[ { "id": 207436, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "196\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nnames in this account I shall spell them as they sounded to me. I was old enough to be aware of the fighting qualities of their troops in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 and Japan was acclaimed as our ally in the First War. The reputation of the people for courtesy in their own country was high. The situation changed drastically in the nineteen thirties.\n\nThe conduct of their troops in Manchuria and in China, the truculence of their government and the xenophobia of their nationals in Japan itself gave the nation a sinister reputation, and those of us who had followed these developments had few illusions about what would happen to people conquered by their armies if war came. This reputation was entirely self-made. I never hated the Japanese as such though I came to distrust individual members of their army. I try here to record our dealings with those in charge in the British Military Hospital in Hong Kong. The name of our hospital changed from time to time. In April 1942 I was writing reports and requests from the British Military Hospital. By September 1942 our name had become \"Dai Ichi Bun In, Kirishima Dori\". By October 1943 we were \"Dai Ichi Bun Ken Sho\", but I don't know what our name was in Kowloon.\n\nThe commander of P.O.W. camps in Hong Kong was one Colonel Tokunaga, and our hospital came under his authority. He was a thick-set man of a little over average Japanese height. His age was not easy to guess but I judged him to be well over fifty and he gave me the impression of having been recalled to active service from the reserve. He was nicknamed 'the pig' by our troops. I do not know if he could speak English but I suspect that he understood our language a little. I never had experience of conversation with him, and on his inspections and visits he seemed utterly withdrawn from any human contact with staff or patients though his orders, transmitted to me after inspections, showed that he had been observant and had noted arrangements which he considered should be changed. These referred only to such matters as the lay-out of beds, notices in wards, conditions in the hospital grounds and so on. He never gave me orders at the time of his visits; these were transmitted later. When the representative of the Red Cross came, Tokunaga always preceded him wherever they went and he obviously dictated the route to be followed. I never knew him speak to a patient. Tokunaga seemed to me to be a Japanese officer of the old school showing by his demeanour the rigidity of his training.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207456, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "216\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nhospital. As a result our wards were crowded to a greater extent than ever before.\n\nEarlier all in hospital were required to sign a statement undertaking not to escape. Few of us, patients or staff, felt any compunction about signing such a document under duress and only two officer patients refused their signatures. Early in November, Colonel Tokunaga, no less, came himself and saw both officers. One thereupon signed while the other was removed and kept overnight in a small cupboard-like room in a building in Kowloon. I understood that he was not ill-treated, and it was explained to him that our British General Officer Commanding had ordered officers to sign. He then signed and was returned as a patient to our hospital.\n\nMost of our patients had lost all their kit and many did not possess even a drinking mug at this time. They were using tins which had contained tinned food, but the rims of these tins were jagged and caused much pain especially to patients whose lips and tongue were raw from deficiency diseases. Our engineers set to work and fitted empty tins with handles and smoothed out the rims and acceptable drinking mugs were soon issued to all patients. The engineers also turned out badly needed fly-swatters in large numbers.\n\nIn November we received 198 books from the Red Cross for our library, and in December another 400 library books arrived. Also in December a number of musical instruments, indoor games, packs of cards etc. were received through the Red Cross from the Pope. In November we had a stock of 270 gramophone records and these were listed and we were even able to provide requested programmes of music. From time to time we received a number of copies of the Japan-produced English language Japan Times in one of which an indignant account was given of the torpedoing by an American submarine of the \"Lisbon Maru\" which was carrying British prisoners to Japan. In this disaster when the torpedo struck, many of our men were battened down in the holds and prevented from trying to save themselves. Some were fired upon while swimming. The Japanese indignation should properly have been directed against the guards.\n\nNormally we had two check parades daily, one about eight a.m. and the other about five p.m. and about once a month on average", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207488, "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": 256, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "248\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nThere was no lift. By now we were caring for 15 patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis. The medical officer staff was slightly different from what it had been in Bowen Road (See Appendix C) and contained one new member, Captain Coombs. The changes had been made by the Japanese and I was not consulted, though Coombs was a valued and welcome member of the staff.\n\nThe building was arranged in two wings, and looked at from the front the left hand wing was given over to Japanese quarters. In the centre was a large Assembly Hall while our hospital occupied the right hand wing. The Assembly Hall was out of bounds to us except on special occasions. I had hoped to get a member of the Hong Kong Volunteers to come with us from Sham Shui Po as a rice cook, but he did not turn up, and Corporal J. O'Grady took charge. Our practice was now to cook all our food in bulk and not by wards and messes in their own containers as in the past. The kitchens had shallow rice boilers and our rice from now on improved considerably. The electricity generator had been damaged during the move but repairs were started by our engineers. The church was sited in the Central Clock Tower room. Saito gave us a Hongkong News from which on the 14 April we learned of the death of President Roosevelt and we held a memorial service for him on the following day.\n\nA refrigerator was converted to act as a steamer, steam being delivered through the top, and the cooks baked some very good so-called cake and made some experimental bread without flour which turned out to be excellent when judged by our standards. We even began to fry the bread sometimes when we had enough oil. On 19 April four blinded men and two old men arrived, the former with attendants to look after their needs. On 20 April Colonel Tokunaga made an afternoon inspection and we were ordered to remove all beds from verandahs and all staff except the steward and one cook were required to sleep in the barrack room. Visitors arrived to deliver parcels the same day but they had to leave them for collection by us some distance away from our front door. With 134 patients and no beds on verandahs our space was pretty crowded. By now our non-medical staff was building up and we had one shoemaker, two tailors, one barber, two cooks, three rice grinders, four vegetable men and three wood men. We also used two men for pots and pans and two appear in my diary as having duties connected with beds though I cannot now remember", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207496, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "256\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nOn 4 August Mr. Zindel carried out a Red Cross inspection of the hospital together with Colonel Tokunaga and his staff, the whole lasting only about twenty minutes and I had no conversation with him. At this time we had been receiving small quantities of fresh meat at weekends and this had gone on for a few weeks before meat was replaced by salted fish, the first fish we had had for a long time. In early August the weather was remarkably cool, dull and showery with the wind varying from S.W. to N.E. The barbed wire was now being brought closer to the hospital and excluded the playing field. We had two dangerously ill patients on 7 August and we received a drum of diesel oil from Saito via our engineers.\n\nMr. Sims was able to repair a burned out high tension cable on our X-ray set and I noted that we put an extra lock on the linen store, a further indication that active trading was still going on. The last Red Cross supplies we had received came in on 29 June and we were running short. Our wheat stock was exhausted and we stopped cooking buns but continued to produce a so-called cake each week and bread made from rice and beans was issued every second day. The Japanese issue of cigarettes for workers which had been due on 20 July arrived on 8 August and Saito told me that wood for fuel was very difficult to get and asked me to economise. We had made two attempts without success to make a wood saw from iron bedsteads. We had now a working party wiring and installing a water supply and a lavatory in the school sports pavilion for the use of the Japanese. We were given 186 small towels, enough for one to each person in hospital and the remainder were raffled. By now the hospital was tired of the lack of news, but remained fairly cheerful except for the blight of three patients on the dangerously ill list. On 15 August one British patient died, thus making the fifth death which had occurred in the Central British School. On 16 August we had a funeral, and a young bull was sighted in the hospital compound but just escaped us. On the same day my diary contains a note to the effect that the war was over, news which reached us via the guards. It is rather remarkable that the official surrender had been made only the previous day in Tokyo. I tackled Saito directly, asking for news but he replied that he had none, though he did promise to tell me as soon as any was available. Next day I asked Saito again in the morning for news and was answered very brusquely that he did not understand my question.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207498, "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": 266, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "258\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nS.M.O. Sham Shui Po and Crawford would be in medical charge in the officers' camp. I asked Swyer to send us five members of the R.A.M.C. including one sanitary assistant. The day before I had received a letter from Miss Dyson, our Matron from Stanley Camp who wanted her sisters with her there to rejoin us and this gave us pleasure.\n\nDuring one of my absences from the hospital an incident had occurred over a flag. Someone had hoisted the Union flag on the hospital flag staff and Japanese troops with machine guns surrounded the hospital and for safety's sake we stopped all expeditions from the hospital for the time being. Saito had been observed by our people leaving the hospital with some trucks apparently filled with papers and documents and he had a drawn sword in his hand. On 20 August the Japanese again mounted an armed guard early in the afternoon. In the morning I had been told by Saito and Nomura that the Japanese were still in control and they arranged for Takami the supplies warrant officer to deal with us over food. I pressed him especially for milk and certain other urgently needed foods for medical purposes and required Saito to return to us all the records he had removed. He asked about the numbers we had in the hospital, a foolish but typical request because he must have known all about these already. Nomura told me that the gendarmerie must have been responsible for surrounding the hospital on the day before and we thought it wise not to fly the Union flag for a time. Colonel Field, as the senior officer in command of British troops visited us, and said he would send any food that he could and he approved of our action over the flag incident. He also agreed that following a request from Saito we should not make any large scale moves before he had seen Tokunaga. Saito asked me to give medical and other help to the Indian camp. I found this a queer request indicating a concern of which I had had no great evidence before and of course we were already doing all we could to help. Nomura and another Japanese, Sekiguchi, were busy on plans of our cemeteries and some of our people who had relatives in Stanley left to visit them.\n\nWe exchanged our older men and those who were crippled with patients from Sham Shui Po who needed active treatment, and then a further 14 people who had been in Japanese prisons were admitted including Major Boxer who was an old friend of ours from the early days. Half of the fourteen were civilians. Colonel Tokunaga", "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": 207500, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "260\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nfeet to help aircraft expected to drop supplies the next day. The sign had to be yellow, and the Japanese straw sleeping mats called tatami were used to construct the sign. Some huts in the Indian camp were blown down. We got Tokunaga and Saito to turn over St. Teresa's Hospital to us while we helped also by housing a number of people in our Assembly Hall. Our staff of rice grinders had stopped functioning and we had to use R.A.M.C. orderlies to help. We had been hoping that our sisters would have arrived but a party of them had apparently missed a ferry connection. A nearby typhoon accompanied by heavy rain caused the air drop of supplies to be postponed but the weather moderated and our marooned visitors were able to leave. Two women members of a religious order arrived from St. Teresa's Hospital distressed that a Japanese officer had disturbed them the previous night and I took them to the Indian camp where I arranged the move of patients and staff through Indian Army officers to St. Teresa's Hospital and I set about compiling lists of patients from all centres in order to classify those needing treatment and special transportation when relief arrived. We had a number of Canadian officers to lunch and Major Crawford was a welcome visitor later when he came to see the Canadian patients in hospital. He himself seemed in reasonably good shape by the standards of those days.\n\nIn consultation with Colonel Field certain difficulties over medical arrangements in some camps were remedied. The sisters in St. Teresa's Hospital were keeping three rooms for their own use and the Japanese were moving out. The St. Teresa's staff and patients would be fed from the Indian camp and we were now getting news over the radio which suggested that a relief force might arrive about the end of the month. An emergency operation was performed in our hospital on a patient admitted from camp. The disease was the same as that in the case of the patient whom I reported earlier had been received by us in Bowen Road in 1942 after ten days illness, when he died before surgery could be undertaken. Early surgery would have saved this patient and operation was totally successful in the case of the patient we had just admitted. Staff and patients were again being allowed out locally.\n\nBy 26 August I had occupied the office which Saito had used, and in St. Teresa's Hospital the sisters were now content with the arrangements while they also had access to houses at No. 317 Prince Edward Road, Major Evans was in charge here with Captain", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207518, "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": 286, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "278\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nSaito. He acted without giving reasonable consideration to the cases of sick people put to him as needing hospital treatment, so that many for whom hospital treatment could have been life-saving were not sent in.\n\nWhen the hospital moved nearer to the camps in Kowloon in 1945 we began to see signs that it might be going to be used properly to receive the more serious cases in the camps as they occurred and so fulfil its proper function. If we had been moved near to our sources of patients at the beginning of our imprisonment we might have served our sick more extensively and would have been of greater value to the camp doctors. A move then, when we had a hospital full of seriously wounded, would have been dangerous for these men. By the time the move occurred the need was much less pressing though our availability did, I believe, do much to improve our service.\n\nI do not know what relations existed between Saito and his commander Colonel Tokunaga, but while I must, in justice, be careful in reaching judgments, I consider that as a medical man Saito failed to do much that lay within his power for our sick, particularly those in camps. In saying this I do not claim for our prisoners more than the standards of care allowed by international agreements. A coordinated plan to apply such resources as we commanded in camps and in hospital would have made a vast difference to the medical story of prisoners in Hong Kong.\n\nWhile therefore I can agree that we in the hospital fared better than many in Japanese hands I must also record my conviction that the possession and careful husbanding in the hospital of our own resources played a very large part in such successes as we achieved. Any success that attended the efforts of any of us would have been immensely diminished without the aid of Mr. Zindel and the Red Cross Society and our generous friends in Hong Kong.\n\nWithout the life-saving measures provided by the medical services in the P.O.W. camps, using makeshift resources, many patients would never have reached the hospital at all.\n\nTHE STAFF\n\nMy main purpose in writing this account is to record the history of the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong, from 1942 to 1945 and those who served on the staff or were patients there. The account fails to record some of the colourful personalities we had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 } ]