[
    {
        "id": 207390,
        "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": 158,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG:\n\nTHE STORY OF THE BRITISH MILITARY HOSPITAL, HONG KONG 1942-1945\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nThe future comes one day at a time*\n\nIn international, as in private life, what counts most is not really what happens to someone, but how he bears what happens to him†.\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nEver since I sailed from Hong Kong in September 1945 after my release as a prisoner of war, I have waited for a suitable opportunity to write an account of the experiences of those who served or were patients in the British Military Hospital there. The story will be almost entirely about men for, though I served in the hospital from April 1939, the period of which I write is only that covered by my diaries which began in August 1942. It was then that I took charge of the hospital after the women nurses were removed by the Japanese and except for two, interned thereafter in Stanley. The two exceptions were Latvian and Russian women, lately medical students in Hong Kong University who were released in Hong Kong and sent later to North China. The two Canadian nurses were repatriated to Canada from Stanley in November, 1943.\n\nThe position of Senior Medical Officer was thrust upon me at twenty-four hours notice, and from the 7th August 1942 I kept diaries of events, daily at first but never less frequently than every two-three days, up to the 8th September 1945. Up to September, 1944, I summarized events in a separate book each month and all were sealed in tins and buried in our cemetery in Bowen Road up to March 1945. I recovered the buried diaries after the Japanese surrender and to these I was able to add the 1945 diaries which I had compiled while in the Central British School, Kowloon.\n\nDuring the long years of captivity I also compiled and saved in the same way a report on our wartime surgical experiences in\n\n* Old saying.\n\n† Quoted here from Present at the Creation by Dean Acheson, 1969, who attributes it to George Keenan. The sentiment itself must have been expressed millions of times since principle sought to replace instinct as a guide to human behaviour.\n\nFor the author's career see end of this article.\n\ni",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216420,
        "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": 179,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "129\n\nChemulpo (later Inchon). This would drive north along thawing and impassable roads, across the Yalu River into Manchuria, heading for Liaoyang and Mukden (now known as Shenyang) north of the Liaodong peninsula. Then, with what remained of the Russian fleet bottled up in the harbour at Port Arthur, the second and main force would be landed some thirty miles north of Dalny (Dairen to the Japanese and now known as Dalian) cutting off Port Arthur at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula. The final stage was the landing of a third Japanese army in January 1905 and its assault on Port Arthur. The war began as planned with a Japanese 'Pearl Harbor' bombardment at Port Arthur, taking the Russian fleet by surprise.\n\nAlthough the Japanese met with a number of set-backs their overall plan succeeded. The crowning moments were the Fall of Port Arthur at the beginning of January 1905 and the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, the titanic clash between the Japanese fleet and the Russian Baltic Fleet, the latter having made its slow progress across the world from Latvia in October 1904 to Tsushima seven months later, and to its fate and destruction. News of the devastating Japanese victory alarmed a number of Chinese officials who, whilst they did not wish Japan to lose, had not wanted her to gain such an overwhelming victory.\n\nFinally, after the eighteen month campaign the land war ended with the destruction of the Russian army before Mukden. The succeeding months were a matter of Japanese mopping-up operations and the capture of Liaoyang and Mukden.\n\nDuring the final stages of the war the Japanese finally took the fighting on to 'sacred' Russian territory when they invaded the large island of Sakhalin. This was of great political importance as it was regarded as Russian territory and, with rioting on the streets of the Russian major cities, the Russians realised that they had lost. Also at that point, Japan now holding most of the cards, but militarily and financially exhausted, sought President Roosevelt's good offices to bring about a peace conference. This took place in September 1905 concluding with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in the United States. The Russians ceded the Guandong peninsula (Chinese territory) and half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan but without having to pay any indemnity. The Russians, so the Japanese believed, had been allowed by the Americans to get away without paying any financial compensation.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]