242
DONALD C. BOWIE
this feeling, but I still was troubled by a nagging fear of the dangers that closer American pressure and a final assault could bring for all prisoners in Japanese hands.
In 1945 the order to move to Kowloon was given to me by Saito on 6 March and the move itself took place on 23 March. The place first named as our destination was the Heep Yunn School and I learned of the change only on arrival in Kowloon.
Until we moved we continued to be short of ration wood, though we used a great deal of wood from floors in vacated buildings in the hospital with which to start our fires and often to maintain them. Early in January vegetable rations were short and many meals consisted of boiled rice only. On 26 January Seino began to store peanut oil in our boiler house, to protect it he said from incendiary bullets. We received 280 sacks of rice from a city godown followed in another day or two by another 60 sacks. Some of these sacks were taken into our store and some to the Japanese quarters, 200 were stacked in our casualty department for re-export. Altogether our men handled 400 sacks each weighing a nominal 100 kilos or about 40 tons over a few hours. They richly earned the small extra issue I arranged for them. Our men also had to carry 600 sacks of charcoal up the very steep steps to the old barrack room where it was stored, the doors being then locked. None of this charcoal was ever issued to us.
It was about now that I was allowed for the first time to take on our books a nominal 100 kilos sack at 96 kilos and this was lucky, for we were already issuing less than the authorised Japanese rice ration in order to avoid running out of our short-weight stocks. In fact over a recent period we had actually received 370 kilos of rice less than the weight we had to take on our books. When I told Seino about this he asked me not to lower our rice issues below our entitlement, and asked also that we should make up one sack a month. This advice was, I believe well intentioned but was much less realistic than I expected from Seino. Arising out of our talk on shortages one day Kochi, an interpreter, said that the Japanese had been very busy during December. That was certainly true for the Americans were making much progress in their invasion of the Philippines.
In January 1945 the system by which an amount of money was deducted by the Japanese from officers' monthly pay as savings was abandoned and so a lieutenant colonel, for example, got 160 yen in his pocket instead of 130. In the same month Seino gave me six dozen 11×14
242
DONALD C. BOWIE
this feeling, but I still was troubled by a nagging fear of the dangers that closer American pressure and a final assault could bring for all prisoners in Japanese hands.
In 1945 the order to move to Kowloon was given to me by Saito on 6 March and the move itself took place on 23 March. The place first named as our destination was the Heep Yunn School and I learned of the change only on arrival in Kowloon.
Until we moved we continued to be short of ration wood, though we used a great deal of wood from floors in vacated buildings in the hospital with which to start our fires and often to maintain them. Early in January vegetable rations were short and many meals consisted of boiled rice only. On 26 January Seino began to store peanut oil in our boiler house, to protect it he said from incendiary bullets. We received 280 sacks of rice from a city godown followed in another day or two by another 60 sacks. Some of these sacks were taken into our store and some to the Japanese quarters, 200 were stacked in our casualty department for re-export. Altogether our men handled 400 sacks each weighing a nominal 100 kilos or about 40 tons over a few hours. They richly earned the small extra issue I arranged for them. Our men also had to carry 600 sacks of charcoal up the very steep steps to the old barrack room where it was stored, the doors being then locked. None of this charcoal was ever issued to us. It was about now that I was allowed for the first time to take on our books a nominal 100 kilos sack at 96 kilos and this was lucky, for we were already issuing less than the authorised Japanese rice ration in order to avoid running out of our short-weight stocks. In fact over a recent period we had actually received 370 kilos of rice less than the weight we had to take on our books. When I told Seino about this he asked me not to lower our rice issues below our entitlement, and asked also that we should make up one sack a month. This advice was, I believe well intentioned but was much less realistic than I expected from Seino. Arising out of our talk on shortages one day Kochi, an interpreter, said that the Japanese had been very busy during December. That was certainly true for the Americans were making much progress in their invasion of the Philippines. In January 1945 the system by which an amount of money was deducted by the Japanese from officers' monthly pay as savings was abandoned and so a lieutenant colonel, for example, got 160 yen in his pocket instead of 130. In the same month Seino gave me six dozen 11×14
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