[ { "id": 207485, "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": 253, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n245\n\nworking party got 600 grammes. They stayed with us for three weeks. By 23 January we often had little Japanese ration food to offer our people except rice and on alternate days we issued beans and small extras from Red Cross stocks to try to vary the monotony. As a contrast to this state of affairs Seino gave me 198 packets of cigarettes for 59 staff and working patients.\n\nSyrup now cost 85.90 yen for a two lb tin, Chinese brown sugar 35.20 yen, rock salt 18.90 yen, soy sauce 17.70, matches 3.95 per box and razor blades 2.60 each,\n\nIn August I had developed cracks between my toes and my fingers became numb so by the end of January I was being given a little thiamine as treatment. We were able to issue one vitamin capsule to every man every second day.\n\nIn February I had to make another report on our cases of boils and upon the religions of our staff and patients. On 9 February Bishop Valtorta, Roman Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong arrived with Tokunaga, Saito, two other officers, Nomura the headquarters interpreter, and Seino and took a service. He exhorted men to pray for a just peace. He said that he had tried to get a priest to us to say mass but things were difficult. No priest had come or did come. The bishop did not visit any wards and went straight off by car, no doubt on Japanese instructions, though R.C. patients who had not been able to attend the service were disappointed. In response to a question from Saito I told him that we had had four R.C. deaths and 21 others had died of disease.\n\nIn and around the hospital in Bowen Road, by the date we moved, the bomb and shell craters were the resting places of 24 men including 2 Indians and 2 Chinese. Numbers 1 and 2 cemeteries provided graves for 70 men including one Indian. There were single graves in No. 1, No. 2 had one triple and five double graves and No. 3 cemetery held 33 graves, only one being a double grave. The craters were of course common graves and we had no access to them. The others were beautifully marked and kept. The total of dead was therefore 127, two having occurred in 1945.\n\nChinese New Year arrived on 13 February and in accordance with tradition the day was wet and cold. The hospital rice ration was raised by 28 grammes. We were again very short of wood and had run out of cooking oil and salt while the vegetables remained very poor. At this time we had three patients on the dangerously ill list.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207498, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 266, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "258\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nS.M.O. Sham Shui Po and Crawford would be in medical charge in the officers' camp. I asked Swyer to send us five members of the R.A.M.C. including one sanitary assistant. The day before I had received a letter from Miss Dyson, our Matron from Stanley Camp who wanted her sisters with her there to rejoin us and this gave us pleasure.\n\nDuring one of my absences from the hospital an incident had occurred over a flag. Someone had hoisted the Union flag on the hospital flag staff and Japanese troops with machine guns surrounded the hospital and for safety's sake we stopped all expeditions from the hospital for the time being. Saito had been observed by our people leaving the hospital with some trucks apparently filled with papers and documents and he had a drawn sword in his hand. On 20 August the Japanese again mounted an armed guard early in the afternoon. In the morning I had been told by Saito and Nomura that the Japanese were still in control and they arranged for Takami the supplies warrant officer to deal with us over food. I pressed him especially for milk and certain other urgently needed foods for medical purposes and required Saito to return to us all the records he had removed. He asked about the numbers we had in the hospital, a foolish but typical request because he must have known all about these already. Nomura told me that the gendarmerie must have been responsible for surrounding the hospital on the day before and we thought it wise not to fly the Union flag for a time. Colonel Field, as the senior officer in command of British troops visited us, and said he would send any food that he could and he approved of our action over the flag incident. He also agreed that following a request from Saito we should not make any large scale moves before he had seen Tokunaga. Saito asked me to give medical and other help to the Indian camp. I found this a queer request indicating a concern of which I had had no great evidence before and of course we were already doing all we could to help. Nomura and another Japanese, Sekiguchi, were busy on plans of our cemeteries and some of our people who had relatives in Stanley left to visit them.\n\nWe exchanged our older men and those who were crippled with patients from Sham Shui Po who needed active treatment, and then a further 14 people who had been in Japanese prisons were admitted including Major Boxer who was an old friend of ours from the early days. Half of the fourteen were civilians. Colonel Tokunaga", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207499, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 267, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n259\n\narrived accompanied by interpreters and the Japanese sent in 3000 packets of cigarettes, 12 bottles of saki, 36 tins of coffee, 40 kilos of salt, 180 kilos of sugar, 240 tins of milk, 48 kilos of butter and a sack of coffee beans. We were now doing very well because Major Crewe a R.A.S.C. officer came from Sham Shui Po to learn what supplies we needed and brought with him 26 pints of fresh milk which we gratefully received. Mr. C.E. D'Almeida brought us a gramophone and records and other gifts from 10 Ice House Street, and promised us supplies of drugs free which he was going to send over. A refrigerator and five bread tins came from the Red Cross in Hong Kong and I was told that stores were arriving the next day from Sham Shui Po for us to split between internees, Indian prisoners and ourselves. The internees numbered about 300, including sick and about 30 children. I was able to meet a request from Sham Shui Po for various regulations including Kings Regulations and Financial Instructions.\n\nOn 22 August we arranged with Colonel Field for all our Q.A. sisters to return, and Saito and Sekiguchi came to ask what they could do. The Governor of Hong Kong had been removed from the Colony by the Japanese and Mr. Gimson who had been Colonial Secretary at the time of our capitulation came with Mr. Nakimura from the Japanese Foreign Affairs Department. Major Lamb R.A.S.C. had been appointed to take charge of supplies and his policy was for us to rely upon Japanese rations supplemented by Red Cross stores and to indent on Sham Shui Po for our additional needs. A radio, with some mugs and gifts of milk were gratefully received by us from Mr. C.E. D'Almeida and gifts also came from Messrs. Ruttonjee of 11 Duddell Street. Eight of our civilians left for Stanley with Mr. Gimson and were delighted to go. The radio was working well indeed and on 23 August I asked Dr. Selwyn-Clarke to get us some vegetables, fruit, invalid jellies and flour. I telephoned Nomura about our records and on 24 August I wrote to Colonel Tokunaga formally requiring the return of our hospital records. Mr. Campbell and I presented this letter to him personally at Japanese headquarters in the presence of Nomura. I said that we held Tokunaga personally responsible and he accepted the letter.\n\nA batch of 19 visitors arrived from Stanley including two children, and we had to put them up overnight because of stormy weather in the harbour. British headquarters now required us to set out prominently a sign, \"P.W.\" each letter to be 20 feet by 20", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207502, "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": 270, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "262\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nA R.A.F. sergeant got married on 28 August and Miss M. da Roza, a local lady offered her services as a masseuse for our patients.\n\nAt this time I had to deal with complaints arising from long standing antagonisms in P.O.W. camps now openly displayed after long repression. I am glad to say that this phase subsided eventually without overt official action becoming necessary. We also prepared a system of recording the medical condition of Hong Kong Volunteers before they were freed to their homes in the Colony. Doctor Newton, the deputy Chief Medical Officer in the civil medical service, took charge of the Internee Camp nearby and we were allotted a motor car which we shared with the Indian camp.\n\nIt was on 28 August that Saito came in with Hasegawa after 9 p.m. and told me formally that all our medical records had been burned about 15 August along with their own records which the Japanese were burning at that time. As I have reported earlier I got his written acknowledgement that these records had been destroyed and also that none of the plain clothes removed by him from us remained. My diary records that I spoke sternly on this matter, which must have given me some pleasure at the time.\n\nBy now a party was going each day from the hospital to visit relatives and friends in Stanley. The journey was made by ferry and took about two hours. On 29 August some planes came over just after 7 a.m. and some food and cigarettes were dropped later the same day in Sham Shui Po. Included in the drop were some medical boxes and my diary records that the contents of these came as a marvellous revelation to us. We were doing well about this time because the Japanese delivered about eleven thousand packets of cigarettes and jam to us and we heard that British warships and aircraft carriers had been seen off Stanley. On 30 August planes were flying over Hong Kong all morning and a B.B.C. radio report said that the fleet had come. Nomura asked for lists of our patients and I required him to come and get these himself. This action was possibly required of him by our relieving force.\n\nTrue enough a large fleet came into harbour on 30 August, which was 14 days after the Japanese surrender. This delay seemed a long time to us but the arrival of the fleet brought to an end a confused situation in which we were increasingly managing our own affairs. We sent our car for Admiral Harcourt to go to Sham Shui Po and he later went round our hospital with Mr. Gimson who\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 } ]