222
DONALD C. BOWIE
Four times during the year the Japanese gave us supplies of soles, heels, nails, hobs etc. for repairing boots and three times we got issues of khaki and white cloth, thread etc. for mending clothes. As an example of quantities, on 19 June we received 15 yards khaki cloth, 11 yards white cloth, 5 packets sewing needles, 2 sewing machine needles, 3 reels white cotton, 3 large reels white thread and 13 large reels of khaki thread, one of these being extra large, 50 sets half-soles, 476 pieces heels, 9 lb hob-nails, 74 lb protectors and 5 lb nails.
Religious services were held in the recreation room twice each Sunday and were conducted by Mr. Squires. The form of service was such that men who belonged to churches other than the Church of England could attend and the turn-out to morning service was usually good, resembling in a way a village congregation at home. Mr. Squires was hard put to it to produce wine for communion but kept up his supply by a variety of bought or ingeniously concocted liquors. In March we managed a Roman Catholic service conducted by Father Deloughry, a Canadian who was a patient at the time, but this represented nearly our only success for members of this church.
Ever since hostilities we had had a number of patients who had been blinded or had suffered amputations while others who were over the age of 60 were likewise unfit for further service. In the latter cases I recall that if being over 60 barred a man from fighting, then one of the bravest and most stubborn resistances of our little war, carried out by senior members of the Hong Kong Volunteers would never have happened. So in April 1943 twenty-eight of our patients in the classes named were discharged to P.O.W. camps and I think that all left us quite ready for a change to new surroundings.
Towards the end of the year we were examining how we could discharge to P.O.W. camps, without risk to themselves, those patients whose eyesight had been seriously affected by deficiency diseases. We decided that if these patients were in satisfactory physical state otherwise, and if we could ensure that they would get 8 mgm thiamine by injections every second day in camp, we could retain specialist control if we could get them returned to us at regular intervals for assessment of their progress. We were encouraged to believe that this was a realisable objective because three officers from Kowloon had been sent over earlier in the year for ophthalmic examination and one of these was admitted at
222
DONALD C. BOWIE
Four times during the year the Japanese gave us supplies of soles, heels, nails, hobs etc. for repairing boots and three times we got issues of khaki and white cloth, thread etc. for mending clothes. As an example of quantities, on 19 June we received 15 yards khaki cloth, 11 yards white cloth, 5 packets sewing needles, 2 sew- ing machine needles, 3 reels white cotton, 3 large reels white thread and 13 large reels of khaki thread, one of these being extra large, 50 sets half-soles, 476 pieces heels, 9 lb hob-nails, 74 lb protectors and 5 lb nails.
Religious services were held in the recreation room twice each Sunday and were conducted by Mr. Squires. The form of service was such that men who belonged to churches other than the Church of England could attend and the turn-out to morning service was usually good, resembling in a way a village congregation at home, Mr. Squires was hard put to it to produce wine for communion but kept up his supply by a variety of bought or ingeniously concocted liquors. In March we managed a Roman Catholic service conducted by Father Deloughry, a Canadian who was a patient at the time, but this represented nearly our only success for members of this church.
Ever since hostilities we had had a number of patients who had been blinded or had suffered amputations while others who were over the age of 60 were likewise unfit for further service. In the latter cases I recall that if being over 60 barred a man from fighting, then one of the bravest and most stubborn resistances of our little war, carried out by senior members of the Hong Kong Volunteers would never have happened. So in April 1943 twenty eight of our patients in the classes named were discharged to P.O.W. camps and I think that all left us quite ready for a change to new surroundings.
Towards the end of the year we were examining how we could discharge to P.O.W. camps, without risk to themselves, those patients whose eyesight had been seriously affected by deficiency diseases. We decided that if these patients were in satisfactory physical state otherwise, and if we could ensure that they would get 8 mgm thiamine by injections evey second day in camp, we could retain specialist control if we could get them returned to us at regular intervals for assessment of their progress. We were en- couraged to believe that this was a realisable objective because three officers from Kowloon had been sent over earlier in the year for ophthalmic examination and one of these was admitted at
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.