[
    {
        "id": 207415,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 183,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n175\n\nat the corners of the mouth and scrotal oedema. During August 1942 only 17 cases of deficiency diseases were admitted as such, but the same signs were common among the dysentery and diphtheria admissions. We began an investigation into all the various manifestations and intensive treatment was started. These patients with deficiency diseases were to form a nearly immovable block in our patient population for a long time because improvement came about extremely slowly. An outstanding symptom was burning pain in the feet which sometimes required morphine for its relief. Many sought to ease the pain by plunging their feet into cold water and one patient had to be confined in a place where water was not available in order to avoid maceration of the skin. Some who had had deficiency diseases improved enough to return to P.O.W. camps. Others remained in hospital up to our release in 1945. These last had balancing problems, numbness of limbs and visual defects.\n\nThe hospital had admitted 1225 patients during 1942 and this figure included all patients transferred to us from all the other civil and service hospitals in the Colony. Of the total, 443 were admitted during the five-month period August-December and at 31 December 341 patients remained. Pressure on our accommodation had been severe, and repeated changes in the usage of wards were needed to isolate infectious patients and provide room for all who needed our care. The Canadian P.O.W. camp at North Point closed in October and the troops moved to Kowloon. Perhaps because of the rearrangements required by this move, but almost certainly reinforced by the well-known Japanese fear of infectious disease, we were not allowed to discharge patients whom we considered would suffer by a move to a camp. The pressure on our space and feeding arrangements was therefore intense and this did not begin to ease until April 1943. By the end of 1942, however, the heaviest burden of the infections had become lighter, though the long haul to cope with the deficiencies as the main load had already begun.\n\nThe year 1942 had weighed heavily on the spirits and energies of patients and staff. The departure of the women nurses cast a gloom over the hospital. The future seemed uncertain, the rations were poor, patients flooded in, deaths were frequent, but food gifts to the hospital from friends in Hong Kong and the arrival of a Red Cross parcel per head, to which I shall refer later, together with a natural resilience as the acute epidemics subsided towards the end of the year brought about some lightening of the clouds.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207423,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 191,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n183\n\na more cheerful atmosphere became apparent; most people used the contents intelligently to make the basic diet more palatable while the thought that we were not forgotten did much to improve morale.\n\nSix months later, in May 1943 a second consignment of parcels arrived. Some of our patients had already received a second parcel in Sham Shui Po and those who had done so were allotted one parcel between two men from our second allocation. All others in the hospital received one parcel each, but as before a number of parcels showed shortages.\n\nOn 1 September 1944, sixteen months later we received a splendid consignment of parcels from the Canadian Red Cross, enough to issue two to each person in hospital. A few parcels remained after this distribution and I took these into the store and used the tinned foods for general messing. As usual some parcels were incomplete though the wrappings were intact, and the shortages in this case and perhaps in others must have resulted from bad packing.\n\nIt was only three days later when on 4 September 1944 we received a further 144 Canadian parcels and issued two between five men. As before a few parcels not allocated in the foregoing way were broken up, the tinned food being used for general messing while such items as prunes, chocolate, raisins, biscuits etc. were added to bulk stores of similar nature received three days earlier and used to make 133 prizes which were raffled among 315 people.\n\nNo further individual parcels were received, and therefore each member of staff and each long-term patient received a total of just under 41 parcels between 1942 and 1945, though patients admitted from Kowloon may have had a fraction more. In January 1943 the Red Cross organization in Hong Kong had started to send in bulk stores of food to us. These included tins of meat and vegetable, preserved meat, sardines, condensed milk, marmalade, jam, tomato catsup, syrup, Yershey's milk powder, shark liver oil, dripping, hen and duck eggs, barley, fresh limes, dried peas, soy beans, soy bean powder, soy sauce, peanut butter, peanut oil, Chinese and cube sugar, tea and cocoa. In January we had two intakes and further intakes were spread at irregular intervals, one in May, one each in June and July and two in October. In August 1943 Sergeant Seino told me that we could expect no further supplies but in 1944 we had two intakes in each month from March to August inclusive, one each...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207438,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 206,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "198\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nthat camp. It was at this time that I first proposed that I should be allowed to visit P.O.W. camps in order to discuss the various medical problems with our doctors there and plan the best use of our hospital services for their patients. This suggestion, like so many others, provoked no apparent reaction and though I repeated it at frequent intervals I never got near a P.O.W. camp until I was moving to our new hospital in Kowloon in 1945. Major Harrison was allowed to make one visit to North Point Camp to consult with Canadian medical officers about some problems in which specialist advice was wanted. This was his only visit to a camp and none of our other doctors were ever allowed to visit either.\n\nI had another passage with Saito following an air raid on Hong Kong in October of which I shall write later, but in these critical months in 1942 my approaches to him had to be made in writing or through his N.C.O., Sergeant Seino or the interpreter and any messages from him came back by the same route.\n\nOn 23 November Saito saw all officer patients and though he did not make a physical examination he marked five for discharge. We considered that two of these would improve by a further stay in hospital, though it was not vital for them to do so. The order for discharge however stood. On 21 December we had our second Red Cross inspection, the first during the period I was in charge but Saito did not appear in the suite. A day or two later however he demanded a report on our sufferers from pellagra asking for detailed information about skin, gastro-intestinal and nervous symptoms and the details of treatment and on 16 January 1943 he came to see the patients. We demonstrated these including the eye cases. As our experience in these fields was small we asked his advice and he suggested giving 100 mgm nicotinic acid by intramuscular injection daily for 10 days. As was his usual custom he would not wait to make a detailed inspection and cut his visit short. We delayed him on the stairs long enough for him to use the English words \"B. complex\" when speaking on the causal deficiency. With this exception he had spoken Japanese throughout and whether he had got the information in discussion elsewhere, it agreed with our view that the symptoms were not to be explained by a pure vitamin B1 deficiency. In reply to my question he said that nicotinic acid and suitable diet were the important elements of treatment. He said also that yeast, easy to get before the war, was now hard to obtain. He promised to consult a colleague about",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207439,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 207,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n199\n\nthe eyes. He and I agreed that neither of us had ever seen a case of pellagra before.\n\nOn 22 January 1943, Saito came in again and was handed a copy of our pellagra report which he should have had already from Takeyama, our interpreter, the night before. He now said that in Sham Shui Po patients were being given 10 mgm nicotinic acid by injection daily, a figure which contrasted with his advice given less than a week earlier. This did nothing to increase my confidence in him as a physician.\n\nA day later Saito came in again. We had heard that 1200 men had left P.O.W. camps by ship having been equipped with some warm clothing, a Red Cross parcel and 10 yen each and that they were accompanied by two British and one Canadian doctor. I tried but failed to extract any more information on this subject. Saito told me that Sham Shui Po then held 2000 men of whom 1000 were sick and twice he emphasised that he did not want our hospital to be used as a hotel by men who were fit for camp. I found this rather irksome coming so soon after the tragedies of the closing months of 1942. I acknowledged that we did have some patients who were apparently in good condition physically but who showed serious visual defects which were evident if any examination of them were to be carried out. I complained that the only information we received about an incoming draft of patients was the approximate number and the time they were expected to arrive and even this was not always reliable while the notice was always short. Because our space was limited the only way we could accommodate new patients was to discharge about the same number of our existing ones. It thus came about that I was asking medical officers for the names of patients best fitted to return to camp and whose progress was unlikely to be jeopardised by discharge, rather than those in whose fitness we had confidence. I said that I could not overrule a doctor's decision on the medical condition of a patient only to be told that the same applied in the Japanese army. I was a little surprised at this. My protest had no effect and on our side we continued making room for new patients by discharging the fittest among the old patients. In 1943 this policy was the only one possible. Eighteen months later we did have patients admitted from camp, chosen by Saito, who seemed to us to be in better shape than some that we had to discharge.\n\nA Colonel Watanabe of the Japanese medical service visited us",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207454,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 222,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "214\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nserve for Japan?\". We either left this particular question unanswered or replied that we were unwilling to serve for Japan. One young man who had put down roots in Hong Kong before the Far East war, in answer to this question gave a detailed account of his qualifications which were substantial. As the replies passed through my office I saw his answer and persuaded him to leave this question blank in a new form which I gave him and I left him to tear up his own original completed form.\n\nEach month all in hospital received what we called necessities. The items varied but as a rule there were a couple of cakes of coarse soap, an envelope of tooth powder, a packet of toilet paper, and a fandoshi. This last looked like a triangular bandage and was tied round the waist, the point being passed back between the legs to be secured to the waistband behind, thus preserving the decencies. From time to time there would be an undervest or stockings or a toothbrush. In September 1942 we were able to restart our gramophone concerts broadcast to the wards during permitted hours after a stoppage which had lasted for several weeks. Also in September we equipped and opened a barber's shop served by men who could shave those unable to do so themselves. Thereafter growing beards, an affectation much in favour soon after our surrender, but already dying out, was forbidden! Ten Canadian combatant soldiers who volunteered for the job came to us as orderlies. Two wounded Chinese members of the H.K.V.D.C. whom we had been caring for were removed by the Japanese. By this time they were reasonably fit to leave and we were told that they would be released in the town. I only hope this was so.\n\nIn October '43 all our staff received ten yen each from the Red Cross Society and we began to receive three or four copies daily of the Hongkong News free. We were also given twelve X-ray films, and having previously been given glass for windows but having no putty, we eventually obtained a supply of thin wire which our sappers made into nails and re-glassing broken windows began.\n\nOn the afternoon of 26 October a single American plane flew low over the harbour and rose steeply to the north to disappear over the Kowloon hills. There were further raids during the nights of 27 and 28 October. No bombs were dropped, but thereafter I thought it wise not to remove the ‘Mimi Lau' concrete blocks protecting the ground floor wards on the harbour side. At this time we had beds on every verandah in the hospital in order to gain as",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207458,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 226,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "218\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nattacks on defences which were hardly dented. The areas in which fighting was taking place were still thousands of miles away from us and the newspaper constantly asked the subtle question as to whether the American losses were worth incurring.\n\nIn the hospital 1943 was a drab year for us; the number of patients dropped from 341 on 1 January to 234 on 31 December. Drafts of patients for admission from P.O.W. camps came on ten out of the twelve months and on each occasion patients were discharged. The condition of incoming patients showed a distinct improvement as the year went on though many patients and staff had an additional affliction to endure, that of intestinal worms. Suspicion fell upon a number of food items including vegetables and Chinese brown sugar as the vehicle of infection, but we never established that any one substance was the culprit.\n\nOn three separate occasions I was handed sums of military yen by the Japanese in cash, the donors being the Red Cross Societies. One such gift came from the Canadian Society and was marked for Canadian troops only and was so distributed. Apart from this all other gifts had no limitations placed upon them. On each occasion the available cash was divided and paid equally to all except commissioned officers. Each man thus received 40 yen over the year while Canadians had an extra 30 yen, and in all cases I gained a few yen for my Commanding Officer's Fund from small surpluses. The Central Hospital Fund also benefited from money contributed by officer prisoners in camp in Kowloon which was transmitted to us by the Japanese. The signatures of some patients on the receipt sheets were indecipherable scrawls, because they were quite unable to coordinate their movements.\n\nThirty patients died during the year, and by the end of October 104 of our men were buried in cemeteries in and around the hospital. In April we were given a tin of black paint by the Japanese at our request to allow us to paint the names of the dead on the very well made wooden crosses constructed by us to mark their graves. In December a Japanese interpreter appeared saying that it was his job to see to it that graves were properly prepared and marked and that plans of these existed. I was very proud of the work that our men put in, and the graves of those who had died were properly prepared, identified and maintained. Usually each grave held only one body; occasionally two shared a grave, and on one occasion three men were buried together when they had died",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207469,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 237,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n229\n\nKowloon were stopped by the Japanese, though I never found out why this was done. We did receive, however, lump sums which allowed all except commissioned officers to be given 30 yen in February from the British and Canadian Red Cross Societies, 15 yen in March from a Relief Society in England which I never identified, 17 yen in June from the British Red Cross and 25 yen in August from the same source. Even now I recall the pleasure with which this money was received. A small degree of independence was restored to men by their acquisition of money controlled by themselves.\n\nIn January 1944 all staff were required to wear identity numbers issued by the Japanese. In February Saito searched the hospital including stores and roof and the same month, following an air raid, all in hospital were ordered to have their hair cropped close. I have said that the practice of growing beards which set in directly after our surrender had long died out and everybody was shaved and wore his hair short so the new order created considerable resentment. I led the way with a close clipper crop for myself and we soon got used to our altered appearances. I can only suppose that Saito was getting out on us some irritation he had to endure from his own people or from the increasing air attacks. I nagged at him to get this order rescinded but it never was and it was 1945 before we began to return to our normal hair-cuts without his authority, a change which passed without comment by Saito.\n\nOn 11 March a Japanese supplies officer came with Saito and inspected men's kits, the linen store, the steward's store and the wards. Our staff were paraded to hear a speech from the supplies officer in which he said that the Japanese would do what they could to keep us supplied but we must be prepared for some shortages. He added that the prisoner camps in Kowloon, both for officers and for other ranks were worse off than we were but that the Japanese would not cut supplies for our hospital unless shortages compelled them to do so. I was required to read a short announcement prepared for me in English by the Japanese to the effect that we should be very grateful to them for what they were doing for us, and this theme was elaborated in language which was obviously constructed by someone who had learned English in Japan but had never heard it spoken among English-speaking people. I remember emphasising the incongruities of the construction of the note in my reading of it, but though we all took this incident as a warning of what was",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207476,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 244,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "236\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nhowever was in keeping with the Japanese refusal to remove what belonged to us—except of course our plain clothes.\n\nIn March some of our typewriters needed servicing and we had neither the skills nor spares to do this effectively. Having reported this I received a reconditioned machine which was quite essential for we used typewriters extensively to furnish lists and reports to the Japanese. They would have found our manuscript very difficult to understand and some of the paper they provided would have absorbed our ink as a blot rather than displayed our ideas.\n\nSentry stations were now linked by telephone with our Japanese supervisors, and many more lights were added round the wired perimeter. We allowed one of our refrigerators to go to the guard house. We were not commanded to do so by anyone but a request from the guard commander in typical gruff fashion and in the usual peremptory manner was met by us as a conciliatory gesture. We could well spare the refrigerator though I don't know that we did ourselves any good by doing so. By December 1944 I could carry out my weekly inspection of the hospital and visit all patients on one round.\n\nI much regret that I kept no record of drugs etc. supplied by the Japanese. We did receive all the vaccines needed for the repeated inoculations we had and I think we must have been the most inoculated troops in the whole war. Receipts of the therapeutically active drugs such as the sulpha group were nil and the quantities of dressings and other drugs that we were given were for practical purposes negligible—a half dozen bandages, a small packet of cotton wool for example. Our own stocks laid in before hostilities were diminishing, though by August 1945 we still had a small quantity of cotton wool, small stocks of carbon dioxide, anaesthetic gases and oxygen. Our doctors rationed themselves carefully and I controlled myself the issue of certain valuable but irreplaceable items. On 21 September we were given two cases of Canadian Red Cross medical supplies; I did not record the contents but we were able to issue one multivite capsule daily to all in hospital. We continued to send small quantities of drugs to camp when we found men willing to smuggle these in. The prophylactic dose of thiamine varied according to stocks which were brought in by our visitors but had not fallen below 2 mgm daily. Our physicians tried the effect of giving large doses of nicotinic acid 500 mgm daily for 30",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207491,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 259,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n251\n\n1056 packets of cigarettes costing 1.50 yen each and we sold them at a 10 sen profit on each packet. This allowed six packets per head for 176 patients and staff and all were taken up. We lost a clock from the kitchen on 19 May and concluded that trading was still going on. On 22 May we admitted an acutely ill officer from Sham Shui Po and on 24 May a Canadian soldier died and was buried at once. At this time we were very short of both Japanese and Red Cross food stores and though the compradore came on 26 May and took money he was not allowed to bring goods to us or to the other camps.\n\nOn 28 May the Japanese warrant officer in charge of rations gave Mr. Campbell a new scale to be effective from 1 June.\n\n  \n    \n    Staff and Employed\n    Patients and Non-employed\n  \n  \n    Rice\n    G.510 + 30\n    32 + 32\n  \n  \n    Meat\n    G.660 = + 60\n    \n  \n  \n    Vegetable\n    540 = + 140\n    360 = + 70\n  \n  \n    Salt\n    10 =\n    8\n  \n  \n    \n    No change\n    ** + 3\n  \n  \n    Sugar\n    10\n    5\n  \n  \n    Tea\n    8\n    2\n  \n  \n    \n    \n    1\n  \n  \n    \n    Nil =\n    \n  \n  \n    \n    \n    + 3\n  \n  \n    Oil\n    3\n    3\n  \n  \n    \n    9\n    9\n  \n  \n    \n    31\n    I\n  \n  \n    Curry\n    20 + 20\n    15\n  \n  \n    \n    \n    +15\n  \n  \n    Beans\n    Nil\n    Nil\n  \n  \n    \n    60\n    -\n  \n  \n    \n    \n    31\n  \n\nI imagine that these figures were target or even show figures for the Japanese, for the issues we could afford to make were always lower in practice.\n\nOn 29 May I was passing the R.E. shop with Saito when he went in and Q.M.S. Tyas told him how badly we needed diesel oil and cement. I remarked that I was being pressed every day for these stores, to which Saito very fairly responded that I was troubling him every day too on the same subject. We were very short of cooking oil and I reported that our present stock allowed only 0.85 litre for the whole hospital daily. Saito also promised to look into the supply of beans which I told him had vanished from our rations. I pressed him about canteen goods and said we were exceedingly short of salt, and of wood for fuel and that we fed our cooking fires only on wood which we had stripped from buildings in Bowen Road.\n\nThe same day Saito produced the old undertaking not to escape which all the staff and patients had signed in Bowen Road on 26",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207494,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 262,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "254\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nI have no idea now what this meant. The first working party was transferred to another job and though none of the less fit had gone back to camp none of these were being worked.\n\nIt was at this time also that we ran out of rice, having deliberately issued for consumption on the scales approved by the Japanese. As a punishment Mr. Campbell and I were both slapped. We would not have run the risk of an empty rice store in earlier years but by then we were becoming more confident of our position. We did in fact go short for a day but fresh supplies came in within 24 hours. This was a very good intake, about 360 kilos, and I was able to work out a good ration on the basis of 510 grammes for 100 employed and 397 grammes for others, assuming that our stocks had to last until the end of July. We had another very good Red Cross intake on 29 June and at this time we were having 113 grammes rice for breakfast, 145 grammes for dinner and tea as well as 113 grammes for working party suppers. I learned also that much of the working party's work on air raid shelters had been undone by heavy rain. I also have a note that our steward's store was well wired up by us though I do not now remember who the predators were suspected to be.\n\nOn 7 July a Canadian officer died, admitted from Sham Shui Po on the 29 June. There was in this case a strong suspicion that the cause of death was encephalitis of the Japanese B. type. The next day a Hong Kong Volunteer died suddenly from a severe haemorrhage. On the same day the Japanese guard moved out of the Japanese half of the school building and we understood that Saito was going to live there. By 19 July Saito himself took check parades and we were still hoping to receive certain things that we had asked for such as a cross-cut saw and some drugs. On 11 July a Canadian soldier had broken his leg while working on a tunnel to be used by the Japanese as an air raid shelter. Splints were applied in a Japanese hospital and he was sent to us for admission. The working party reported to me that the tunnels they were digging were of amateurish design and were highly dangerous. I gathered that the sides and roofs were very inadequately shored up and there had been a number of falls of earth from roofs and sides. I tackled Saito at once about this, and he later told me that we could be reassured since the Japanese officer in charge said that they only needed more timbers to be used and all would be well. As a statement of the obvious this seemed to me to be pretty good.",
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    {
        "id": 207497,
        "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-1975",
        "page_number": 265,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n257\n\nConfirmatory details that the war was ended were coming in via the sentries who it will be remembered were mostly Formosans. Check parades were being held less regularly and there was some cheering within the hospital. Later that night, 17 August Major Harrison and I walked out of the hospital and went to a nearby Internment Camp where we saw Dr. and Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke and Dr. and Mrs. Canaval who had worked with us during hostilities. I got back to the hospital at 1.30 a.m. to find the place deserted by the Japanese and our men collecting souvenirs. On this day an American Red Cross case was delivered by the Japanese to us and on 18 August the Japanese quarters inside the hospital were being cleared up and documents and mattresses were burned by them. There was much broken glass about the place from bottles, windows etc. and it was on the previous night that our guard sergeant known as \"Slappy\" was dealt with by some of our men who were getting a little of their own back. I found it remarkable that on this day Saito brought the August pay for all officers together with all the savings which had been deducted from pay by the Japanese. This amounted to 740 yen for a major and 370 for a captain. Apparently I signed for all of this, though I have no note as to what I did with this money which by now of course was practically valueless. Two old friends of mine, one from the Middlesex Regiment and one from the Royal Marines came from the officers' camp and gave us news of events there. I went to see the Indian camp and arranged to help them with supplies of drugs etc. Major Ashton Rose brought in one patient from Sham Shui Po and said he had about 60 still to come. At this time my policy was to reserve our hospital beds only for sick people and to transfer to camp those who required no active treatment.\n\nOn 19 August I went early to Sham Shui Po where I saw the senior officer who remained, Lieutenant Col. F. Field and others. Major John Crawford, the senior Canadian doctor was in charge of the officers' camp and Captain Strahan moved to give professional help in the Indian camp. I saw patients with Ashton Rose and Crawford and arranged for Sham Shui Po to remain as a reception station sending those who needed treatment to the Central British School in Kowloon. Surplus drugs and equipment were to be returned to the Central British School leaving in Sham Shui Po only items necessary for a reception station. Ashton Rose would go to the Indian camp as Senior Medical Officer, Swyer would be...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
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    {
        "id": 207763,
        "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-1976",
        "page_number": 151,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "136\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nport for the work came from American United China Relief (UCR) funds through the American Friends Service Council (AFSC); there were members from Canada, U.S.A., New Zealand, as well as China itself; and the self-sufficiency required was much greater than that of other FAU groups.\n\nThe original plan, worked out in late 1940 and early 1941, was for a group of forty men, equipped with 20 trucks, a mobile operating theatre and mobile workshop, to undertake two tasks. The first was the transport of medical supplies into China from Burma and the second provision of medical teams to work with civilian and military hospitals. The proposals had the support of the British Fund for the Relief of Distress in China under Dr. H. Gordon Thompson, the Foreign Office, the U.C.R. and the AFSC. The trucks and equipment were purchased in the US and shipped to Rangoon where they were assembled and driven up to China. Dr. R. B. McClure, a Canadian medical missionary born in China, was appointed to lead the Unit.\n\nIt will be remembered that in 1941 Japan occupied all the coast of China, transport up the railway to Kunming from Hanoi had ceased and the only land routes into the western provinces still held by the Government of the Republic of China under Marshal Chiang Kai Shek were the Burma Road and the road from the USSR via Sinkiang. When the Sino-Japanese war widened into the Pacific War on December 8, 1941, about half of the FAU group had arrived in Burma and China, the first trucks were being assembled in Rangoon and the rest of the party and equipment were on the high seas. All arrived safely and the Unit undertook a number of interesting tasks during the Burma fighting of 1942.1\n\nMedical Services and Supplies in China\n\nDespite the diversion of manpower and loss of trucks and fuel in Burma the work of transporting medical supplies in China got underway in 1942. In 1941 there were four organizations concerned with military and civilian medical services:—\n\n1) the Army Medical Administration (AMA)\n\n2) the Chinese Red Cross (CRC)\n\n3) National Health Administration (NHA) Weishengshu (衛 生 署) with its civilian hospitals and clinics.\n\n4) Over 100 mission hospitals, responsible to their own Mission Boards.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212223,
        "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-1990",
        "page_number": 165,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "142 \n\nnumber of bicycles, and despite having to dismount frequently to cross ditches, alleged to be anti-tank but too narrow to be effective for the purpose, made forty miles in a day along the footpaths amongst the hills. \n\nTens of thousands of coolies were carrying loads over the track from Mirs Bay to the East River: it shewed what a large flow of supplies still entered China from Hongkong despite the Japanese blockade. I even saw the parts of wholly dismantled lorries being carried along, four coolies to each pole on the heavier loads, such as the frame. Unfortunately a cholera epidemic was raging, and the Chinese government appeared to have made no effort to provide medical and sanitary supervision, on what was one of the few remaining routes of entry into China. A plague of flies hovered over the human excreta which defiled the edges of the road along its whole length. Coolies were dying by the dozen. They would collapse by the side of the road and crawl off to expire in the scrub. In places the stench was so strong as to make you retch. On arrival next day at Mirs Bay we were offered tea at the little Chinese customs house, while waiting for the launch. As the bay was entirely inside Hongkong territorial waters, Japanese ships could not enter, and the launches ran twice a day with impunity. \n\nI stepped ashore at Taipo, a village in the New Territory, in time to catch the evening train from Fanling, but I was now feeling ill myself and half wondering whether I too had not caught cholera. I was unable to join the golfing fraternity in the saloon car to listen to the highlights of the day's sport, or to partake of refreshment, and on arrival at the Gloucester I retired to my bed. \n\nThe luxury, however, of a modern hotel soon put me on my legs, and I was further fortified by the comfort of a passage to Shanghai in one of the Canadian-Pacific Company's liners. \n\nIt was November. Many of the younger men had left to join up, either in Malaya or in India, where it was thought their services might prove more useful than in England. Nevertheless with the addition of the people who had been brought in from the outports, there was no shortage of staff in the offices; and the Clubs, if anything, appeared rather crowded. Owing to the stagnation in trade, people had not much to do. Yet managers seemed reluctant to release their young men, too many of whom, as it appeared to me, seemed quite content to stay; while, surprisingly, older middle-aged men were being allowed \n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212912,
        "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-1992",
        "page_number": 221,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "206\n\ncups and plates and rewarded us with magnificent Orders of Chivalry. We usually found some acquaintance in the ports or fellow missionaries. Aden was a coaling port where a ceaseless stream of labourers carried basket after basket of coal on board. We had to keep port-holes shut to keep the coal dust out. At sea we had a good deal of freedom and were taken on exploratory trips to such places as the engine room. Here we saw the huge pistons of the steam engine driving the propeller shaft and walked down the tunnel in which it turned to the very end. The heat was terrific.\n\nIn 1934 leave was up and my father and I returned early to get me into school in September. The two of us travelled by the scenic route, first on the Canadian Pacific ship, the Duchess of Bedford which we boarded at Liverpool and which took us across the Atlantic to Montreal. Then by Canadian Pacific Railway for three days and four nights across Canada to Vancouver. That was a glorious journey. The first day was through pine forests and by lakes. The second was across endless prairie country and the third through the Rocky Mountains. At the back of the train there was an observation coach from which we had an excellent view of the scenery. Each evening beds were made up and each morning they were folded up.\n\nFrom Vancouver we sailed on another Canadian Pacific ship, the Empress of Asia to Shanghai a long journey which must have included a stop in Japan. A funny thing about sojourns with my father was that he introduced me to simple gastronomic delights. During my convalescence in the Matilda Hospital from appendicitis it was kippers and on the trans-Pacific trip it was celery, curry and Worcestershire sauce in the soup to prevent sea sickness. All have been favourites ever since! And he patiently read from The Swiss Family Robinson each evening.\n\nChefoo Schools\n\nFrom Shanghai we took a coastal steamer north to Chefoo. Chefoo is the name of a small village on a bluff of land connected to the mainland by a sand spit. The school was called after this village though the town, in which it lies, is now called Yentai after the nearby walled city dating from the Ming Dynasty. The China Inland Mission had established primary and secondary schools for European and American children from all over China. There were about 100 children in the primary school,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214764,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 179,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "143\n\norders us to evacuate our positions and retire to Aberdeen. We are amazed at such an order but apparently the Japs have broken through over Mt Nicholson turning our left flank. We collect our small force and start our retirement. Heavy firing coming from Wanchai Gap where fierce fighting is going on. What a forlorn sight we make groping our way back through the hills in the dark. Finally reach Aberdeen, the Canadians going to Mount Gough and I take my men to the AIS. Atmosphere depressing and everyone falls to sleep through exhaustion. Up early, lucky for me, as a bomb lands on my bed just as I leave the room wrecking everything including my kit. AIS heavily shelled causing many fires and casualties.\n\nWed twenty fourth and Thursday Xmas day. The retirement order was a mistake and back we go to Bennetts with guns and equipment. Just as we reach the top the Japs open up on us with mortars. We have no protection and lie flat. The shells land amongst us. Man next to me hit, also several others. Piece of shrapnel glances off my helmet and am half buried in flying debris. If we stay we shall all be killed so order the men to disperse and dash for cover and miraculously we make it. During the barrage I had noticed that one of our previous posts was still manned by Canadians who obviously had not received the order to withdraw. Cpl Blueman AC, Canadian, volunteers to go with me to try and get them out. We climb on our bellies through the thickest undergrowth but are fired on several times. Finally we get within hailing distance and get them all into a pillbox. We collect all the arms and equipment which we can't carry, pile them into the pillbox, and throw a couple of grenades into the pillbox. As we start back everything goes off at once and we have to duck flying bullets. Eventually we arrive intact at the AIS.\n\nNo one seems to know where the Japs are so back we go to a new position guarding the bridge over Aberdeen reservoir. My party consists of twelve Canadians and ten RAF. Up to midnight all is quiet although every sound indicates Japs to the men. Soon after midnight heavy firing starts just across the bridge. The Japs weird war cry is plainly heard and soon a small party of Canadians retire over the bridge. They report a heavy attack by Japs who crept up on them and broke through. We open up with everything we have across the bridge. The Canadians are badly rattled, even their officer seems to have lost control of his men. The Japs start shelling us and confusion sets in and the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215690,
        "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-2001",
        "page_number": 467,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "420\n\nAlthough there were Red Cross food parcels occasionally, these were much fewer and further between than for POWs in Europe. Some food was passed through the wires by Chinese women—some from the Wanchai bar district—loyal to their menfolk, often at great personal risk to themselves. As with most members of the armed forces during the Second World War, great dependency was placed on cigarettes. In prison camp, they also served as a form of currency. In spite of Spartan living conditions, gambling took place, sometimes for cigarettes or for Red Cross food parcels.\n\nConstant hunger brought out the worst in people. There was unfairness, selfishness, and stealing. Yet there were many staunch characters, and mutual support was vital to see an inmate through. Three or four men bonded together stood a better chance of survival than the loner. There were few suicides, but many just \"gave up the ghost\" and ended it all. We are told there was no evidence of religious conversions as conditions in camp worsened. The number of deaths among British Army Indians is recorded as being higher than for Canadian or British soldiers, partly because conditions in their camp were worse. Pressure was put on Indians to enlist to fight against the British. That so many resisted was a demonstration of strength of character and loyalty to the British cause.\n\nIllnesses such as diphtheria, dysentery, and malaria were ever-present, together with a shortage of medicine and medical facilities. Operations were sometimes carried out without anesthetics. Some inmates' hair turned white overnight, while others lost their sight. One prisoner even set himself up as a \"bone crusher,\" breaking limbs on demand so that fellow prisoners could be given time off from work.\n\nAccustomed to a Western lifestyle, differences in culture exacerbated the situation. European POWs did not enjoy a diet based on rice. Nor did they care for Japanese or Chinese tea without milk and sugar. A number of prisoners believed moxibustion, where pressure points on the body are stimulated not by needles but by burning mugwort, was a form of torture, although the Japanese may not have always administered treatment with the comfort of the patient in mind.\n\nMention is made in the book of a POW, although no name is given, who complained while on parade to the Red Cross that prisoners were",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]