BOOK REVIEWS
309
Jean Gittens' medical background equips her well for the task. She takes us through the trials of the internees in equipping the camp, the gradual adaptation of the Peak dwellers to their uncomfortable surroundings, domestic arrangements and the organising of lectures and drama to the eking out of meagre rations and the gradual mental and physical deterioration of inmates despite both the sterling efforts of medical personnel and the notable courage of friends outside the camp. All described in such a matter-of-fact way that their full horror registers only slowly. For Jean, freedom when it came was to bring another blow; her husband, Billy, had not survived.
Andy Leiper and his wife did not arrive in Hong Kong until mid-1939. He trained with the Volunteers, but, as one of the managers of the Chartered Bank, was required by the authorities to stay at his post to keep the bank running for as long as possible. He recounts in remarkable detail how the bank continued to deal with hordes of depositors right up to the final surrender while, at the same time, coping with refugee families and the occasional bombing raid. By day he was a banker; by night he helped out with the Volunteers, anxious all the while for his brave wife, who had refused to leave Hong Kong, preferring to work with other volunteers in the hospital.
Together with other bankers, Leiper and his wife were lodged initially in a Wanchai brothel, commandeered by the Japanese, and required to work with the occupying forces in the liquidation of the banks. This continued until June 1943 when they were finally transferred to Stanley: "The fresh air and the sunshine were an indescribable joy and more than compensated for the shorter rations." Then, in January 1944, he was arrested along with several other bankers, and thrown into solitary confinement. There he was subject to constant brutality and intermittent torture at the hands of the Kempetai. Small wonder that, on return to Stanley at the end of the war, the mere sight of a hungry Japanese guard in the doorway of his room was sufficient to send him into screaming delirium.
In dealing with two very personal accounts of such harrowing experiences, comparisons can be invidious, but of the two, I much prefer Leiper's book. For all its wealth of detail, “Stanley:
BOOK REVIEWS
309
Jean Gittens' medical background equips her well for the task. She takes us through the trials of the internees in equipping the camp, the gradual adaption of the Peak dwellers to their un- comfortable surroundings, domestic arrangements and the organising of lectures and drama to the eking out of meagre rations and the gradual mental and physical deterioration of inmates despite both the sterling efforts of medical personnel and the notable courage of friends outside the camp. All described in such a matter-of-fact way that their full horror registers only slowly. For Jean, freedom when it came was to bring another blow; her husband, Billy, had not survived.
Andy Leiper and his wife did not arrive in Hong Kong until mid-1939. He trained with the Volunteers, but, as one of the managers of the Chartered Bank, was required by the authorities to stay at his post to keep the bank running for as long as possible. He recounts in remarkable detail how the bank continued to deal with hordes of depositors right up to the final surrender while, at the same time, coping with refugee families and the occasional bombing raid. By day he was a banker; by night he helped out with the Volunteers, anxious all the while for his brave wife, who had refused to leave Hong Kong, preferring to work with other volunteers in the hospital.
Together with other bankers, Leiper and his wife were lodged initially in a Wanchai brothel, commandeered by the Japanese, and required to work with the occupying forces in the liquidation of the banks. This continued until June 1943 when they were finally transferred to Stanley: "The fresh air and the sunshine were an indescribable joy and more than compensated for the shorter rations." Then, in January 1944, he was arrested along with several other bankers, and thrown into solitary confinement. There he was subject to constant brutality and intermittent torture at the hands of the Kempetai. Small wonder that, on retum to Stanley at the end of the war, the mere sight of a hungry Japanese guard in the doorway of his room was sufficient to send him into screaming delirium.
In dealing with two very personal accounts of such harrowing experiences, comparisons can be invidious, but of the two, I much prefer Leiper's book. For all its wealth of detail, “Stanley:
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