CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
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we had sudden night checks which would be carried out about midnight or one a.m.
One of the most disagreeable tasks in the hospital was that of the washing squad. We had to have a system of washing bed linen for those unfit to wash their own sheets. Most of the work was carried out on badly stained sheets which had come from the dysentery wards and which had to be washed in cold water. The four men under Corporal R. Thompson R.A.M.C. who did this work deserve unstinted praise, but it was not until December that I was able to buy a pair of rubber boots for the washing squad.
In the same month Seino gave me 25 grammes of nicotinic acid and all Canadians received ten yen each from home,
Patients and staff decorated the wards at Christmas time and it was remarkable what a gay effect was produced by the bright colours of a few empty cigarette packets. We had a little extra for Christmas dinner carefully hoarded for many weeks beforehand. We even had a concert on Hogmanay but I was glad to reach the end of 1942.
1943
Thirty years after the event it is possible to look back and see that 1943 was the turning point for the better in the affairs of the hospital and its inmates. It was less easy to discern this at the time.
We had known of the naval battles of the Coral Sea in May and Midway in June 1942. They were fought over four thousand miles from Hong Kong and seemed remote to us. The Japanese accounts claimed them as decisive victories, and it was not till the history of the campaigns became available long after the war that I saw these battles clearly as having imposed the first check on the Japanese advance in the Pacific. It would have been immensely encouraging to have known this at the time.
In 1943 we knew of the Russian successful defence of Stalingrad, we knew of the victory in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily and the fall of Mussolini. The placenames on the Russian front showed how that terrible campaign was going. We knew of the island battles in the Pacific; we knew of Guadalcanal; but all the Far East news published in the Hongkong News was presented to show the huge losses inflicted on the Americans by the Japanese defenders of positions which in the end remained safely in their hands. The impression conveyed was one of enormous American losses from
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Page 226
CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
217
we had sudden night checks which would be carried out about midnight or one a.m.
One of the most disagreeable tasks in the hospital was that of the washing squad. We had to have a system of washing bed linen for those unfit to wash their own sheets. Most of the work was carried out on badly stained sheets which had come from the dysen- tery wards and which had to be washed in cold water. The four men under Corporal R. Thompson R.A.M.C. who did this work deserve unstinted praise, but it was not until December that I was able to buy a pair of rubber boots for the washing squad.
In the same month Seino gave me 25 grammes of nicotinic acid and all Canadians received ten yen each from home,
Patients and staff decorated the wards at Christmas time and it was remarkable what a gay effect was produced by the bright colours of a few empty cigarette packets. We had a little extra for Christmas dinner carefully hoarded for many weeks beforehand. We even had a concert on Hogmanay but I was glad to reach the end of 1942.
1943
Thirty years after the event it is possible to look back and see that 1943 was the turning point for the better in the affairs of the hospital and its inmates. It was less easy to discern this at the time.
We had known of the naval battles of the Coral Sea in May and Midway in June 1942. They were fought over four thousand miles from Hong Kong and seemed remote to us. The Japanese accounts claimed them as decisive victories, and it was not till the history of the campaigns became available long after the war that I saw these battles clearly as having imposed the first check on the Japanose advance in the Pacific. It would have been immensely encouraging to have known this at the time.
In 1943 we knew of the Russian successful defence of Stalingrad, we knew of the victory in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily and the fall of Mussolini. The placenames on the Russian front showed how that terrible campaign was going. We knew of the island battles in the Pacific; we knew of Guadalcanal; but all the Far East news publshed in the Hongkong News was presented to show the huge losses inflicted on the Americans by the Japanese defenders of positions which in the end remained safely in their hands. The impression conveyed was one of enormous American losses from
Page 225Page 226
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