[ { "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": 207440, "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": 208, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "200\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nunexpectedly on 26 January and saw three of our wards. I told him that by now every patient coming from Sham Shui Po had symptoms of some form of deficiency disease. I did not discover his standing as a physician but having seen three patients in one ward and two in another he left without making any comment. Still in 1943, on 29 January we were required to make a return of patients to the Japanese and this showed that we had 213 cases of deficiency diseases in hospital out of a total of 331 patients and the total included 62 war injuries. It is clear that about this time the Japanese were interested in the incidence of deficiency diseases among prisoners, and on 6 February Saito required a report on all such cases admitted from Sham Shui Po since the end of February 1942, that is during the preceding year. We were given certain headings under which to make the report and two of these referred to the effect of Apellagrin and of the diet we provided. We had later to enlarge this to give many more details about the cases of visual defects.\n\nOn 29 March Professor Uehara, said to come from the Imperial University, Tokyo, together with a colonel of the Japanese Army Medical Service, Saito and other medical officers visited the hospital without warning to see some patients suffering from pellagra. The professor seemed specially interested in the skin manifestations and I believe he attributed the visual defects to beri-beri though we had no discussion with him on clinical or therapeutic measures.\n\nIt is impossible for me to say what effect all these visits and reports had on our wellbeing. Certainly the Japanese rations continued as before, though no improvements were made. On the other hand it is just possible that the Red Cross bulk supplies to which I have referred earlier and which began about this time may have been a response to our predicament. This is a pure guess on my part.\n\nOur Japanese were very keen on getting reports from us. For example on 27 January 1943 Takeyama, interpreter at the time, transmitted a demand for lists of hospital equipment held by patients e.g. boots, shoes, shirts, blankets, beds, mattresses etc. In March we were again required to bring up to date lists of our patients who were over the age of 60, blind or had suffered amputations.\n\nOn 28 May Saito having previously warned us, we were inspected by Lieutenant General Hamada Chief of the P.O.W. department, Tokyo. We had to display flowers, put white cloths on the tables", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207445, "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n205\n\nlights-out and a host of minor matters. They sometimes slapped patients, both officers and other ranks, for what they considered to be breaches of orders. On our side the victims could only guess at the reasons for the slapping for no interpreter was ever to hand at the time. I took up every one of these cases with Saito or Seino as soon as either appeared after the incident, and I always tried to have the matter investigated. Repeatedly I was told that a sentry represented the Imperial Army and must inflict punishment at once for any irregularity on our part. I never discovered that there was anything personal in these slappings in the sense that they might be a retaliation for what, in the British army, we used to call dumb insolence. Some tempers on our side were sorely tried but no major incident occurred. I was never approached by any Japanese officer or N.C.O. for help over medical treatment.\n\nOnly once did an opportunity occur to retaliate. Late in 1945 in the Central British School in Kowloon we had an officious guard sergeant who was nicknamed 'Slappy' because of his readiness to slap all and sundry for what he thought were offences. About the time of the Japanese surrender, but well before the guards were withdrawn, this man was waylaid by some of our sappers who had suffered themselves and who wanted to repay him on their own and their friends' behalf. I was told that they were very satisfied with the result and there were no repercussions.\n\nTRADING\n\nThe Japanese allowed us to have a shop within the hospital. We had to buy stocks from a Hong Kong Chinese compradore, a term which will be familiar to all who have been in the Far East, and we then sold the goods within the hospital. For a very long time we were not allowed to make a profit, and it was not until a year or two after our surrender that I got permission to make five per cent and use the proceeds within precisely defined limits. The shop stocked goods likely to be desired, mainly cigarettes, matches, syrup, jams, salt, eggs on occasion, tomato sauce, beans, cigarette papers, sugar, sewing cottons and needles, ginger, laces, soy bean powder, soap, razor blades etc. We placed an order one week and such goods as were available were delivered the following week.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207448, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "208\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nIf I had known I would not have named him to the Japanese. They carried out their own searches and interrogations, accompanied by tying up to water pipes or other suitable tethering posts those they wanted to interview. All were well slapped but the thief was never discovered. Two of our orderlies and one R.A.M.C. man were removed to P.O.W. camp though.\n\nOn another note, soon after I took charge an electric bulb was stolen from the perimeter lighting system, no doubt by one of our people who needed one. The elementary error was made of not replacing the filched good bulb with a worn-out one. This was a useful lesson to me personally from which I profited, but on the occasion of which I am writing I was summoned and formally told that while a bulb was a small matter stealing it was an insult to the Imperial Army and I was warned that if I wanted trouble I could be sure of getting it by allowing such offences.\n\nThe best story about trading, a true one, concerned a patient who was negotiating a deal with a sentry. Much experience had shown that some sentries were less governed by strong principles of honesty in business dealings than others, and often enough no confidence whatsoever was shown between the parties concerned. On this occasion the sentry wanted to take the article away for valuing before making an offer, but our patient was not prepared to allow this. Eventually a compromise was reached and the sentry left his loaded rifle with the patient as a surety while he took the article away for valuation. The patient kept the rifle in his bed and in due course the sentry returned and a bargain was struck.\n\nIn the earlier days a number of sentries came to our nursing orderlies suffering from venereal disease being for some reason reluctant to report sick with such a complaint to their own people. They knew the value of the sulpha drugs and they knew that we possessed some of these. At first I was tempted to allow our men to treat them in the hope that we might thereby enjoy some advantages, in the form at least of their forbearance to be unduly zealous in their dealings with us. I soon came to see that we were likely to gain nothing from this practice and set my face firmly against it. Our small stocks of sulpha drugs were so extremely valuable to us that I myself controlled their issue to wards, a special case having to be made to me on each occasion by the doctor in charge. I would not however assert that some of our men did not supply", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207492, "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": 260, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "252\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nMay 1942. Each page bore many signatures and Saito now wanted a similar undertaking to be given but with only one signature on each page. The original undertaking as presented to us in Bowen Road read \"I hereby swear that I shall not make any attempt to escape whilst I am a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army. Dated this day 17th year of Showa”. In 1942 we had had much debate with the Japanese over the text of this declaration and eventually the staff signed the following version, “I hereby swear that I shall not make any attempt to escape, and understand that I am on parole and may not leave the hospital precincts without permission from the Commandant\". In 1945 Saito insisted upon the first version given above. I had a long argument with him saying that we had signed the alternative version in 1942 since we did not regard ourselves as prisoners, to which Saito retorted that in fact we had been and were being treated differently from other prisoners. All members of the staff signed the new undertaking, but the old date of 26 May 1942 was used in the 1945 form.\n\nOn 31 May the guard sergeant told me at 4 p.m. that a working party of 40 men was coming from Sham Shui Po and were to be accommodated in the church. We put up beds with mattresses and two pillows each, the beds being so closely placed as to touch each other and shortly afterwards 40 Canadians arrived with a sergeant in charge. Next day the working party went off early to Kowloon Hospital to heap earth round air-raid shelters, but they were not pressed too hard there.\n\nOn 1 June the parcels that came from our visitors included 250 eggs which we set aside for patients only. From the working party the hospital got a rumour that Sham Shui Po was sending a concert party the next day, a Saturday, and sure enough on 2 June a band and concert party numbering 41 came from camp by lorry and by march route. My diary records that we had music, both classical and Japanese, as well as dance music and variety acts. Tokunaga was present and the concert was good, but I was not allowed to do any more than provide the performers with sweet tea. On June 2 and subsequently we had no newspapers and Saito told me that none were being received in the camps either. Though our church was being used as a barrack room, services continued to be held and at this time we were again having to use ingenuity to avoid having to serve boiled rice only at meals. For example,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207643, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "16\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\npolicies, the Meiji government managed to avoid most of the difficulties that had plagued the Chinese effort to use foreign assistance efficiently.\n\nBuilding on the foundation of pre-Meiji experience, Western-trained and Western-oriented leadership,24 and strong central government direction and support, Japan made rapid strides in the modernization of her military after 1868. A leading figure in this effort was Yamagata Aritomo, who became Vice Minister of Military Affairs upon his return to Japan after a year-long tour of Europe in 1869-1870.25 With French advice and assistance, the Meiji government created an Imperial Guard in 1871, which not only made possible the abolition of the feudal han in the same year, but also set the stage for the introduction of conscription in 1872. By 1875, the Japanese had established a centralized military academy at Tokyo, with branch schools in veterinary medicine and other subjects.26 At the same time, numerous officers were sent abroad for further military education.27 By 1893, Japan had a total of sixteen military schools instructing over 2,600 students per year.28 Overseas-educated officers returned in a steady stream to assist in teaching these individuals.\n\nIn 1878, following the Satsuma Rebellion (1877), the Japanese established an independent General Staff on the German model. This marked the eclipse of the French in Japanese military affairs and the rise of Germany. Presseisen attaches profound significance to this development: \"So long as French influence prevailed, Japan's army remained under unified civilian control, her law code owed much to French legal opinions, and her government might have evolved toward a liberal, parliamentary system. After Germany's triumph the command structure, the constitution, and the Imperial Court followed the German ideological style.”\n\n19\n\nThe outstanding contributions of Jacob Meckel's German military mission to Japan in 1885 have been described in detail by Presseisen,30 The salient point is that by the early 1890's, Japan had built a modern, centralized army and had eliminated the need for further foreign military assistance. China, meanwhile, had done neither. The Sino-Japanese War underscored the stark contrast between the Chinese and Japanese reform efforts.31\n\nArmies, like individuals, can both reflect and effect change in society. Sir Lewis Namier has offered the opinion that \"the social", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207648, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "STUDY OF MODERNIZATION IN CHINA & JAPAN\n\n21\n\nvernment was, in Perkins' words, \"an almost unbelievably weak [financial] instrument.\"\n\nEven if the Ch'ing government had been moved to undertake more fundamental military reform, China's transition to modernity would have been painful; but without such reform, it was virtually impossible.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Paul Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang Tao and Reform in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 4.\n\n2 Ibid.; see also 148-149.\n\n3 Thomas Kennedy, \"Self-Strengthening: An Analysis Based on Some Recent Writings,” Ching-shih wen-t'i, 3.1 (November, 1974), 27.\n\n4 Cohen, 149.\n\n5 Quoted in S. Y. Teng and John K. Fairbank, eds., China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey 1839-1923 (New York, 1966), 109.\n\n6 See, for example, William Lockwood, \"Japan's Response to the West: The Contrast With China,\" World Politics, 9.1 (October, 1956); Marion Levy, \"Contrasting Factors in the Modernization of China and Japan,\" Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2 (October, 1953); Marion Levy, \"Some Structural Problems of Modernization and High Modernization: China and Japan,\" Proceedings of the Symposium on Economic and Social Problems of the Far East (1962); Allan Cole, \"Contrasting Modernization in China and Japan,\" Ch'ung-chi hsieh-pao, 4.2 (May, 1965); E.O. Reischauer, “Modernization in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan,\" Japan Quarterly, 10.3 (July-September, 1963), etc. A partial exception is the fine article by John K. Fairbank, et al., entitled \"The Influence of Modern Western Science and Technology on Japan and China,\" Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, 7 (1954).\n\n7 Two of the most obvious advantages were, of course, Japan's greater and more immediate awareness of the Western military challenge (a product of geography and historical timing), and the military orientation and ethos (bushido) of the Japanese elite, as compared to the civil orientation and ethos (wen-te) of the Chinese elite. Other factors were also important, including the absence of opium smoking among Japanese officers and the rank and file, which again contrasts so markedly with the case in China. See Jonathan Spence, \"Opium Smoking in Ch'ing China,\" in Frederic Wakeman, Jr., and Carolyn Grant, eds., Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1975).\n\n8 See Fairbank, et al., \"The Influence,\" 192-194, esp. 193.\n\n9 Ernst Presseisen, Before Aggression: Europeans Prepare the Japanese Army (Tucson, 1955), 139.\n\n10 See Richard J. Smith, Ward, Gordon and the Ever-Victorious Army: Foreign Assistance and Military Modernization in Nineteenth Century China (manuscript).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208008, "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-1977", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945\n\n31\n\nAfter 17 days in appallingly overcrowded, filthy conditions with very poor food, those in these hotels were taken by boat from the western waterfront, around past Aberdeen and Repulse Bay, to Stanley,\n\nIt is not known exactly why the Japanese chose Stanley as the site, as others were suggested, e.g. the Peak, the University and La Salle College, Kowloon, but probably it was chosen because of its isolation and the buildings for housing which were there. The camp area consisted of the grounds of St. Stephen's College and the grounds of Stanley Prison, excluding the prison itself.\n\nAt St. Stephen's College were a number of buildings including classrooms, an assembly hall and bungalows for the teachers. Several hundred internees eventually lived at St. Stephen's, more than twenty occupying bungalows built for one family, and many more in science laboratories living between partitions of sacking and old blankets. In August 1942, a number of nurses who had been allowed to remain at work at St. Theresa's Hospital, Kowloon, were made to move to Stanley. They joined other nurses and VADs (Volunteer Aid Detachment) women in a classroom block. On their way to camp, the buses carrying them stopped in central and they were addressed by a Japanese officer who said:\n\nYou are now going to Stanley Internment Camp. All things there will be good - food will be plentiful, conditions will be pleasant. I hope you appreciate this kindness from the Imperial Japanese Army.\n\nSeveral hundred internees lived at St. Stephen's, but the majority lived on the prison grounds. Looking at the map, you will see a building marked 'Dutch'. In this building lived the Dutch, Belgian and later Norwegian internees. Next to it was the Prison Officers' Club, used as a canteen, kindergarten, Catholic church and recreation centre during internment.\n\nLooking further at the map, you see two main divisions of quarters - the Warders' Quarters and Indian Quarters. The first, the Warders' Quarters, were for European warders and were large flats of several rooms; designed for one family, an average of thirty internees lived in each during internment. The Indian Quarters had housed Indian prison guards; they consisted of small flats consisting of two 14 x 10' rooms with a small verandah with a kitchen,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208638, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "68\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nonly the masonry shell of a building stood, mute witness to the horrors of war. Whenever a building was left untenanted, it suffered this same fate. The area around St. Paul's Hospital was pretty badly scarred, and the Hospital itself received many direct shell hits. A few Jesuits and some Salesians were kept prisoners for a while close to the Hospital, but were released after a few days. While engaged in driving an ambulance in the city, one of the Christian Brothers, Brother Peter, was killed; otherwise, the clergy and religious of Hong Kong were uninjured, though I believe Father Tournier, Assistant French Procurator, was slightly wounded. One shell hit the Maryknoll Convent School in Kowloon, and though the Sisters had a trying time, they were unmolested.\n\nAfter the armistice, the Japanese began immediately collecting all vehicles, cars and trucks. Along the road at Stanley, on our return from the garage, we saw a number of trucks and cars on the road, either having been damaged by machine-gun fire, or abandoned by their drivers. These were all towed into town, in many cases by British army trucks which had been captured, and hundreds and perhaps thousands of cars, trucks and buses were corraled on the Happy Valley and Deep Water Bay recreation grounds. It is also thought that the Japanese took many of these vehicles to Japan, as it is reported that they took food supplies out of the Colony to Japan.\n\nGradually, a few bus lines were started up, as was a ferry or two to Kowloon, but the only cars on the road were Japanese trucks and official cars. All business was at a standstill; shops and department stores were closed and boarded up; what business there was, was done by hawkers on the streets. All foreign enemy property was promptly taken over by the Japanese and strips of wood with Chinese characters painted or stenciled on them bore the motto: \"Imperial Japanese Government Property.\" Our house at Stanley was likewise placarded and Father Troesch was appointed guardian for the Japanese Government.\n\nThe French Fathers at Pokfulam were treated rather roughly, and were kept in a small room for several days, while their buildings were ransacked and looted. The Christian Brothers' College suffered the same fate, even though they were of mixed nationality and their head an Irishman. The Jesuits lost Ricci Hall but managed to keep Wah Yan College and the Seminary at Aberdeen. The beautiful French Procure was finally confiscated and the Fathers had to move", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208696, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "126\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nevery foreign enemy building, whether public or private property, and those which have escaped confiscation have not escaped the looting by Chinese. Curiously enough, there was an almost total absence of English signs on streets and over buildings and stores, the Japanese having taken all these down, and in many instances, replacing them with Japanese signs. In the lobbies of office buildings all the tenants' names were in Chinese or Japanese, and it was often very difficult to find one's own family doctor, unless one happened to be familiar with his Chinese name. It seemed that everything reminiscent of the hated foreigner had to be effaced. Placarded all around the town, too, were flaming posters depicting the New Order in the Far East, showing smoking chimneys of busy factories, smiling Chinese gathering grain in the fields, and other indications of what Japan expected to do for the downtrodden Chinese. At various conspicuous places were also huge maps showing the conquests in East Asia of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. The streets were fairly clean, though here and there might be seen some piles of rubbish, and I understand that in the beginning, the Japanese kept in office some of the officials of the Sanitary Squad, that is, British officials. Just to show the effect of Japanese progress, now some of the streets in the downtown sector were actually being washed daily!\n\nHowever, along the side streets, one could find more sordid scenes--emaciated and dying beggars lying on the pavement, and others looking pretty thin and hungry. Before we left Hong Kong, most of these beggars had disappeared and I suppose it is not hard to imagine what became of them, for the Japanese are not very often moved to pity. There are many tales of cruelty inflicted on the Chinese, and one significant fact is that the huge Prison at Stanley is practically empty. It is said that often offenders against the laws were thrown off the bund into the sea; others were tied up and left standing in the broiling sun until they died, and some of us have seen the police dogs which the Japanese have trained to hunt down Chinese who cut wood on the mountain sides. A friend of mine was an actual eye-witness of a Chinese woman whose flesh was literally torn by these dogs and who ran screaming down the mountain. These brushwood gatherers are often shot at, too.\n\nThe Japanese have retained both the Indian and the Chinese police and they patrol this city and the roads. The Indian police", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209037, "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-1980", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "BOOK LISTS\n\n167\n\nFor these reasons the work is thoroughly recommended. It is to be hoped that, when he finds time, Dr. Baker will produce similar work on the city, which is just as fascinating as the countryside. A last word of thanks goes to Mr. Robin Hutcheon, Editor of the South China Morning Post, who saw a good thing and made it all possible.\n\nOne regret perhaps? Each volume cites its own guide to reference books and the third has a useful index to the whole, but I'm lazy and would have liked page references to help me track down the originals of quoted passages.\n\nHong Kong, 1981.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nCHINESE WALLED CITIES: A COLLECTION OF MAPS FROM SHINA JŌKAKU NO GAIYŌ, Benjamin E. Wallacker, Ronald G. Knapp, Arthur J. Van Alstyne, Richard J. Smith, eds. (1979, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press). 266 pp.\n\nThe reader who wants one hundred sketch maps of traditional Chinese walled cities—as they stood in the 1930's—will find them in this book.\n\nLest this brief statement seems to do less than justice to a volume of 266 pages, let me quote from the description of Chinhsiang (page 130) in Shantung: \"The city is 45 kilometers southwest of Chi-ning. Population is given as 3,000 households and 15,000 individuals.\" On the right-hand side of the page, there is also a drawing of the city wall, noting that it is 8.0 m. high, 3.0 m. wide at the top, and 10.0 m. at the bottom. On the map of Chin-hsiang, you can also see that there is a north gate, an east gate, a south gate, and a west gate.\n\nThe Introduction notes that these maps were made by Major Ishiwari Heizō of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in China, and were originally published by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1940 under the title Shina Jōkaku no Gaiyō (General outline of the walled cities of China). The editors added a few photographs to break up the monotony, but no extra research.\n\nChinese University of Hong Kong, 1980.\n\nDAVID FAURE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210623, "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-1985", "page_number": 230, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "211\n\nThe Osborn's ornate, timber caravan was high and brightly painted, and almost every time it returned to the village it appeared to have an additional occupant.\n\nIn later years the family comprised father, John Robert Senior, and mother, Harriet Susanna, four sons one of whom was killed in World War I as well as a daughter. In fact John Robert Junior, so people say, was born in that caravan in Foulden. And while people generally had not, unfortunately, much time for gypsies, they had to admit that the Osborns were pleasant, peace-loving people.\n\nBy the start of World War II the caravans had long stopped coming to Foulden, and John Osborn Junior had emigrated to Canada in 1920. However 12 days after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbour, 42 year old (some records state 41) Sergeant Major Osborn, together with his Company of Winnipeg Grenadiers (which consisted of both French and English-speaking Canadians), found himself on the 436 metre high Mount Butler\n\nwith its spectacular view in the centre of Hong Kong Island, waiting to take on the might of the Imperial Japanese Army.\n\nDawn on the 19th December 1941, which was punctuated with blasts and smoke, came up cool and grey with odd wisps of mist. Shortly afterwards, the Grenadiers recaptured Mount Butler summit. However, the Japanese moved three companies against them, and, owing to superior numbers, by about 10.00 am, the Canadians were driven down the hill.\n\nThey then regrouped and attacked in the direction of Wong Nai Chung Gap, and later turned towards Stanley Gap. As the soldiers charged they came under persistent, merciless fire and their ranks were severely thinned. As a result, the Company became divided.\n\nAt that stage Osborn took over. The mainly young and tired group of 65 Grenadiers, which was all that remained after the charge, was under-trained and previously had had no experience in action, although there were some regular non-commissioned officers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211671, "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-1989", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "61\n\nTHE KIUKIANG INCIDENT OF 1927\n\nP. H. MUNRO-Faure\n\nThe turgid waters of the Yangtze rolled by to the sea, four hundred and eighty miles away. They swirled past the two hulks, alongside which river steamers came to discharge the cargoes of cotton material, hardware, salt, and those edible sea-products so dear to the heart of the Chinese gourmet; loading in return tea, porcelain, grass-cloth, and camphor.\n\nInshore small wavelets glistened in the wintry sun, and lapped along the edge of the dark mud, which sloped down to the water in front of\n\n* Editor's Note. Paul Hector Munro-Faure was born in 1894 of Swiss/Scottish parentage. Educated in England, he entered the Supplementary Army Reserve in 1912, and volunteered on the outbreak of War, being commissioned in the Sherwood Foresters. He was wounded on the Somme in 1916, and, on his recovery, was attached to the King's African Rifles, with whom he saw action in Tanganyika. By the end of the War he had risen to the rank of Captain. He was Mentioned in a Despatch for distinguished services in the field, and was commended in writing by the Secretary of State for War.\n\nAfter the War, he joined the Asiatic Petroleum Company, and remained in their service until the outbreak of the Second World War, as Manager of one or other of their offices in China. In 1937 he established a Chinese Refugee Safety Centre in Shanghai, and was later decorated for this by the Chinese Government with the Brilliant Star with Ribbon. In 1938 he was connected with the International Relief Committee in Nanking, by whose Chairman he was commended for his work for the displaced. He was also commended at this date by the Secretary of the Admiralty for his work in evacuating from that city civilians at risk.\n\nOn the outbreak of the Second World War he was commissioned as Major (shortly afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel) in the Special Operations Executive. He worked at first in the Bush Warfare School at Maymyo, Burma, which trained Chinese guerillas for behind-the-lines work. (For this school, see \"Prisoners of Hope\", Michael Calvert, (London, 1951), where Lt. Col. Munro-Faure is mentioned at p. 11). He then opened a similar school near the front lines in the Hangchow-Nanking area. For this he was awarded an OBE in 1943. Later still he worked between the front lines on the north-east frontier of Burma, attempting to ensure the continuing support for the British of the native princes of the region, in the face of Japanese, and particularly Chinese, attempts to replace the British as the dominant local power. He was commended for this work by his Commanding Officer. In 1944, he was recalled to England. After the War he was seconded as Oil Attache to the British Embassy in Romania. He retired in 1949, and died in 1956.\n\nLt. Col. Munro-Faure wrote a book of Memoirs in 1944-1945, in 11 chapters, covering his experiences in the Kiu Kiang Incident (1927), and between 1937 and 1944, together with an exposition of his views on the proper role of foreigners in China. The text is in the Imperial War Museum, London,\n\nBecause of the immensely valuable picture these Memoirs paint of the Kiu Kiang Incident (in which the writer was closely involved), of China during the early War years, and of the border areas of Burma during the period when the present troubles in the area were first developing, it is proposed to print them as a series in this and the next several issues of the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212197, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "116\n\ncontrolling the rackets of the Shanghai underworld. With the advent of the Japanese they no longer felt safe there and so had taken refuge in Hongkong. The long-gowned men were their bodyguards. These were the gangster chiefs, well regarded by the Chinese government, who had been responsible for the communist purge ten years previously. You can imagine what sort of a strain the presence of such men placed on the vigilance of the Hongkong police.\n\nThe police, however, did trip up badly once. One day a well-dressed, good-looking Chinese gentleman landed from the Chungking passenger plane. He had no passport or credentials and refused to say who he was. So he was detained. He turned out to be Mr. Tai Li, the formidable head of Chiang Kai Shek's dreaded Gestapo. The detention, although very brief, involved a loss of face, and it took a special visit of the British Ambassador to China to Hongkong to smooth the affair over. It is said Mr. Tai Li has ever since used his influence in a direction unfavourable to Britain.\n\nHongkong carried imperial liabilities. It was less irresponsible than Shanghai: nor was it a place like Shanghai where Japanese bagmen flocked in the wake of their army as instruments of Japanese policy with the dual role on the one hand of beguiling the foreign businessman, and on the other of reaping a rich commercial harvest from the trade restrictions imposed by the army on all business which did not pass through Japanese channels. Hongkong knew it had nothing to expect from Japan. It guessed the defences and the garrison were both inadequate; two weak British battalions, one Indian battalion, four out-of-date aircraft, and a small assortment of guns. Yet small as they were, the armed forces looked to their defences. Workmen set to to build concrete pillboxes to cover the beaches, of which there were a large number; alternative sites were prepared for light anti-aircraft guns, roads were built to link weak points in the system, bomb shelters were tunnelled out of the hillsides, and the British civilians, enrolled as volunteers, went into military training. Others served as watchers of the fixed minefields laid off the island, and small naval vessels were set to patrol the adjacent waters outside the boom which floated ready to stretch across the harbour entrance.\n\nBut the Japanese had their spies everywhere. The excellent barber's shop on the ground floor of that English stronghold, the Hongkong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212220, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "139\n\nI was in Ningpo when the announcement of the closing of the Burma road was received. It was a severe blow for the Chinese, but I think they appreciated the difficulties of Britain's position and that she had only been compelled by the force of circumstances to accede to the Japanese demand. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness and courtesy shown to me by the merchants and officials whom I met.\n\nNingpo was one of the first five treaty ports, opened to trade in 1842. Early promises had not been fulfilled, and the port, overshadowed by Shanghai, had remained small. Off the mouth of the Ningpo river on the largest island of the Chusan archipelago lay the walled city of Tinghai, occupied by British troops twice for a space of several years between 1840 and 1860. Tinghai at one time was designated, instead of Hongkong, as the place to be ceded to Britain for the repair of vessels. It looks a healthy enough place, built up the slopes of a high hill, yet the troops suffered much from sickness and the stones in the graveyard bear witness to the numbers buried there. The garrison imported some turkeys, to provide variety for the larder. The British troops have long since left, but the climate was favourable to turkeys, and now large flocks descended from the original birds are bred to supply the Christmas market in Shanghai.\n\nIn Ningpo, the graveyard contains the stone monument, first erected outside the East gate of the city, to commemorate the assistance given by Captain Roderick Dew, R.N., and Lieutenant Kenny of the French Navy and their respective ships' companies, in 1862, to the Imperial Chinese troops in expelling the Taiping rebels from the town. It was nearby that the American General Ward, Gordon's predecessor in command of the Ever Victorious army, was killed. But times change. To Dr. Sun Yat Sen and the Kuo Min Tang the Taiping rebels are the glorious forerunners of their own revolution, and it is doubtful whether General Gordon, or the British, are given any credit for having assisted the Imperial Government to quell the rebellion.\n\nThe country round the little Ningpo plain is very beautiful. In previous winters I used to shoot on the shallow lakes which lay amongst the hills to the west. Most sportsmen waited to go after the early morning and evening flights of duck, but I preferred to work along the edge of the hills with my dog for the occasional pheasant. They were not so numerous here as amongst the reedbeds of the Yangtze. Beyond the lakes, the deep waters of Nimrod Sound were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212645, "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-1991", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "179\n\nwith which we had been faced.\n\nBy the time we left we had trained over thirty teams, only half of which, however, operated in target areas and so could really be described as effective. I am afraid that they have now long since broken up and scattered, their supplies exhausted. Reports had come in of over fifty successful “jobs”, including the destruction of railway and road bridges, the derailment of trains and railway patrol vehicles, the sinking of launches, damage to lorries and sundry industrial plants. Some of these \"jobs\" were really a little bit out of our line, but suited to Chinese ideas. For instance, there was the comedian, who entered a cinema frequented by Japanese troops. He carried a bottle filled with grey powder, which of course was examined at the door where all Chinese entering the cinema would be searched. He explained the powder in the bottle was a special cure for the itch; the Japanese at that time had not learnt what ammonal looked like and the sentry did not know that inside the so-called itch powder was concealed a primer, a detonator, and a half-hour time-pencil. The Chinese farmer, so interested to come and see the film of the Almighty Imperial Japanese Army creating the East Asia Greater Prosperity Sphere took his seat, deposited his bottle under it, was “taken short\", walked out to relieve himself, and failed to return. Within half an hour the Japanese discovered why!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212715, "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": 24, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "9\n\nany newly-opened port for them to be snatched up and at almost any price by Chinese merchants..... until the Chinese purchaser came to close quarters with the English importer, eliminating middlemen at small ports and to transferring operations chiefly to the great emporiums of Hong Kong and Shanghai.'\n\nHankow was the other city in which, on and off, Mesny spent a dozen or so years and where eventually he died, a city on the north bank of the Yangtze, part of the three-city metropolis now known as Wuhan. It was the major commercial port in central China during the second half of the 19th century, containing British, German, Russian, Japanese and French settlements, known as Concessions. Hankow was opened as a treaty port in 1861, a year before Mesny arrived there and became famous abroad as the start of the annual tea-clipper race back to England.\n\nThe province of Kueichou in south-west China, where Mesny also spent a number of years was one of the most backward areas of China. It had been under Chinese rule since the Han at about the time of Christ, but only became a separate province during the Ming, in AD 1413. Waves of Chinese immigration, mainly from neighbouring Szechuan and Hunan provinces, forced the non-Chinese minority tribesmen out of the fertile valleys leading eventually to discontent and finally rebellion. Mesny's story is illuminating in a number of respects. There were always foreigners who took up minor posts with the Chinese bureaucracy, particularly during the modernisation campaigns which took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Old photographs exist showing foreigners in, for example, a Chinese arsenal beside foreign machinery or weapons, both as advisers and trainers, but few ever wrote of their experiences. The most interesting part of Mesny's life, however, standing out as a unique experience, was the short period of some five to six years when he served with two provincial forces of the Chinese Imperial Army on active service helping suppress a rising of the Miao, a subjugated minority race in a remote part of southern China. [See Appendix C for a summary of the first campaign against the Miao in which Mesny took part]. Probably the most interesting part of these narratives is the reasonably detailed description of Chinese soldiering during this relatively minor campaign. It is full of anecdotal descriptions of campaigning in central south China against a redoubtable foe, the Miao people, though regrettably Mesny fails to go into detail about such interesting subjects as how he was paid, how patronage worked up to him personally, etc. He does, however, cover a number of themes in his Notes on the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212717, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "The Boxer Rebellion in north China in 1900, which involved the massacre of some western missionaries and a siege of the Legation area in Peking, did not reach as far south as Shanghai, though in his curriculum vitae Mesny mentions 'Volunteered for service at Peking 1900'. Unfortunately, we do not know whether his service was accepted or what he did during that period.\n\nThe Chinese Imperial government survived these rebellions but slowly became even weaker as the years went by. Western nations also took full advantage of Chinese imperial weakness until in 1911 the Revolution overthrew the imperial government and established a very weak republic which, after some further thirty or so years of both inner turmoil and invasion by the Japanese, ended with the Communist victory. Mesny lived through the first eight years of the Republic, and though they were stirring times, he must have had many nostalgic memories of his prowess and success in the Chinese imperial army, particularly in the latter days of the suppression of the Miao rebels, and the time when he was a prisoner of the Taipings, features which make his eye-witness accounts of value today.\n\nMesny lived in a China which followed a predominantly masculine routine. The majority of foreigners were either isolated loners or members of small groups in remote parts of China, or they lived in treaty ports, enclaves in which the relative comfort of 'home', friends, and social occasions made life bearable, even though foreign women tended to live circumscribed and artificial lives. However, his accounts lack such intimate detail of his and his family's lives. Despite the autobiographical notes in the Miscellany, not only in segments but selective in the extreme, Mesny remains somewhat of an elusive person, and, as none of his letters appear to have survived, much of his personal life would seem to be largely irrecoverable. His enigmatic snippets about his Chinese family are such that they do little more than fuel guesswork. We still lack an account of Mesny's private life in his later years, one in which we might hear the voices of his wives and children as clearly as those of the senior officers we have been provided in the Miscellanies, of the senior Chinese officers during the Kueichou campaign.\n\nMuch of the raw material provided by Mesny contains stark, bald statements which leave loose ends and strands which we cannot gather together without straying into the realms of guesswork. Regrettably, there would appear to be little chance of ever satisfying our curiosity from...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212824, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "118\n\nassistance which it might be possible to provide, and, soon after, the Myosa left to return to his country.\n\nIn August 1943 British troops were poised on the Assam border at Imphal, Tamu, and Tiddim, awaiting sufficient replenishment of equipment and the cessation of the rains to undertake the return advance into Burma; and there was activity down in the Arakan: while General Stilwell's Chinese divisions, retrained, reinforced, and re-equipped in India after their withdrawal from Burma, were just beginning to feel their way forward from Ledo, away up at the northern end of Assam, down the road which later was to become famous as the Ledo road. General Wingate's first expedition into Burma had just been completed, with heavy loss on our side, but with much success in confusing the enemy and disorganising his effort to consolidate his positions. The shape of future operations depended on the enemy's dispositions, so that any information which could be collected in eastern Burma would be useful: and in Kokang it might also be possible to organise patriot parties to assail his communications.\n\nIt was not an easy matter to obtain the consent of our allies for the passage of a British party to Kokang. The Chinese have unfortunately imitated the Japanese in a predilection for red tape; formalities are extended ad infinitum. It was fair enough that any British officer who entered China should require a pass issued by the Chinese authorities - though no such restriction attached to the presence of Chinese officers in India - but was it really necessary that the power to issue the pass should be retained by the highest authority in the land, the Military Affairs Council which would correspond with our Committee of Imperial Defence and that it should have to carry the personal chop of the Generalissimo? It did not make for speed in administration. It should also be remembered that the Chinese refused to serve in Burma under British command: that is how General Stilwell first came on the scene; and I think it is fair to say that our American allies had come to look on the Far East, and perhaps more particularly China, as their own special sphere of operations, where there was no room for any British.\n\nMy appointment was from the Army in India, which in those days, before the South East Asia Command had been established, was responsible for the operations in Burma. The proposal for assistance to the Myosa was submitted by the British representatives in Chungking to the Chinese government with a request that the necessary passes be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213637, "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-1995", "page_number": 233, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "208\n\nAn attempt by the prisoners to break out of No.3 Hold was repulsed by rifle fire from a guard party on the Bridge. Later, all the Japanese troops and crew members were taken off by several Japanese naval vessels, including a destroyer. No attempt was made to take off the P.O.W.s who were left to their fate. The vessel was under tow until the crew abandoned ship. Eventually, the vessel's stern touched bottom off the Chinese coast. The vessel took a violent lurch, and a renewed attempt enabled many P.O.W.s to break free and scramble over the side to swim ashore. Even then, they came under fire from nearby vessels. Most of those who made it to the shore were later rounded up by the Japanese, although one did manage to make his way to freedom via Chung King.\n\nLt. Wada had not survived the war, so the accused stood to face the music alone. A number of P.O.W.s gave evidence, but perhaps the most significant testimony came from the Second Mate Araki Kaname who elected to give evidence for the prosecution. He branded the order from Lt. Wada to batten down the prisoners in the holds as plainly illegal. The consequences were obvious if the order was carried out, and it was contrary to an Imperial Rescript which directed that prisoners should be treated no worse than their own troops, except so far as was necessary to keep guard over them. The witness was asked what would have happened if the Master had refused to comply with the order. “Lt. Wada would have been court-martialled if he had used force to oblige the Master to obey. The Master was responsible for the lives and safety of all on board\".\n\n846 prisoners died in the events that followed the battening down - either through suffocation, drowning or shooting.\n\nThe accused was defended by a very competent Japanese lawyer, probably chosen by his professional association, and he was permitted to call a number of witnesses from Japan, including a Lieutenant-General from the Army Marine Transport Bureau, who stated that a civilian master of a troop-carrying vessel was bound to obey orders given to him by the senior military officer on board. Japan had not ratified the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war, although he was aware of an Imperial Rescript to the effect that the convention should be observed so far as practicable. The main defence was that the accused had to obey orders even though the officer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214743, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "122\n\nThose who are resting in peace in the military cemeteries in Sai Wan and Stanley and those not buried there have not just earned for themselves a reputation for obedience and courage, but also won a way of life for the future generations of Hong Kong. Above all, they served their home countries and mankind by making a contribution to a war that was a crime against humanity.\n\nThe Performance of the Hong Kong Garrison\n\nWhile politics and good will may be controversial, an objective assessment of the actual performance of the defenders vis-à-vis the invaders is not impossible.\n\nAll authors referred to in the literature above pointed out that the Hong Kong garrison was, militarily, facing a hopeless situation on 8 December 1941. The Colony was isolated, with virtually no air cover or naval support, outnumbered three to one by the Japanese, and largely without combat experience, adequate training, sufficient ammunition or even winter uniform. Furthermore, it was an assortment of nationals who spoke different native languages; English, Cantonese and several Indian dialects. It was thrown into a battle against well-prepared and veterans of the Japanese Imperial Army, which had at least five years of combat history in China and was well supplied with detailed intelligence and mapping information about the Colony. During the Battle, Japanese agents and Chinese collaborators living in the Colony also assisted the invaders. The British forces also laboured under the impression that the offer of assistance by the Chinese forces and other Chinese groups was reliable. The final collapse of the resistance happened not only earlier than the London authorities had expected - 17 days instead of 9012 - but also far ahead of schedule for the Japanese, who contemplated that half a year13 would be required to conquer the Colony. Thus, many commentators argue that the defence of Hong Kong was a shambles. However, no author has actually attempted to measure the \"fighting power\" or effectiveness of the Hong Kong garrison or made a comparative study of the tactics of the defender vis-à-vis the invaders.\n\nI argue that it is unfair to pass judgement on the performance of the garrison by solely comparing the actual and planned duration of the battle or any other military dimension of the fall of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215548, "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": 325, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "275\n\n11-4\n\nTHE CHINESE CEMETERIES QUESTION, The China Mail, 12th July 1901.\n\nLau was listed after Ho Kai and Wei Yuk in the Board, see Arnold Wright (ed) (1990), 20TH CENTURY IMPRESSIONS OF HONG KONG, Singapore: Graham Brash, p. 174. (The book was first published in 1908.)\n\nus The Hongkong Weekly Press and China Overland Trade Report, 17 April 1909.\n\n116 HKGG Notice 229 of 25 July 1913. The rules and regulations of the cemetery\n\nare given in the same notice.\n\nThis may partly be due to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902.\n\n18 Davis, S.G. (1949). HONG KONG IN ITS GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING.\n\nLondon: Collins, p. 96.\n\n119 HKGG Notification 12 of 20th January 1911.\n\n120 The first Japanese burial in the Colonial Cemetery was a young second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army who died in Hong Kong in 1878 while on the way back to Japan. His grave lies in §27 section in the cemetery.\n\n121 A small number of Japanese were buried at Caroline Hill Cemetery, whose remains were later reinterred in the Colonial Cemetery, when former was cleared.\n\n122 Between 1878-1945, there were about 465 Japanese buried in the Colonial Cemetery. For details of the Japanese burials, see £#✯ (1988), #* • * 人基地一船員墓碑中心,港日關係之回顧與前瞻,香港日本文化協會二十五週年紀念特集,香港:香港日本文化協會,pp.132-141.(The article was originally written in 1973 when the author was posted to the Japanese Consulate General in Hong Kong.) Also see a local Japanese newspaper, WEEKLY HONG KONG, 5 October 2000, p. 7.\n\n123 A highly interesting article on the subject, titled THE EXHILARATING TOPIC OF GRAVES', can be found in The Hongkong Telegraph, 10th November 1909, p. 4. It was also reported and discussed in The Hongkong Weekly Press and China Overland Trade Report, 20th February 1909, p. 142 and 17th April 1909, pp. 311-312.\n\n124 Hong Kong Hansard 1909, pp. 168-169.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215886, "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-2002", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "118\n\nKong PRO control no. MM-0477)\n\n'Hong Kong Devil's Peak, 2-6\" B.L. Gun Battery, Details of No. 1 Emplacement - Gough Battery' chopped by the Inspector General of Fortifications dated 28.5.70 (with a Public Record Office reference WO78/4140 RP3578) (Hong Kong PRO control no. MM-0469)\n\n'Hong Kong Devil's Peak, 2-6\" B.L. Gun Battery, Details of No. 2 Emplacement - Gough Battery' chopped by the Inspector General of Fortifications dated 28.5.70 with a Public Record Office reference WO78/4140 RP3578 (Hong Kong PRO control no. MM-0470) Colonel Robertson, L. (28.7.1914), Devil's Peak: Copy of the Original Design prepared by Lt. A. F. Day and coloured by him to show progress up to 1.7.1913. 1:120 sketch drawn by Colonel L. Robertson, Chief Engineer, South China Command, (WO78/5432), PRO441(1). Colonel Robertson, L. (28.7.1914), Devil's Peak Redoubt as Constructed. 1:120 sketch drawn by Colonel L. Robertson, Chief Engineer, South China Command, (WO78/5432), PRO441(2).\n\n(b) On military operations\n\nHong Kong Government, History of the War in the Far East. Confidential File CR5751/47, Colonial Secretariat, Hong Kong Government, PRO HKRS163-1-656.\n\nHistory of the Part Taken by the 5th BN 7th Rajputs in the Defence & Fall of H.K. Against the Imperial Japanese Army, Dec; 8th - 25th. (WO172/1692), PRO16947.\n\nRoyal Artillery Report on Operations in Hong Kong in Dec 1941. PRO17849.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216423, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "132\n\nof the war with intense fascination as Russia's ultimate victory, they believed, would lead to Russia riding roughshod all over northern China and not just over Manchuria.\n\nWhen, four days after the start of the war, China proclaimed her neutrality, England, France, Germany and Italy, all neutral powers, joined in suggesting to Russia and Japan that they avoid sending troops into Chih-li (Zhili - the Chinese metropolitan province), lest the Chinese Imperial Government should flee Peking. Both Russia and Japan agreed. The fact that at the outbreak of the war there were some five hundred Japanese instructors in the Chinese Army, having displaced many of the European instructors, might have complicated matters had not the belligerents and China appear to have disregarded the fact.\n\nWesterners, too, were unable to predict the outcome and in the event made a number of contingency plans. An Imperial Maritime Customs memorandum produced in Shanghai in 1904, produced by the Statistical Department of the Imperial Maritime Customs (IMC) concerned plans to rearrange Chinese land tax as more than half of China's revenue was mortgaged for payment of foreign loans, leaving insufficient funds in the event of the Russo-Japanese conflict spreading further into China.\n\nContraband of war\n\nForeign ships' captains made a fortune running the blockade from Chinese ports into Port Arthur and other Russian ports along the coast of Manchuria. One German merchant realised a profit of £10,000 in three months on contraband cargoes carried to Port Arthur by a steamer of only 180 tons burden.\n\nChina, not fully comprehending the implications of trading with both belligerents found herself accused by both belligerents of contravening the concept of contraband of war. After considerable discussion Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the IMC promulgated regulations to the effect that:\n\nContraband of war consists of purely military requisites, that is, arms and ammunition,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216429, "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": 188, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "138\n\npreyed on the Chinese who had settled in Siberia, north of the Amur River, and every now and then, upon those who lived in Manchuria just south of the river. The Russian bandits gradually disappeared from this region, and their place was more and more taken by Chinese, and so the term Hung Hutse came to be applied to Chinese bandits as well, even though the latter with rare exception have no beards.'\n\nAnother version provided by an American reporter with a vivid imagination explained that the bandits painted their faces red and wore false beards to engender fear in the hearts of all and sundry.\n\nBrindle related the story of two Hong Huzi chiefs who held high positions in the Imperial Army of China, and periodically visited Peking. They had organised large bands of Hong Huzi during the summer and autumn of 1904, the result being a determined and continual harassment of outlying Russian camps. The Hong Huzi, he wrote, 'were splendid horsemen, well armed and mounted on Manchurian ponies, and made admirable irregulars.'\n\nTwo early French travellers, Ular and Mury, described a community in northern Manchuria as 'Zheltuga, the republic of the Chinese bandits, the Hong Huzi'. Zheltuga was the community of illegal Chinese gold miners which existed on the banks of the Heilongjiang [Amur], the border between Manchuria and Russia, between 1883 and 1886. It consisted of Russians and Chinese who flocked into the area from Siberia and Manchuria when gold was found in the area of the present Chinese town of Mohe as far north as one can get in Manchuria. Zheltuga lasted three years and was destroyed by the Qing in 1886. There would appear to be no corroboration of the French claim, and the miners so described consisted of unauthorised speculators who doubtless were referred to as bandits by the Qing authorities and by extension as Hong Huzi. They may, perhaps, have been a community dominated by Hong Huzi but it is doubtful whether they were an organised community of Red Beards.\n\nGeneral Ma, one of China's generals stationed in northern Manchuria near its border with Mongolia, attracted significant attention of the Russians as he was one of a small but powerful party who urged the Chinese Government to cast her lot with the Japanese, making common cause against the encroaching northern Power. Many of his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]