CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
241
in the operating theatre had about 15 hours in hand and all instruments except those in constant use were vaselined and stored in airy places. Typically, after all the fuss, mains electricity was restored on 10 September for two hours in the morning and one hour in the evening and we were again allowed to use our remaining generator. By 19 October our allowance of current for lighting was subjected to a further 40% cut and our power to an 80% cut. We now used the theatre on one day a week using our own generator, but the need for individual diets and surgical procedures had dropped very substantially. By 25 October all mains electricity was cut off and thence forward we used our small generator for short periods on Tuesdays and arranged our work to coincide with these periods.
During 1943 we heard regularly the sounds of American bombers passing overhead but Hong Kong itself was rarely attacked. In February 1944 came the raid after which we had to crop our hair short, and by August raids and alerts were frequent and I noted eleven in my diary for that month. In the hospital our air raid precautions worked well enough and no accidents occurred as a result of patients being hustled downstairs by guards in the pitch dark. As I could not influence the guards myself I tried to get our administrators to send someone down during air raids to help to calm the guards. No one ever came, though eventually we got a telephone line between the hospital and the Japanese administrative quarters which I could use when I wanted, though it proved to be of little practical value. During September and October raids and alerts by day and by night were frequent and there was a particularly heavy raid on 16 October. In November and December the alerts and raids continued and on Christmas Eve we had three raids between noon and seven o'clock, four on Christmas Day and three on Boxing Day and the spate of alerts continued till the end of the year. One raid occurred, as I have noted earlier during a Red Cross inspection on 22 December and there had been raids also on each of the preceding three days.
At 31 December 1944 our total ration strength in the hospital was 200 and my sketch of the events of the year illustrates the increasing pressures being brought to bear on the Japanese by the allies, mainly of course the Americans. In the hospital the general feeling by the end of the year was one of buoyancy since the evidence of an approaching end to the war was clear. I shared
CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
241
in the operating theatre had about 15 hours in hand and all instru- ments except those in constant use were vaselined and stored in airy places. Typically, after all the fuss, mains electricity was restored on 10 September for two hours in the morning and one hour in the evening and we were again allowed to use our remain- ing generator. By 19 October our allowance of current for lighting was subjected to a further 40% cut and our power to an 80% cut. We now used the theatre on one day a week using our own genera- tor, but the need for individual diets and surgical procedures had dropped very substantially. By 25 October all mains electricity was cut off and thence forward we used our small generator for short periods on Tuesdays and arranged our work to coincide with these periods.
During 1943 we heard regularly the sounds of American bomb- ers passing overhead but Hong Kong itself was rarely attacked. In February 1944 came the raid after which we had to crop our hair short, and by August raids and alerts were frequent and I noted eleven in my diary for that month. In the hospital our air raid precautions worked well enough and no accidents occurred as a result of patients being hustled downstairs by guards in the pitch dark. As I could not influence the guards myself I tried to get our administrators to send someone down during air raids to help to calm the guards. No one ever came, though eventually we got a telephone line between the hospital and the Japanese administrative quarters which I could use when I wanted, though it proved to be of little practical value. During September and October raids and alerts by day and by night were frequent and there was a particu- larly heavy raid on 16 October. In November and December the alerts and raids continued and on Christmas Eve we had three raids between noon and seven o'clock, four on Christmas Day and three on Boxing Day and the spate of alerts continued till the end of the year. One raid occurred, as I have noted earlier during a Red Cross inspection on 22 December and there had been raids also on each of the preceding three days.
At 31 December 1944 our total ration strength in the hospital was 200 and my sketch of the events of the year illustrates the increasing pressures being brought to bear on the Japanese by the allies, mainly of course the Americans. In the hospital the general feeling by the end of the year was one of buoyancy since the evidence of an approaching end to the war was clear. I shared
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.