[ { "id": 207393, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n153\n\nWorld War dealing with the Campaigns. This was compiled from records and reports prepared for the editorial board by Colonel J. T. Simson, Lt. Col. C.O. Shackleton, Dr. P.S. Selwyn-Clarke and myself.\n\nPRELUDE\n\nUp to 8 December, 1941\n\nAfter twenty-four hours delay outside the harbour because of fog, my wife and I disembarked in Hong Kong one fateful day, 1 April 1939, where I took up duty as surgical specialist in the British Military Hospital, Bowen Road. The Colony was by far the most beautiful station in which I had ever served and the scenery recalled to me, as to many others, parts of the west coast of Scotland. Twelve years earlier I had spent a short time there on my way to Shanghai, Tientsin, Peking and Shan hai kwan so that the scenes were not altogether strange to me. We lived a pleasant life in a hotel and flat for the next fifteen months.\n\nBecause of fears that a Japanese attack was imminent my wife was evacuated in July 1940, first to the Philippines along with service and civilian wives and families and thence to Sydney with them. She took hardly to the regimentation inevitable in view of the numbers involved, and after living in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane she left the shelter of the official evacuation. In some fashion she contrived to make her onward journey to the west via Hong Kong and after a short interlude there she lived successively in Singapore, Colombo, up-country in Ceylon, in Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay before she reached England on 4 July 1942. At one time in India she was tempted by an offer to go to Chungking to work there with a financial expert friend of ours who was attached to the Chinese government at that time, but in the end she did not. Experiences of this kind were not uncommon among service wives and I include this short note of her travels to show what a war-time evacuation of families can mean.\n\nWith her departure my own life in Hong Kong continued to be filled agreeably enough with work, including valuable experiences with the University Department of Surgery and the Professor, K.H. Digby. There were plenty of opportunities for physical exercise, and I carried out an order to prepare lists of surgical equipment I judged necessary to fit army hospitals for the inevitable coming", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207395, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n155\n\nin my mind that the Colony could not hold out long against an attack. After France fell in June 1940 the outlook darkened further.\n\nAt this time I was a major of 22 years service but I held a lowly position in the Army List for my Corps, being near the bottom of a block of officers who had been commissioned during the First World War. I had prepared for a career in Surgery and I also had experience of administration. In theatres where the army was expanding, promotion for officers in my position was nearly certain but in Hong Kong there was no such possibility. For a time I hoped I might be posted elsewhere, and while I never thought it possible that I might get home the Middle East seemed just a possibility. The likeliest destination for me if I moved at all seemed to be Singapore where my friends told me of the huge increase of strength in the army there. I was never moved.\n\nI had no part in preparing the army's plans for increased hospital accommodation in Hong Kong in war. Some of the buildings it was sought to use were occupied by religious orders, some of which were Italian and I understood that Colonel John Simson, the Assistant Director of Medical Services, China Command found difficulty inspecting these and met a blank refusal to a request that we might be allowed to make a preliminary accumulation of medical stores in some of these buildings. The Hong Kong Government was, I believe, unwilling on grounds of policy to overrule the objections. The Indian Army Hospital which was in Kowloon and which accommodated some British patients as well, was on the outbreak of hostilities to close, cross the harbour and reopen on the Island of Hong Kong in the Chinese Hospital, Tung Wah East. With the frontier so close to the harbour this would obviously be a difficult operation and I was sorry for the A.D.M.S. who had to plan under these conditions.\n\nI have been able to obtain through the courtesy of Colonel R. H. Freeman and Brigadier John Lapper, a postwar aerial photograph of the Military Hospital buildings in Bowen Road, which I reproduce here (plate 17). The photograph shows that new buildings have been added since the war and does not show the hospital reservoir. The hospital was built in two wings each containing a ground floor and two storeys, and these wings were connected by a central block which held the administrative offices. To the north there was a magnificent view over the harbour to the mountains of the New Territories while in the rear of the building the ground rose", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207407, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n167\n\nwall would have been breached and a huge volume of water would have swept down hill. The theatres and X-ray department would have been flooded and put out of action as would have been the emergency kitchen in the sergeants' mess, while the approach roads to the hospital would have been further damaged. Fortunately the shell did not explode and after hostilities our sappers successfully removed it to a place where it could do less harm if it exploded. Even so a crack leak was caused in the reservoir wall which caused us much trouble subsequently.\n\nThere was a surprising laxity about the early Japanese arrangements for guarding the hospital, contrasting with their later stringency. I remember climbing to Magazine Gap for exercise and curiosity's sake with a companion after the surrender and then following the road to the Peak for a considerable distance. A few Japanese patrols and sentries did not try to check us provided they were saluted as befitted the representatives of the Imperial Army. Soon however the hospital was wired in, the barrier at first allowing us access to the Barrack and N.A.A.F.I. Blocks as well as to the tennis court, the minor buildings and the ground round the reservoir. The guard post was in Bowen Road immediately below the hospital while the guard barracks were in our former married quarters in \"H\" Block. The Japanese administrators of the hospital lived in the former sisters' mess. The area allowed to us was therefore generous at the beginning, but was drastically reduced later on. Movement outside the wire was prohibited except when on working parties under guard.\n\nThe A.D.M.S., Colonel John Simson, had joined us in the hospital after surrender. He was a short, powerfully built man who had played rugby football for Scotland and had spent a number of years in the Sudan where he was a noted big game shot. In the hospital we were ordered to salute all Japanese officers, N.C.O.'s and sentries. John Simson's salute was a joy to see; with his cap on the back of his head and tilted to one side he would bring a forefinger up to eye level in much the same manner as a countryman at home might have acknowledged the local squire days gone by, except that the gesture was full of what used to be called dumb insolence in our army. The only way in which the salutation could have been more expressive would have been for him to have applied his thumb to his nose at the same time. While in Bowen Road he helped in a number of communal enterprises but sought no part in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207409, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n169\n\nrelease. His nerve was not shaken by his experience, and it was a privilege to have him on the staff.\n\nMajor Charles Boxer had studied the Japanese language in Japan and when hostilities broke out was a staff officer in China Command. Towards the end of the battle on the Island he went out to help the defence in the field and was very seriously wounded. He was taken first to the Queen Mary Hospital and thence to Bowen Road in early January 1942. The Japanese of course knew that he was in Hong Kong and sought him out after our surrender. After the immediate danger of his wound had passed his services as an interpreter were much in demand both by Shackleton and by the Japanese. The surgical problems of our wounded were being brought under better control when on 7 August 1942 Boxer gave me a message from the Japanese that on the following day Simson the A.D.M.S., Shackleton the commanding officer, a named number of officers and other ranks of the staff and 40 patients were to leave Bowen Road and that all women staff were to be transferred away from the hospital 48 hours later. At the time we considered that only twelve patients were fit to go to P.O.W. camp. All except two of the women staff were to be transferred to the Civil Internment Camp on the Stanley Peninsula. The two exceptions, as noted earlier, were released, in Hong Kong. I was promised 30 “first aiders” to replace our nurses but it was much later before 10 Canadian volunteers arrived to help us. The Japanese instruction to me was to take charge of the hospital with Major Gerald Harrison as my deputy. My own position was secure enough for I was much senior to my medical colleagues in the hospital, but Harrison was not the next in seniority in the British army. Before his departure Colonel Simson was good enough to give me a letter in which he “promoted” me to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and to take charge of the hospital. As an interpolation this development did not forward my career in any way and it was not till 16 January 1946 that I was promoted to the substantive rank of Lieutenant Colonel. My pay in this rank began only upon this date though my seniority was slightly ante-dated. By 1946 I had nearly 28 years service, so my forebodings of 1939 and 1940 about my career were justified. This little story shows that it is always unwise to be captured in war; the effect on the career of a regular soldier can be calamitous. It also illustrates the slow rate of promotion thirty years ago. I was however grateful for Colonel Simson’s", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207499, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n259\n\narrived accompanied by interpreters and the Japanese sent in 3000 packets of cigarettes, 12 bottles of saki, 36 tins of coffee, 40 kilos of salt, 180 kilos of sugar, 240 tins of milk, 48 kilos of butter and a sack of coffee beans. We were now doing very well because Major Crewe a R.A.S.C. officer came from Sham Shui Po to learn what supplies we needed and brought with him 26 pints of fresh milk which we gratefully received. Mr. C.E. D'Almeida brought us a gramophone and records and other gifts from 10 Ice House Street, and promised us supplies of drugs free which he was going to send over. A refrigerator and five bread tins came from the Red Cross in Hong Kong and I was told that stores were arriving the next day from Sham Shui Po for us to split between internees, Indian prisoners and ourselves. The internees numbered about 300, including sick and about 30 children. I was able to meet a request from Sham Shui Po for various regulations including Kings Regulations and Financial Instructions.\n\nOn 22 August we arranged with Colonel Field for all our Q.A. sisters to return, and Saito and Sekiguchi came to ask what they could do. The Governor of Hong Kong had been removed from the Colony by the Japanese and Mr. Gimson who had been Colonial Secretary at the time of our capitulation came with Mr. Nakimura from the Japanese Foreign Affairs Department. Major Lamb R.A.S.C. had been appointed to take charge of supplies and his policy was for us to rely upon Japanese rations supplemented by Red Cross stores and to indent on Sham Shui Po for our additional needs. A radio, with some mugs and gifts of milk were gratefully received by us from Mr. C.E. D'Almeida and gifts also came from Messrs. Ruttonjee of 11 Duddell Street. Eight of our civilians left for Stanley with Mr. Gimson and were delighted to go. The radio was working well indeed and on 23 August I asked Dr. Selwyn-Clarke to get us some vegetables, fruit, invalid jellies and flour. I telephoned Nomura about our records and on 24 August I wrote to Colonel Tokunaga formally requiring the return of our hospital records. Mr. Campbell and I presented this letter to him personally at Japanese headquarters in the presence of Nomura. I said that we held Tokunaga personally responsible and he accepted the letter.\n\nA batch of 19 visitors arrived from Stanley including two children, and we had to put them up overnight because of stormy weather in the harbour. British headquarters now required us to set out prominently a sign, \"P.W.\" each letter to be 20 feet by 20", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207509, "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": 277, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n269\n\nThe Official History gives a break down of the Bowen Road casualties taken from tables which I compiled. The many patients, who had suffered severe wounds of the head, neck and spine, the chest, those who had suffered compound fractures, and penetrating wounds of the large joints and abdominal wounds can only have reached hospital as a result of the heavy and devoted work on the part of the Field Ambulance Companies.\n\nOur defence of Hong Kong was therefore very costly in terms of casualties, and the medical services engaged in recovering the wounded achieved a degree of success of which all concerned can be proud.\n\nRESPONSIBILITY WITHOUT POWER\n\nUp to August 1942 my activities were recorded only in the case sheets of patients and the surgical records. Thereafter I kept a careful note of events.\n\nI suppose I was chosen by the Japanese to take charge because of my seniority in the British Army, but up to then I had little contact with them and I can only conjecture now that they made enquiries of others and then decided on me. It was fortunate for me that my British seniority was undoubted, just as it was fortunate that the Japanese choice for the second in command never had to assume responsibility over the head of a more senior officer in the British army.\n\nHaving been \"promoted\" by Col. Simson to be lieutenant-colonel, before his departure he told me to take charge of the hospital. The Japanese order transmitted to me by Major Boxer was only that I should take charge and no clearer instructions were ever given. Looking back I seem to have slipped into a routine to meet the situation which existed. I operated my charge on simple lines. In all matters of importance affecting residents in the hospital, consultations took place between me and them. Sometimes this was achieved through formal committees, sometimes by personal chats with many individuals. In matters of internal discipline of course I retained my authority, though here again I tried to understand conditions and motives in the cases of individuals who had transgressed. I left the hospital only once between August 1942 and March 1945 and that was only to help a working party to unload from a lighter, patients coming from Kowloon. I had no say as to what patients came in; so far as discharges were concerned", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 } ]