Softly aho explained that although aho had the score of the 'Warsaw Concerto' she had never heard it played. Would we be good Chatting to our Japanese enough to eriticise her.

She sat at the piano and I

aktin of the face. Some fell under covered that he had learnt watched her alabaster

English by studying art in, and delicate hands, convinced hla blows, some screamed, London and Paris for aeven that such tiny, pure instru-

Jewish Lority.

people

They take close to an ardent rellglous life which we can

confirm umply

from other documents. And in so doing Nippon. He said they need- they suggest at least a possible answer to the riddle of the great allence.

Walle I pondered in the un- | stared. Before passing on natural heat of that sunken to the next he slapped them

5

ed a lesson. He marched 8. The Painter

down the line of "girls. In front of each he stopped and

valley, my eye travelled to hard, twice, on both sides interpreter one day I dis

and

afteen minutes.

breathed

him

ments would never have the strength to play this highly emotional picca.

Saviour, even the phiuse, abou What the Scrolls undoubtedly

one way of the do, besides shedding light on

of the mountains, A scorched colossus of 1- siders all are John the Baptist, is to reveal echoes of the Qumran texts. Jewish thoughts About the relieved and ruthless rock on

rules One of these lexts refers to the proper

for governing the west side.

most sfood bravely silent. actual rite of baptism as John religious

years before the war. societies

These thoughts apree very closely with

It

I told WIR the Mount of the

the boy I had performed i

Quickly in The Temptation, a silent reminder business

wen found The Now

the orderly Testament. John the Baptist is therefore

that the baptism by John was thoroughly

But organisation of the Dead Sea convincing,

room. I would be back in canvas, brushes and paint. I heard Richard draw in his

Heavily guarded ho really is like the not en end but a beginning. have

We the key here to community

was breath with artistic apprecia how The Gospels describe carly

escorted from the P... tion and he later told me that Jesus turned from the river.

The following day the Camp and set up in a suitable her walked

Jericho, past

rendering ASCER quite climbed by perilous and vanish-Major was admitted to hos position.

amazing. I was watching the ing trackwnys Into the desertpital suffering from multi- The man was a genius. His napo of her neck as she bent above. There for 40 days he ple lacerations and bruises, pictures

life.. over the keys. fasted. There also, we are toki, before the Semils were dis- So the Gospels, and the other he sustained a conflict of wills

When she finished Richard New Testament books that go with Satan, the lost Archangel,

into

round of It has always been known in with them; have found fresh the Adversary of God.

oriental eye for delicacy and enthusiastic applause. He was a vague way that settlements support.

detail. Was this journey an explora-

Soon the cacort was on his feet. This was wonder- tion of new ground? Or did he

forgotten and our artist given full He began to talk excitedly go 10 a place already known

a truck and driver to take him to Betty, leaning over her from experience, where the fe

wherever he liked.

shoulder, while she hung on medllation and prayer had

We hung the pictures in the his avery word. become habitual?

Just of Shamahnipo tee mess and when the Battery -(London Express Service).

Sadly I left them and foined found some canoes that the finally left they were shared our hostess on the sofa. I'm Japs had used. Now they out between us. I wonder if afraid I made paar conversa- were mostly broken and there that gentle Japancee artist is tion. I was too busy asking i was only on paddle, badly still painting his pleasing myself, why, why was not

warped.

ando about of the desert. He has been

itching ::cl

for calling on the Jews to repent Fuires hover and confess their sins. At the covered. ripples crawl some time he claims the or nothing for himes. He Is The Dead Sea 114 the simply a forerunner, "the voice southern end Ezt a monstrous of one crying in the wilderness, erock in the earth's crust.

Prepare y the way of the From Gallice, away to the Lord." north, the green Jordan wanders

1 mceling with the Saviour through this crack past tropical is to be the climax and the vegetation palms,

Where, why?

oranges, close of his mission. bananas. Then it loses itself in the Dead Sea, under the barren silence of the brown ranges on One of these is the either side.

ol ramport

the wilderness.

wondered if that silence held the clue to anoiler silence, perhaps the strangest in his- tory.

have

turn

did exist near the Dead Sea. They portray John the Bap- The Jewish historian Josephus stand he has turned out, to mentions sect of "Esacnes,"

be entirely believable as a figure and some Enve argued that from the desert.

Ilved and Jesus must

They portray the early studied in an Essene community. Church and its rules

The authors of the Scrolls out have been largely fore- belonged, perhaps, to this sect. shndowed in that same desert., Certainly the Essenes lived a They use phrases, and quote communal life. They observed texts which are in the Deed Sca a strict form of the Jewish volumes as well.

eating no meat. faith,

They were sold to be very learned,

As I took in the scene, Fist chapter of Lulte. John has Many were doctors and mind-

But the most important inter- Juducun mation

is at the end of the been dwelling in the desert for years, ever since boyhood.

Where, how, why?

The writers.of the Gospels say nothing whatsoever of Jesus between the age of 12 and 30.

Amazing gap

Thai gap is so amazing, I think we must count it us o point in their favour. If they were making their story up they would surely have thought something to put in.

of

healers.

►

The cure

The desert is the desert of castern Judaea. It is a plateau spreading toward the Dead Sea,

there into Tantalisingly little was ever breaking here and valleys that drop; away through put on record, and the Essenes

have a fascination the rocks to the water's edge.

for many

And we know now how who have tried to find out the thoroughly Jolin belongs in truth, There are still men who this place. He is bol a lonely, profess to carry on the tradition. mysterious fanalle. Ho s Few people know that the Into a selling-ike setting of lato Sir Stafford Cripps, the

Socialist the Dead Sea Scrolls. Retrieved by a near-miracle "austerity" vegolarian from crannies In the rock at

They contain

Government's

Chancellor, was G

of himself becauso

But we must still ask whether Qumran, used by Bedouins to Essene teaching. the silence can be made to look mend sandals, forn apart and Before the war he almost had plausible. If the Gospels leave jigsawed together, speli 'out by to give up his career owing to an unexplained blank, it becomes electronic machines, the Scrolls -henith. Then u friend re- a question of whether the men are part of a library that opens commended ນ doelor named who wrote them know their jub, a door mi the Jewish religious Szekely, who prescribed a new

All kinds of thearles have mind of that age.

diet. This brought a rapid and been put forward to account for They are a bridge between mysterious cure.

A journey to the Testaments. those lost years,

I have met one of Szekely's India has been suggested. There boles of Scripture, poems, co-workers, and read some of is even a well-known legend prophocles, and detailed rules his books. The doctor, violms which brings Jesus to Britain, for a group of Jewish manks to be using Esseño secrets where he is said to have visited who sought to break away from. taken from Titute-known docu- Cornwall and lived in Somerset, the corruption of the time. - ments of the sect. Me hns

A mare plausible idea is that. These monks -founded a co- scored interesting successes. the lost years were portly spent operative, selfiement on the edge

Rightly or wrongly, Szekely in a kind of manaulery" ur of the desert.

Is convinced that he has the hermit-community in Palestina, At the beginning of the Chris elue to the Gospels. In hi withdrawn from the world.

tian era there were several of book The Origin of Christianity, Without jumping to any con- these Dead Sea Eroups, with he

argues that JesuLE chisions, let us consider how monks working together, and actually head of the Essence. · Jegun makes his entry when, be hermits and other holy men When the first Dead Sca Scrolls wore deciphered, it

does of last reappear, and who loosely attachest, *

Was

is the first person whom he weke They chose that weird soli- loolted for a while as if they

out,

tude on purpose. For from were powerfully in favour of

He has been at his family everyday walks of ile and com- auch.

ཉི་

ballet. Scholars

homb in Nasareth, - visiting at mon concerns, under ́s fearful, announced that... they ичето loset, if not living there. From uncompromising light that Easene.

soriptures, that they

thero ho comes to the bank of the seemed to burn, away almost spoke of a Son of God and, a

33f

FOUR D. JONES

NEXT WEEK

A translator mákos an astonishing discovery

FALSE FRET MATE!! FALSIĘG!"

FALSE

RUDOY FIRUTYURD

"NUTS!

OTAK

AAID LOOK!!

HE'S TELLIN THE

TRUSH, SHRINK FASTE FOR SWOLLEN PARTY Bay!-WOUT A EMR WHAT A FIND

FINCH-YOU OLD VILLAN

BRICK BRADFORD

ILL LOOK INSIDE, PAMI MAYBE WE CAN GET THE RADIO

TO WORK.....

US CAREPRINT BRICKÝ I THINKC THERS WAS MORS THAN ONE PERSON):

HERE AT ONE TIME

YOU JOHOW.

THIS HATCH IS LOCKED FROM

THE INSIDE!

like, but a girl's honour had scones he painted with an burat

Rough justice If you Cunningly he infused the

been avenged.

6. A Fair Copy

TIMAY INTRUDE

VORT ABOUT THE RUDDY FOOT CURE? REALLY IN GETINGO IMPATENT:

1 GOULD WEED

'n'S GOT TO BE MENGO WITH

WATER, MATE

JUST YOU

HANG ON

A TKHAND

THERE ARE OTHERS...IF IT'S LOCKED, IT

MBAND BOMBONG IS INSIDE!

BY THE WAY JONES, DO YOU

landscapes

WE BACUZAT 17

by MADDOCKS

WITH THE OTHERS HOOPY,

GEILL MAKET "KUR) MISTAKE...

BLACK DISC

I GET IT! THERE AUST HAVE BEEN TWO MENJ

THEY QUARRELEZ PROBABLY OVER

RATIONS.

It's

By Paul Norris

"TOP!!

ONE TOOK REFUGE

IN THE TANK THE OTHER WAS LEFT TO ROAMI BUT

WHY DIDN'T THE ONE INSIDE HEAR THE CRASH OF THIS IKARÍ

mulisical?

NEW

Lady Sheaffer

"SKRIPTORT" FOUNTAIN PEL

Never before-a foustalo PEA SO ŠEpres juur persons) taula in Dew Jewelry, Burne gove near an ink baitis...

used drop-in cartridges of Skrip welling Buid.

Krin Apertie UNITEN PAPER BOULTR

San Miguel

Glves that

extra lift: