[
    {
        "id": 207437,
        "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": 205,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n197\n\nhad no means of judging his intelligence. After the war Tokunaga was sentenced to be hanged by our War Crimes Court in Hong Kong in 1946, a sentence later commuted to life imprisonment and later still to 20 years in prison. I cannot speak for any of his actions as far as the P.O.W. camps were concerned, and I emphasise this. So far as our hospital was concerned I did not and do not consider that his conduct towards us merited a death sentence. Tokunaga, of course, was not a medical man.\n\nA Japanese army doctor, Lieutenant Saito, was in immediate charge of the British Military Hospital throughout our captivity. He also had charge medically of the P.O.W. camps. He acquired an evil reputation among our troops in the camps, partly from what was reported to be his haphazard selection of patients to be sent to our hospital, a selection made from lists prepared by our own doctors when he often never saw the patients at all. In the hospital I found it impossible to establish any kind of durable understanding with him even on a professional plane. I never got to know the extent of his medical knowledge. When reports, oral or written, upon patients were made to him they seemed to be engulfed and to disappear leaving little or no trace. He must have paid some attention to some of the written reports for at times he required elucidation of a point that had been made.\n\nBetween August and December 1942 Saito made few appearances in the hospital; a typical sudden incursion was at nine p.m. on 9 September. He then demanded to see all our blind patients, all who had suffered amputations and all over sixty years of age. This done he wanted to go on and see sixty-eight others whom we had previously listed as unfit for service, either permanently or for a substantial period of time. As the visit was unannounced we had not got the case sheets and X-rays ready, and he and I vied with each other in proclaiming our readiness to wait for these and go on as long as necessary. In the end we restarted at seven a.m. next day and took seventy minutes to see fifty-eight patients. I got no inkling as to his decisions.\n\nOn 13 October I had my next encounter with Saito when he came to see our diphtheria patients, including one who had received a transfusion of blood taken from a recovered diphtheria patient. In reply to my question he told me that the diphtheria situation in Sham Shui Po was better, the disease being less severe and presenting as one case every two-four days. This account was totally different from that given by patients we had admitted recently from",
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    {
        "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",
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    {
        "id": 207455,
        "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": 223,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n215\n\nmuch space as possible. The raiding plane on 26 October had therefore been seen by many of our population in the hospital. The sequel came on 3 November when, in the middle of afternoon, all up-patients and all staff were ordered to parade on the tennis court. Sentries had been posted overlooking the court and Lieutenant Saito and Mr. Hasegawa, an interpreter from Japanese Headquarters, were present. Two days earlier Sgt. Seino had told Major Charles Boxer that the Japanese navy had reported to the Japanese army that our men had been seen on the hospital verandahs during air raids. The intense rivalry between the two services was well known, and after Boxer's warning I saw to it that all staff and patients were ordered to keep off verandahs during air raids. The precaution came too late, however, and at the tennis court parade Saito made a speech interpreted by Hasegawa to the effect that many people in the hospital had laughed at and criticised the Japanese Military Authorities during and after the air raid. All on parade who had not laughed or criticised were ordered to hold up their hands and all did so. Hasegawa then said he did not believe this and I was called further forward from the head of the parade and asked if I knew who had laughed or criticised. On replying that I did not know I was dealt a buffet on each side of the face by Saito. His fist was not clenched but he was quite a powerful man and my cap was knocked askew and the inside of my cheek was cut though I suffered no real injury. Boxer was then called forward and asked why he had not signed an undertaking not to escape about which I shall have something to say later. Boxer replied that a Japanese officer would not have signed such a document and he then received two blows on the face from Saito. The parade was then dismissed and Saito went to No. 3 ward at the top of the building where up-patients were paraded on the verandah. These were mainly men recovering from diphtheria and any who had been on verandahs during raids were ordered to stand forward. When none did all were slapped. A new interpreter to the hospital, Takeyama, had just taken over and the latter told me formally that any further complaints of this nature would be followed by the closing of the hospital. We therefore arranged that verandahs on the harbour side would be policed by us during raids and that no one would even go on the verandah on the harbour side to get to lower floors where shelter was better. Shortly afterwards, on Japanese orders all beds were removed from verandahs on the harbour side of the",
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    {
        "id": 207461,
        "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": 229,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n221\n\nIn 1942 members of the hospital staff were given small, very small gifts of military yen from the Central Hospital Fund. In April 1943 the Japanese announced their intention to pay working staff and to do so from one year earlier. In the event by June, 7 of our engineers, 4 cooks, 2 bakers and 3 working patients received pay for April 1943 at rates of 20 sen daily for a warrant officer, 15 sen for a N.C.O. and 10 for a private. Receipts were authenticated by thumb prints. Every officer had had 60 yen deducted monthly by the Japanese from his pay to cover the cost of his messing, but by the end of September the deduction was reduced to 30 yen and for junior officers to 27 yen. By October the Central Fund was paying 5 yen a month to 6 N.C.O.'s in charge of wards and to the librarian as well as to other staff. In November a new deduction was made by the Japanese from officers' pay. The additional deductions were 60 yen from a Lieutenant Colonel, 40 from a Major and 20 from a Captain with the stated aim of accumulating savings for the future on behalf of the individuals concerned. I do not know when the British system of post-war credits was started, but the aims in both cases were obviously to reduce the amount of spending money available when goods were in short supply as well as to build up an individual's future bank balance. I tried hard to get permission to use money thus saved for the benefit of patients through our Central Hospital Fund but of course I failed. The Japanese told me that officers would be shown their savings accounts in January 1944. I have no note that this was done by that date but it could have been done without me making a note in my diary. It was certainly done at a later date. In any case, in my story of the events of 1945 I record that in August I was handed substantial sums in military yen by Saito which were said to represent savings thus accumulated by officers in the hospital. By then the military yen had for practical purposes lost all value and my diary does not record what happened to our savings. By then we had our minds set on much more important matters.\n\nDuring the year we also received through the Japanese a Red Cross issue of vests intended for all in hospital. These were very acceptable, but the numbers were 39 short and so we excluded senior officers from the distribution. We also had a gift of socks and we issued these only to staff and to patients in special need as we had not enough to go round.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207472,
        "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": 240,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "232\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nThe fact that I remarked upon this feature shows that it was unusual and this is true. Other doctors were not openly discourteous; their manner was uniformly aloof and when interest in the case of a patient was displayed there was little sign that one human being was dealing with another. This characteristic was shown by all inspecting officers and we came to regard it as normal, certainly with us and quite possibly with their own troops also. One eye specialist, a lieutenant, his name sounded like Igara, examined a number of these patients suffering from disturbed vision one day along with Major J.D. Fraser. We asked him for suggestions for treatment and he advised giving potassium iodide by mouth along with subconjunctival injections of saline. We showed no enthusiasm for these measures and he said he was prepared to give the injections himself. We diverted his attention and no such injections were ever given.\n\nIn January 1944 all in hospital were asked by the Japanese to provide 200 word essays on their experiences during hostilities. Essayists were asked to pay special attention to any psychological reactions to their experiences, the area in which they had fought and the names of comrades who had been killed. I imagined that criticisms of our own leaders, personal fears, war weariness, Japanese superiority in the field for example, might have proved useful propaganda in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Many of the stories which passed through me showed that bodily privation had not impaired mental inventiveness and I made sure that nothing of value got through in these essays.\n\nJapanese forms were also required to be completed for every man in the hospital showing his name, date of birth and age, height, weight, chest measurement, dates of inoculation against typhoid, dysentery and cholera and date of vaccination. I was required to record weights graphically each month, a record which I had been keeping up already for my own purpose ever since August 1942. In December separate forms giving information about themselves were required in addition from all non-British in the hospital.\n\nAnother report demanded by Saito was on the peace condition of our hospital in Bowen Road. He sought information on accommodation, diets, amenities, ward equipment, lighting and so on. I never discovered the reason for him collecting this information whose only value could have been to satisfy his personal curiosity.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207482,
        "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": 250,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "242\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nthis feeling, but I still was troubled by a nagging fear of the dangers that closer American pressure and a final assault could bring for all prisoners in Japanese hands.\n\nIn 1945 the order to move to Kowloon was given to me by Saito on 6 March and the move itself took place on 23 March. The place first named as our destination was the Heep Yunn School and I learned of the change only on arrival in Kowloon.\n\nUntil we moved we continued to be short of ration wood, though we used a great deal of wood from floors in vacated buildings in the hospital with which to start our fires and often to maintain them. Early in January vegetable rations were short and many meals consisted of boiled rice only. On 26 January Seino began to store peanut oil in our boiler house, to protect it he said from incendiary bullets. We received 280 sacks of rice from a city godown followed in another day or two by another 60 sacks. Some of these sacks were taken into our store and some to the Japanese quarters, 200 were stacked in our casualty department for re-export. Altogether our men handled 400 sacks each weighing a nominal 100 kilos or about 40 tons over a few hours. They richly earned the small extra issue I arranged for them. Our men also had to carry 600 sacks of charcoal up the very steep steps to the old barrack room where it was stored, the doors being then locked. None of this charcoal was ever issued to us.\n\nIt was about now that I was allowed for the first time to take on our books a nominal 100 kilos sack at 96 kilos and this was lucky, for we were already issuing less than the authorised Japanese rice ration in order to avoid running out of our short-weight stocks. In fact over a recent period we had actually received 370 kilos of rice less than the weight we had to take on our books. When I told Seino about this he asked me not to lower our rice issues below our entitlement, and asked also that we should make up one sack a month. This advice was, I believe well intentioned but was much less realistic than I expected from Seino. Arising out of our talk on shortages one day Kochi, an interpreter, said that the Japanese had been very busy during December. That was certainly true for the Americans were making much progress in their invasion of the Philippines.\n\nIn January 1945 the system by which an amount of money was deducted by the Japanese from officers' monthly pay as savings was abandoned and so a lieutenant colonel, for example, got 160 yen in his pocket instead of 130. In the same month Seino gave me six dozen 11×14",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207487,
        "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": 255,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n247\n\nrun by as entirely separate institution. After the Canadians moved from North Point we drew our patients only from Kowloon and I suppose that the prestige of adhering to the Geneva Convention outweighed in Japanese minds the administrative drawbacks of our site in Bowen Road.\n\nAs time went on the need to supply and guard a unit widely separated from the main body of prisoners must have become more onerous. Increasing shortages and difficulty in supplying electricity and water to Bowen Road were probably instrumental in finally bringing about our transfer to Kowloon.\n\n24 MARCH -- 9 SEPTEMBER 1945\n\nWe now moved into the last few months of our captivity. At first, staff and patients were accommodated in Sham Shui Po camp and from there working parties of our staff went out daily to prepare the hospital. It was on that day that I got my only view of the Heep Yunn School and I did not like what I saw, but the same day I learned that we were to have the Central British School for use. This looked and proved to be a suitable building and we began to move our gear there. A little later Saito told me that the staff would be reduced to 40 all ranks though previously he had said that there would be 40 other ranks. On 9 April 6 officers and 34 other ranks moved in to the Central British School. Besides myself there were Major G.F. Harrison, Major J.W. Anderson, Captain A. Coombs, Lieutenant (Q.M.) F.J. Campbell and the Rev. James Squires our padre. There were five Royal Engineers, M.S.M. Sims, Q.M.S. Tyas, and sappers Samways, Carvell and Climo, and there were 29 other ranks R.A.M.C. and R.A.D.C. headed by Sergeant-majors Muxlow and Bartley. On 10 April 62 patients of whom 58 had been in Bowen Road and four were newly arrived in the hospital. There were at first no non-medical workers though these had been promised. On 12 April a further 62 patients arrived, 31 of these being crippled but in fair general condition and a further 31 being what we then called old men (i.e., unfit for service by reason of age). Two army officers and some American and British merchant navy officers were included, but we had no special accommodation for officers. The Japanese ordered that all patients were to have white beds, another example of window dressing. The hospital provided for 34 beds for patients on the ground floor and 81 on the first floor which also housed the operating theatre, X-ray room and laboratory.\n\nPage 255\n\nPage 256",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207497,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 265,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n257\n\nConfirmatory details that the war was ended were coming in via the sentries who it will be remembered were mostly Formosans. Check parades were being held less regularly and there was some cheering within the hospital. Later that night, 17 August Major Harrison and I walked out of the hospital and went to a nearby Internment Camp where we saw Dr. and Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke and Dr. and Mrs. Canaval who had worked with us during hostilities. I got back to the hospital at 1.30 a.m. to find the place deserted by the Japanese and our men collecting souvenirs. On this day an American Red Cross case was delivered by the Japanese to us and on 18 August the Japanese quarters inside the hospital were being cleared up and documents and mattresses were burned by them. There was much broken glass about the place from bottles, windows etc. and it was on the previous night that our guard sergeant known as \"Slappy\" was dealt with by some of our men who were getting a little of their own back. I found it remarkable that on this day Saito brought the August pay for all officers together with all the savings which had been deducted from pay by the Japanese. This amounted to 740 yen for a major and 370 for a captain. Apparently I signed for all of this, though I have no note as to what I did with this money which by now of course was practically valueless. Two old friends of mine, one from the Middlesex Regiment and one from the Royal Marines came from the officers' camp and gave us news of events there. I went to see the Indian camp and arranged to help them with supplies of drugs etc. Major Ashton Rose brought in one patient from Sham Shui Po and said he had about 60 still to come. At this time my policy was to reserve our hospital beds only for sick people and to transfer to camp those who required no active treatment.\n\nOn 19 August I went early to Sham Shui Po where I saw the senior officer who remained, Lieutenant Col. F. Field and others. Major John Crawford, the senior Canadian doctor was in charge of the officers' camp and Captain Strahan moved to give professional help in the Indian camp. I saw patients with Ashton Rose and Crawford and arranged for Sham Shui Po to remain as a reception station sending those who needed treatment to the Central British School in Kowloon. Surplus drugs and equipment were to be returned to the Central British School leaving in Sham Shui Po only items necessary for a reception station. Ashton Rose would go to the Indian camp as Senior Medical Officer, Swyer would be...",
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