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had no means of judging his intelligence. After the war Tokunaga was sentenced to be hanged by our War Crimes Court in Hong Kong in 1946, a sentence later commuted to life imprisonment and later still to 20 years in prison. I cannot speak for any of his actions as far as the P.O.W. camps were concerned, and I emphasise this. So far as our hospital was concerned I did not and do not consider that his conduct towards us merited a death sentence. Tokunaga, of course, was not a medical man.
A Japanese army doctor, Lieutenant Saito, was in immediate charge of the British Military Hospital throughout our captivity. He also had charge medically of the P.O.W. camps. He acquired an evil reputation among our troops in the camps, partly from what was reported to be his haphazard selection of patients to be sent to our hospital, a selection made from lists prepared by our own doctors when he often never saw the patients at all. In the hospital I found it impossible to establish any kind of durable understanding with him even on a professional plane. I never got to know the extent of his medical knowledge. When reports, oral or written, upon patients were made to him they seemed to be engulfed and to disappear leaving little or no trace. He must have paid some attention to some of the written reports for at times he required elucidation of a point that had been made.
Between August and December 1942 Saito made few appearances in the hospital; a typical sudden incursion was at nine p.m. on 9 September. He then demanded to see all our blind patients, all who had suffered amputations and all over sixty years of age. This done he wanted to go on and see sixty-eight others whom we had previously listed as unfit for service, either permanently or for a substantial period of time. As the visit was unannounced we had not got the case sheets and X-rays ready, and he and I vied with each other in proclaiming our readiness to wait for these and go on as long as necessary. In the end we restarted at seven a.m. next day and took seventy minutes to see fifty-eight patients. I got no inkling as to his decisions.
On 13 October I had my next encounter with Saito when he came to see our diphtheria patients, including one who had received a transfusion of blood taken from a recovered diphtheria patient. In reply to my question he told me that the diphtheria situation in Sham Shui Po was better, the disease being less severe and presenting as one case every two-four days. This account was totally different from that given by patients we had admitted recently from
CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
197
had no means of judging his intelligence. After the war Tokunaga was sentenced to be hanged by our War Crimes Court in Hong Kong in 1946, a sentence later commuted to life imprisonment and later still to 20 years in prison. I cannot speak for any of his actions as far as the P.O.W. camps were concerned, and I emphasise this. So far as our hospital was concerned I did not and do not consider that his conduct towards us merited a death sentence. Tokunaga, of course, was not a medical man.
A Japanese army doctor, Lieutenant Saito, was in immediate charge of the British Military Hospital throughout our captivity. He also had charge medically of the P.O.W. camps. He acquired an evil reputation among our troops in the camps, partly from what was reported to be his haphazard selection of patients to be sent to our hospital, a selection made from lists prepared by our own doctors when he often never saw the patients at all. In the hospital 1 fouud it impossible to establish any kind of durable understanding with him even on a professional plane. I never got to know the extent of his medical knowledge. When reports, oral or written, upon patients were made to him they seemed to be engulfed and to disappear leaving little or no trace. He must have paid some attention to some of the written reports for at times he required elucidation of a point that had been made. Between August and December 1942 Saito made few appearances in the hospital; a typical sudden incursion was at nine p.m. on 9 September. He then demand- ed to see all our blind patients, all who had suffered amputations and all over sixty years of age. This done he wanted to go on and see sixty-eight others whom we had previously listed as unfit for service, either permanently or for a substantial period of time. As the visit was unannounced we had not got the case sheets and X-rays ready, and he and I vied with each other in proclaiming our rea- diness to wait for these and go on as long as necessary. In the end we restarted at seven a.m. next day and took seventy minutes to see fifty-eight patients. I got no inkling as to his decisions.
On 13 October I had my next encounter with Saito when he came to see our diphtheria patients, including one who had received a transfusion of blood taken from a recovered diphtheria patient. In reply to my question he told me that the diphtheria situation in Sham Shui Po was better, the disease being less severe and presen- ting as one case every two-four days. This account was totally different from that given by patients we had admitted recently from
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