[ { "id": 206105, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTHE J.O.P. BLAND PAPERS\n\nIntroduction\n\nOne day in September 1967, I received, quite out of the blue, a letter from my former commanding officer during the Second World War, Michael St. J. Packe, to say that he had been entrusted with J.O.P. Bland's private papers, with instructions \"to find a good home for them,\" and asking me whether I would like to have them. Before going further, let me explain that Mr. Packe is himself a historian and wrote an excellent biography of J. S. Mill.* We have kept in touch intermittently since we were demobilized from the First Airborne Division (British) at the end of the war, and I have been to visit him at his home on Alderney. This is the really fantastic part of this chain of coincidences. Here was Mr. Packe, living and writing on the little island of Alderney in the Channel Islands while a near neighbour of his was Mrs. Dolores Coombs, an old friend of the Bland family, who had often visited them at their home at Aldburgh in Suffolk. Bland himself died in 1945 and Mrs. Bland in 1953. His private papers were entrusted to his goddaughter, Miss Ailsa Cochrane, who was to act as his literary executor and to try, if possible, to complete the memoirs which he had begun before his death, and to have them published. Before she could achieve much Miss Cochrane became ill and in 1955 her brother sent these papers to Mrs. Coombs who, in turn, was to act as literary executor. Meanwhile Bland's books on China had been given to Trinity College, Dublin. However, a list of these books, preserved among his papers, shows that they amounted to a modest collection without containing anything rare.\n\nSometime in 1966 Mrs. Coombs was forced by illness to leave Alderney, and it was at this point that she entrusted her friend and neighbour, Michael Packe, with the task of finding a home for these papers. Thus for a period of over twenty years Bland's private papers disappeared from view while two successive literary executors struggled with the task of trying to complete and publish his memoirs. Bland himself, to judge from his instructions to his\n\n* The Life of John Stuart Mill (London: 1954).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208625, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n55\n\nexpected at any minute, especially when we passed a level spot of ground, to be ordered to turn around and face a firing squad. Half way down our driveway a plane was heard overhead and our guards herded us over to the bank at the side of the road so as to be out of sight of the aviator. Here, while waiting for the plane to disappear, our guards noticed two watches. Mine was one and its small chain was dangling from my pocket. The guard came over, pulled out the watch, looked at it, hesitated (for it was not a wrist watch and they were more in demand) and then deciding it might do, yanked it free from its clasp and resumed his post.\n\nThe plane by this time having disappeared, the guards marshalled us in line again and off we started, wondering where we were bound for and what was going to happen to us. Some thought we were going to be taken to Repulse Bay for internment, but as we got to the foot of our hill we turned not left, but right, towards Stanley Village, but instead of continuing on we were routed up a small driveway which led to an unused road just behind the Carmelite Convent. As we passed an open space where a number of soldiers were standing, I again thought of a firing squad, but we kept marching on until turning up another bypath, we were told to halt. This dead end of the road had been cut out of the hill and we were thus pretty well protected from flying bullets, for the fighting was still going on, at least sporadically.\n\nHere we noticed a higher ranking officer than we had hitherto seen, and he had with him a portable radio or telephone set, probably the latter as wires were in evidence along the ground. We were ordered to sit or squat down—it was most awkward to sit and to rise with our hands tied behind our backs, but we had to do so again and again. The officer then, using a very few English words, questioned us. We tried to make him understand that we were \"church\" people, and though puzzled he finally seemed to grasp the significance of this word. After making us sit and rise repeatedly to indicate our nationality—there were in our ranks Americans, British, Canadian, Irish, Polish and Russian, for in addition to us Maryknollers, there were Bishop O'Gara, and Father Charles Murphy, Canadians; Mr. Brown previously mentioned, British (or rather Australian); Brother Bernard the Salesian, Irish; Father Szeliga, Salesian, Polish and a Russian, whom we called Michael, who also had been in the employ of the British. Incidentally, Father", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208626, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "56\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nSzeliga and Michael were not tied up, being I supposed considered neutrals. As we were being questioned back and forth—the Japanese being evidently very much puzzled by our motley group—our passports were demanded, and after being examined were thrown on the ground in front of us.\n\nDuring all this questioning the battle was going on, and now and then we heard the whistle of a rifle bullet just over our heads, probably coming from the British defenders on the hill just below the fort (for the Japanese were now concerned with an assault on this last bastion). Also to our left in front of a Chinese house a Japanese field piece was barking intermittently and we could see soldiers keeping in the lee of the walls as they passed by from position to position. Also, as we were being questioned, we saw Lt. Lawrence and his three brother officers who had been with us led past and down a little declivity towards the Convent wall. As he passed Lt. Lawrence whispered: \"I'm sorry for any trouble I've caused you” and disappeared around the corner of the embankment. Shortly after, we heard shouts and screams. The four officers had been untied amid a cordon of fixed bayonets and I distinctly saw one, a young fellow, run toward us, only to have Japanese soldiers point a bayonet at his stomach and the poor fellow turned and ran back, with a look of agony in his eyes. It was all over within a few seconds, and just in front of me I saw a Japanese stoop down, pick up a little grass, and coolly wipe off the point of his bayonet.\n\nLater we learned from Chris Wong, our office clerk, that he and some of our servants had been compelled to dig a trench and bury the bodies of these brave fellows. They also buried other bodies of Canadian and British soldiers who fell on our property. The question in our minds was, were we destined to a like fate? Brother Thaddeus, who knew a little of the Japanese language, heard the soldiers say: \"Kill them! Kill them! They are soldiers in disguise!\" But he did not convey that knowledge to us at the moment.\n\nFinally, after about a half an hour or so, we were ordered to stand up and were led away, this time retracing our own tracks and ending up in a garage at the rear of a Chinese house just below our own hill. Here we were herded like cattle in a pen and once inside, with the sliding doors closed, I think we felt like a herd of cattle. It was intended for two cars, but for some time apparently it had been used merely as a gardener's storehouse, for scattered around", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208628, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "58\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nand he helped others to loosen theirs, at least to some extent. Some, though, spent the whole night with hands tied, but how they managed I do not know. Later the marks on their hands showed for weeks.\n\nTo cap it all, poor Father Bauer still had dysentery, and Father Madison also developed a similar malady. Well, we used the water jar, which so fortunately had been left in the garage. Thus passed our first night in the garage—the Christmas night of 1941.\n\nAltogether we were thirty-four—a Bishop, a Salesian Seminarian, Brother Bernard, two laymen, Mr. Brown and Michael, and Fathers Benson and Norris, C. P., Szeliga, the Polish Salesian, Toomey, Troesch, Meyer, Downs, Keelan, Quinn, Bauer, Reardon, Callan, Allie, Madison, Gaiero, Siebert, McKeirnan, Walter, Moore, O'Connell, Tackney, Knotek, O'Connor, C. M., Charles Murphy, from Scarboro Bluffs, Canada, and our Brothers Michael, Anselm, Lawrence, Thaddeus and William.\n\nDawn finally came, and we welcomed the new day. Fortunately for us the weather was mild, and despite the fact that all except Father Szeliga slept without their cassocks, and some just in trousers and underwear, we felt no ill effects, except a natural stiffness in our joints and bones from the hard floor. The ominous silence of the preceding night continued, and we began to wonder if in reality the war was over or what was brewing. Later we learned that an armistice had been agreed upon about five o'clock Christmas afternoon, though at Stanley sporadic fighting continued until around seven, when the few men still defending the prison surrendered. On receiving telephonic instructions from Hong Kong the big guns at the Fort also ceased firing and the Fort was soon in Japanese hands.\n\nAs the morning wore on we began to think of food and drink since we had nothing in our stomachs since eleven o'clock the preceding day, but nothing seemed to be forthcoming. The sentry peeked in from time to time, and whenever he did so we always managed to turn our faces towards him and slip our hands back into their nooses. About ten o'clock we tried to make signs to the sentry that we were hungry and thirsty but to no avail. Finally, after repeated representations and the offering of a very valuable wrist watch by Father Toomey, the sentry handed in through the crack in the door, his canteen which was about half full of water.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208652, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "82 \n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS \n\ntake over the civil administration. News has seeped into the Camp that Bishop Paschang, with Fathers Paulhus, Jim Smith, North, together with Sisters Patricia Coughlin and Beatrice Meyer are in Macao, having been deported by the Japanese from Kongmoon. \n\n22-Sunday and, Washington's Birthday. Father Norris, C. P., the day's preacher. At one o'clock a party for children is arranged, but for Americans only. The Camp cook comes across with a cup of coffee, two doughnuts and some popcorn for all, adult Americans included. At three p.m. at St. Stephen's, Stations of the Cross and Benediction with a sermon by Bishop O'Gara. In the evening at 6, Fathers Quinn and Madison direct the songfest. Warmer weather. For some days now, Brother Thaddeus has had his eagle eye on two pigeons which have been roosting on our roof and tonight he manages to catch one with its eyes shut. As a result, the members of his room, No. 9 no less (the unlucky number in China), had a cup of pigeon soup apiece. Incidentally, there are seven in Room 9. \n\n23-The Maryknoll Sisters finally move from their temporary quarters to the American Block. Maryknollers help carry baggage, and to secure a few iron cots from the Hospital. The Sisters now have three rooms on the ground floor and one room on the third floor of Block A-3. \n\n24-As previously mentioned, the British Government had built in various parts of the island a considerable number of godowns or storage depots for rice, peanut oil and canned goods, in case of a long siege. A few of these godowns are very close to our Camp—in fact, they might be considered to be within our confines, and today the Japanese authorities asked for volunteers among the internees to help in loading these supplies on trucks to be moved elsewhere. From the Maryknollers, Fathers Gaiero and Siebert join up, as also Father O'Connor, C. M., and Brother Anthony, one of the two Christian Brothers living on our floor. After working several hours in the morning, each volunteer was given for his dinner, as much canned milk, hardtack and butter as he could eat, and when the day's work was over, each received four cans of goods, such as butter, milk and pork and beans. Ten cases of goods were also given to the Community kitchens. Brother Michael comes down with a form of diarrhea. \n\n25-The Blessed Sacrament is now reserved in the Sisters' Chapel. More volunteers asked for today for loading food; as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208654, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "84 \n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS \n\nthe drums. It is surprising what can be found in this Camp! Sister Rose Olive also gave a few piano selections. The latest wrinkle is the raffling of $100 notes at a discount of eighty. There has been a severe shortage of cigarettes for some time, and the smokers are becoming desperate with the result that discarded tea leaves, dried and treated with oil, are being tried. Incidentally, they have a vile odor. \n\nMARCH \n\n1—Our printer's devil has made a slight error: our songfest has been changed to Saturday evening, so yesterday was Saturday and today is Sunday. We had no afternoon services, as we received orders to remain indoors from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., since the inferior white race is not permitted to gaze on the face of the new Civil Governor, who is expected out this way during the day. Brother Michael much improved. Of late, there has been growing dissatisfaction with the food and with the cooks. At times the rice has been under-cooked and the meat and vegetables either infinitesimal or tasteless and, in all, the people throughout the Camp are feeling the pinch of hunger. It is also asserted that the cooks, especially in the American kitchen, are living off the fat of the land, and that means off our fat. Everybody feels that he could eat twice or three times what he gets, and while the rice satisfies for the moment, it is quickly digested and one is soon hungry. We greatly miss the more substantial bread and also feel the lack of sugar and fruits. Repeated representations have been made to the authorities on the score of increased rations, but to no avail. It is also suspected that the Chinese comprador in charge of the rations is also using \"the hatchet\" or, in other words, \"squeezing our rations,\" and complaints have been made, with the apparent result that during the past few days we have been given a few slices of bread. \n\n2—Martial law is again on from twelve to five, but it was later called off. That meant we had to stay indoors during that period. Evidently some of the august sons of the Son of Heaven must have been in the vicinity. \n\nJust a word or two about our own quarters. We Maryknollers, that is priests and Brothers, together with Fathers O'Connor, C. M., Benson and Norris, C. P., and Brothers Anthony and Cornelius, Christian Brothers, have the whole top floor of Block A-1, that is,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208655, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 112, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n85\n\nsix rooms with two tiny kitchens and pantries, and two baths. We are quartered as follows: in room 7, Fathers Hessler, Walter, Knotek and Brothers Michael, Lawrence and Anselm; in room 8, Fathers Callan, Reardon, Allie and O'Connor, C. M.; room 9, Fathers Downs, Quinn, V. Walsh, Tackney, Moore, Madison and Brother Thaddeus; room 16, Fathers Troesch, Meyer, Bauer and Brother William. In this room, we had been saving a cot for Father Feeney, but before the Sisters were interned he managed to secure a pass on the plea of being a neutral alien and was later allowed to go to the interior of China.\n\nIn room 17, Fathers Benson, Norris, C. P., and Brothers Cornelius and Anthony; room 18, Fathers Toomey, Keelan, O'Connell, Siebert, Gaiero and McKeirnan. With six and seven in a room, and even with four in the smaller rooms, we are pretty crowded, like bees in a hive. Our tableware consists of a soup plate, a large spoon and a cup. As our cups are breaking one by one, we are falling back on discarded jam tins, with a small wire handle. Our dishes are thus easily washed. We also wash our own clothes, wherever we can, in the kitchen sink or bathtub, or in a pail, of which we have one or two, and hang them out on the verandahs or, in wet weather, in the corridors, all of which gives our apartment the appearance of a New York East Side tenement.\n\n4—Mr. Walsh, a sergeant of the Hong Kong Police, died suddenly today of heart failure. However, Father Toomey was in time to anoint him. Brother Anthony comes down with malaria. Brother is a very big man, and has worked very hard both during hostilities in caring for the sick and wounded at LaSalle College, and in the Camp on manual labor. One small slice of bread today.\n\n5-Mr. Walsh buried this morning after a High Mass of Requiem on the tennis court, at which quite a number of internees, both Catholic and non-Catholic, were present. Interment took place in the old Military Cemetery (within the confines of the Camp) on the hill near the Prison. In this ancient cemetery are the graves of many British and Irish soldiers and their families who died shortly after the founding of Hong Kong either from malaria or from wounds. Now new graves are multiplying, being those of soldiers fallen in this present war, and of internees. Father Quinn starts a class in Spanish. One slice of bread again today.\n\n7-Our Saturday evening songfest was put on tonight by the ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208713, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n143\n\nrice at a very low price in order to help the people and giving away bread and canned goods in order to insure that they would have enough to eat. On communications he noted that there were no buses in the city at all. The Japanese had sent them all to Japan early in the war. He got from Stanley to the city and back again by hitch-hiking in army jeeps and trucks. At the same time he applied to the military for a telephone and electricity connections. He noted that business was at a complete standstill. The two American banks had no business at all since they were not allowed to receive U.S. currency from the States. The exchange rate was 8 to 1 when he arrived but by the end of November it was down to HK$4.50. In December the railway between Canton and Hong Kong was reopened and people began flocking to Hong Kong; however, due to the poor condition of the track the trip was taking eight hours instead of the normal three. In normal times most people would have made the trip by boat, but in the course of the war more than half of the Canton boats had been sunk by mines, usually with the loss of all aboard. Nevertheless, as order was gradually restored in the Colony, more and more Chinese who had fled during the Japanese occupation returned and the Colony witnessed a spectacular recovery. People were returning at the rate of one hundred thousand a month, and the population, which had been reduced to about 600,000 in August 1945, rose by the end of 1947 to an estimated 1,800,000.\n\nWhen Father Meyer first returned to the Stanley House he was overjoyed to find that his priceless manuscript and 200 copies of the famous \"Meyer-Wempe Cantonese-English Dictionary\" had not been destroyed. In his correspondence to the Superior General about this he learned that the dictionary had been used by the U.S. Navy during the war years, and the Navy had given Maryknoll 50 copies of the printing they had made for the use of their personnel. In the same correspondence the Superior General announced that former South China missioners Fathers Keelan, Sprinkle, Youker, Weber, Cunneen, O'Neill, and Brother Michael Hogan were on the high seas returning to their mission posts.\n\nJust before Christmas Father Tennien hitched a plane ride from Hong Kong to Kunming in Yunnan Province, the city where every Maryknoller stayed before his thrilling flight \"over the hump\" into India during the war years. At one time there were so many", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216476, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 235, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "185\n\nTHE MAKING OF CORNELL PLANT THE PILOT\n\nAuthor's note\n\nMICHAEL GILLAM\n\nAlthough Cornell Plant died some ten years before I was born, he had an important place in my early memories of family visits to his younger brother, Uncle Charles Plant, There I heard the story of this grand old man of the river and his untimely death and that of his wife on their way home from China. In later years, when his papers were passed down to my parents I became more interested, particularly in the account of his adventures in Iran, where I had spent a year working with the Iranian Navy.\n\nWhen the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich expressed an interest in his papers and undertook to take some of them into safe keeping, the valuable contribution he made towards the opening up of the Yangtse Gorges to steam navigation became all too evident. Eventually, his remaining books, papers, photographs and other memorabilia came into my possession and, once I had retired, gave me the opportunity to study them in depth.\n\nBut it was not until I read the article on Cornell Plant by AC Bromfield and Rosemary Lee in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society [Hon.Ed.-Vol.41] that I became aware of the world wide interest in his life and achievements. This article dealt mainly with his time in China, with only a brief mention of his early life. It also posed a number of questions about him and his wife Alice. The papers that he left behind him and the information that has come to light through the research of Plant enthusiasts over the years enables some of the gaps in his life to be filled and shines some light on the making of Captain Samuel Cornell Plant - 'Plant the Pilot.'\n\nThe early days\n\nCornell Plant was the third of four children born to Samuel Plant, a Suffolk farmer's son and his wife, Harriet, neé Bennett, daughter of a Suffolk village baker. Perhaps it was the proximity of the North Sea that caused Samuel Plant to make his career in the Mercantile Marine", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]