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viously prepared note addressed to her mother which was successfully picked up. Her mother and two of her sisters then got to work on the Kempeitai, the formidable and feared gendarmerie, sometimes called the 'thought police' and somehow secured her release. When Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke was eventually interned in 1943 the work went on and Helen Ho continued to bring supplies to our hospital until our release. We had the privilege of welcoming her in person in the Central British School in August 1945, and expressing our thanks to her for her work whose value it is almost impossible to overestimate. Miss Ho was awarded the O.B.E. and after the war qualified in England as an almoner, the medical social worker of today. My wife and I have maintained friendship with Helen and her family ever since and I have had the privilege of calling on the family in Hong Kong in 1964.
Selwyn-Clarke was arrested by the gendarmerie on 2 May 1943, and his wife was interned in Stanley. A civil medical man had escaped from internment in Hong Kong in 1942 and this may have impaired Selwyn-Clarke's position with the Japanese to some extent. However this may be, conditions became very hard in 1942 for his subordinates who were still working to improve the health conditions generally. When some of these had been reduced to burning their own furniture for fuel and had been forbidden to draw funds from their banks a number sought permission to leave the Colony and seek a life in Chinese mainland villages. Selwyn-Clarke had power to sign recommendations for permission to leave in the case of those who had served directly under him before and during hostilities. He suspected that one man severely wounded during the fighting, in whose case he had very slightly stretched the facts in his certificate because of his deep sympathy with his plight, was detected and stopped by the Japanese on his way to China. He was intensively questioned and eventually broke down and gave the answers his questioners wanted, answers relating to Selwyn-Clarke's alleged spying activities which were quite untrue. Selwyn-Clarke was an upright man who would never break his word even to the Japanese occupiers and he told me subsequently that in the case of the certificate he gave to the man he suspects was immediately responsible for his arrest, this was the only occasion in his life that he had ever compromised on a matter of principle. This I accept. It shows the kind of man he was. Besides this incident which fired the train of events leading to his arrest he had of course
CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
193
viously prepared note addressed to her mother which was success- fully picked up. Her mother and two of her sisters then got to work on the Kempeitai, the formidable and feared gendarmerie, some- times called the 'thought police' and somehow secured her release. When Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke was eventually interned in 1943 the work went on and Helen Ho continued to bring supplies to our hospital until our release. We had the privilege of welcoming her in person in the Central British School in August 1945, and express- ing our thanks to her for her work whose value it is almost impos- sible to overestimate. Miss Ho was awarded the O.B.E. and after the war qualified in England as an almoner, the medical social worker of today. My wife and I have maintained friendship with Helen and her family ever since and I have had the privilege of calling on the family in Hong Kong in 1964.
Selwyn-Clarke was arrested by the gendarmerie on 2 May 1943, and his wife was interned in Stanley. A civil medical man had escaped from internment in Hong Kong in 1942 and this may have impaired Selwyn-Clarke's position with the Japanese to some extent. However this may be, conditions became very hard in 1942 for his subordinates who were still working to improve the health condi- tions generally. When some of these had been reduced to burning their own furniture for fuel and had been forbidden to draw funds from their banks a number sought permission to leave the Colony and seek a life in Chinese mainland villages. Selwyn-Clarke had power to sign recommendations for permission to leave in the case of those who had served directly under him before and during hostilities. He suspected that one man severely wounded during the fighting, in whose case he had very slightly stretched the facts in his certificate because of his deep sympathy with his plight, was detected and stopped by the Japanese on his way to China. He was intensively questioned and eventually broke down and gave the answers his questioners wanted, answers relating to Selwyn- Clarke's alleged spying activities which were quite untrue. Selwyn- Clarke was an upright man who would never break his word even to the Japanese occupiers and he told me subsequently that in the case of the certificate he gave to the man he suspects was imme- diately responsible for his arrest, this was the only occasion in his life that he had ever compromised on a matter of principle. This I accept. It shows the kind of man he was. Besides this incident which fired the train of events leading to his arrest he had of course
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