[
    {
        "id": 207398,
        "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": 166,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "158\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nthought fit to fight was discharged from hospital, but there must have been many of those manning the mainland defences whose legs felt weak and shaky following the fever and anaemia of the disease as they covered the hilly and terribly uneven country they were called on to defend,\n\nThe news from Europe, North Africa and the United Kingdom during 1940 and the first part of 1941 was very bad, while the stories of the German advances in Russia after June 1941 added to the general depression. In October 1941, two battalions of Canadian infantry, the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada, disembarked in Hong Kong. With these came a number of Canadian Army Medical Officers, with Major John Crawford in charge, and two Canadian Army Nursing Sisters. The sight of these strongly built young men was momentarily, and quite irrationally comforting, but this feeling was soon replaced by astonishment that anyone should have dreamed that reinforcements of this order could possibly have altered the situation. In the event the Japanese attacked before the poor Canadians, who were not even accompanied by their transport, had time to settle down and they merely added to the numbers of casualties incurred and prisoners taken by the enemy. In February 1941 it might have been agreed that there were no ships available to withdraw the troops from Hong Kong, but in October of the same year ships were found to bring in more.\n\nI have chronicled my own thoughts on the situation in Hong Kong in the years leading up to December 1941 only to give some idea of the position as it appeared to one individual and as a background to an account of the events which followed. I do not know that these thoughts were shared by many others though it would be strange if they were not. There was certainly no defeatist spirit abroad and the general feeling seemed to be one of some confidence in our ability to hold the Japanese for a time. I imagine that many shared my own feeling in 1941 that since I could not change the situation I would have to put up with it. And so, on the morning of 8 December 1941, Dr. J.W. Anderson, who had most generously shared his house with me, and I stood at Magazine Gap and had a spectacular grandstand view of the short Japanese air attack on Kai Tak airport by the end of which no British planes remained able to fly. Together he, now a Major R.A.M.C., and I moved into",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "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...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    }
]