[ { "id": 206800, "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-1973", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "PERSIANS, ARABS IN T'ANG CHINA\n\n71\n\n23 Ch'en Yu-ching, p. 19; Wang Gungwu1, 'The Nanhai Trade', Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 31, part 2, chapter 7, \"The Middlemen and the Spices 618-960 (II), (Kuala Lumpur, 1958).\n\n24 CTS, chüan 89; HTS, chüan 116.\n\n25 TCTC, chüan 203; Wang Gungwu, pp. 75-76. The passage from TCTC follows Wang Gungwu's translation.\n\n26 CTS, chüan 89; HTS, chüan 116.\n\n27 Tung Hao and others, eds., Ch'üan-Tang wen♬ X (A.D. 1814 edition), chüan 291.\n\n28 Hsiang Ta, pp. 38-39.\n\n29 Ibid., Schafer, p. 21.\n\n30 Wang Ch'i±1 ed., Li T'ai-po wen-chi4★ø̇ (A.D. 1758 edited), chüan 3, 'Ch'ien yu tsun-chiu hsing'☀☀f The Chinese version is as follows:\n\n嬰獒龍門之綠桐，玉壺美酒清若空口\n\n催舷梯往與君飲，看朱成碧顏始缸口\n\n胡姬貌如花，當爐笑春風，笑春風，\n\n笑春風，舞羅衣，君今不醉將安歸。\n\nThe translation here follows Schafer's.\n\n31 Hsiang Ta, pp. 41-47.\n\n32 Yüan-shih chang-ch'ing chiZAŁA (1929 edition), chüan 24, p. 5, 'Fa Chu'. After Schafer's translation. Schafer, p. 28.\n\n33 Liu Mau-tsaiA†, 'Kulturelle Beziehungen zwischen den Ost Türken (Tu-Küe) und China', Central Asiatic Journal 3:3:199 (The Hague and Wiesbaden, 1957-58). The dictionary is 'T'u-chüeh yü'*A* See Schafer, p. 285, n. 175.\n\n34 Cf. S. W. Bushell, Chinese Art, Victoria and Albert Museum Handbook (London, 1906), chapter 12; Osvald Siren, Chinese Painting (London, 1956) I, 71; Arnold Silock, Introduction to Chinese Art and History (Oxford, 1948), p. 181; Arthur Waley, An Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting (London, 1923), p. 108; Jitsuzo Kuwabara, 'Zui-To-jidai ni Shina ni raiju shita seikijin ni tsuite'隋唐時代に支那に来往した番域人に就いて Naito Hakase Kanreki shukuga shukuga Shinagaku ronsoAKŁET#***$*£ (Tokyo, 1926; *ˆ†±‡ƒ), pp. 643-644; Chuang Shen#, 'Sui-Tang shih-tai Yü-tien tsu-chih chi fu-tzu hua-chia'MAARTA##, Lishih yü-yen yen-chiu-so chi-k'anAt*7*ƒƒ4N (Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology), Extra Vol. 4, part I, pp. 403-454 (Academic Sinica, Taiwan, 1960).\n\n35 Schafer, p.\n\n36 Chuang Shen, pp. 408-416.\n\n37 Ibid., pp. 440-443.\n\n38 TCTC, chüan 203, p. 6415. For Ch'in Ming-ho and Li Hsün, I am indebted to Professor Lo Hsiang-lin's stimulating article 'Hsi-chu po-ssu chih Li Hsün chi ch'i Hai-yao pen-ts'ao'±Ùƒ±‡HZ‡❀$$‡ Symposium on Chinese Studies Commemorating the Golden Jubilee of the University of Hong Kong, 1911-1961. F. S. Drake, ed., (Hong Kong, 1964) II, 217-240.\n\n39 For Ch'ung ICTH, chüan 95 see Lo Hsiang-lin's article on Li Hsün; also", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207419, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n179\n\ngot from Sgt. Seino. He was not hurt in the least and I saw him directly afterwards fully relaxed and quite at ease. It struck me then that this sort of noisy reaction would be most satisfying to the person administering the punishment and the man who could put on this kind of act was to be envied. Incidentally I think our patient was lucky that Seino was in charge on this particular day and not Saito. In the very earliest days of these parcel deliveries some hasty speech at long range was possible between some people in hospital and our benefactors though this was soon stopped.\n\nThose who brought parcels to the hospital were of course all women. Some had amahs or servants to help them to transport their heavy burdens up the steep roads to the hospital. Even when they had help, we in the hospital understood the physical effort involved in buying, preparing, packing and carrying heavy loads and even after all the intervening years I am glad to have the chance of expressing the gratitude and admiration I still feel for what they did. They also had to exercise the greatest care never to get at cross purposes with our sometimes uneven tempered guards.\n\nAt the receiving end of this supply line I had to withstand some pointed questions. We knew that except for gifts addressed to certain known recipients, for example from wives to husbands and from relatives and friends of inmates all other parcels addressed to people by name were intended for our general use and these latter were taken straight into our hospital store. Sergeant Seino repeatedly required assurances from me that the individuals to whom these particular parcels were addressed were not receiving and using the contents themselves while those less fortunate had to go without. This meant of course that the Japanese were shutting their eyes to a method of getting additional stores into the hospital, and then and now I find this to be strange. I always gave Seino the most explicit guarantees of the facts and showed him how we stored gifts in our steward's store. The only reason for any scepticism on his part might have been that inmates with wives, relatives and close friends outside quite properly retained what they received, though I knew at the time that all who received these personal parcels shared the contents with their friends within the hospital.\n\nI made records of issues of food from our hospital store which came from our Hong Kong friends, but I now find that these records show the combined value of issues from these gifts and from pur-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207438, "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": 206, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "198\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nthat camp. It was at this time that I first proposed that I should be allowed to visit P.O.W. camps in order to discuss the various medical problems with our doctors there and plan the best use of our hospital services for their patients. This suggestion, like so many others, provoked no apparent reaction and though I repeated it at frequent intervals I never got near a P.O.W. camp until I was moving to our new hospital in Kowloon in 1945. Major Harrison was allowed to make one visit to North Point Camp to consult with Canadian medical officers about some problems in which specialist advice was wanted. This was his only visit to a camp and none of our other doctors were ever allowed to visit either.\n\nI had another passage with Saito following an air raid on Hong Kong in October of which I shall write later, but in these critical months in 1942 my approaches to him had to be made in writing or through his N.C.O., Sergeant Seino or the interpreter and any messages from him came back by the same route.\n\nOn 23 November Saito saw all officer patients and though he did not make a physical examination he marked five for discharge. We considered that two of these would improve by a further stay in hospital, though it was not vital for them to do so. The order for discharge however stood. On 21 December we had our second Red Cross inspection, the first during the period I was in charge but Saito did not appear in the suite. A day or two later however he demanded a report on our sufferers from pellagra asking for detailed information about skin, gastro-intestinal and nervous symptoms and the details of treatment and on 16 January 1943 he came to see the patients. We demonstrated these including the eye cases. As our experience in these fields was small we asked his advice and he suggested giving 100 mgm nicotinic acid by intramuscular injection daily for 10 days. As was his usual custom he would not wait to make a detailed inspection and cut his visit short. We delayed him on the stairs long enough for him to use the English words \"B. complex\" when speaking on the causal deficiency. With this exception he had spoken Japanese throughout and whether he had got the information in discussion elsewhere, it agreed with our view that the symptoms were not to be explained by a pure vitamin B1 deficiency. In reply to my question he said that nicotinic acid and suitable diet were the important elements of treatment. He said also that yeast, easy to get before the war, was now hard to obtain. He promised to consult a colleague about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207439, "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": 207, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n199\n\nthe eyes. He and I agreed that neither of us had ever seen a case of pellagra before.\n\nOn 22 January 1943, Saito came in again and was handed a copy of our pellagra report which he should have had already from Takeyama, our interpreter, the night before. He now said that in Sham Shui Po patients were being given 10 mgm nicotinic acid by injection daily, a figure which contrasted with his advice given less than a week earlier. This did nothing to increase my confidence in him as a physician.\n\nA day later Saito came in again. We had heard that 1200 men had left P.O.W. camps by ship having been equipped with some warm clothing, a Red Cross parcel and 10 yen each and that they were accompanied by two British and one Canadian doctor. I tried but failed to extract any more information on this subject. Saito told me that Sham Shui Po then held 2000 men of whom 1000 were sick and twice he emphasised that he did not want our hospital to be used as a hotel by men who were fit for camp. I found this rather irksome coming so soon after the tragedies of the closing months of 1942. I acknowledged that we did have some patients who were apparently in good condition physically but who showed serious visual defects which were evident if any examination of them were to be carried out. I complained that the only information we received about an incoming draft of patients was the approximate number and the time they were expected to arrive and even this was not always reliable while the notice was always short. Because our space was limited the only way we could accommodate new patients was to discharge about the same number of our existing ones. It thus came about that I was asking medical officers for the names of patients best fitted to return to camp and whose progress was unlikely to be jeopardised by discharge, rather than those in whose fitness we had confidence. I said that I could not overrule a doctor's decision on the medical condition of a patient only to be told that the same applied in the Japanese army. I was a little surprised at this. My protest had no effect and on our side we continued making room for new patients by discharging the fittest among the old patients. In 1943 this policy was the only one possible. Eighteen months later we did have patients admitted from camp, chosen by Saito, who seemed to us to be in better shape than some that we had to discharge.\n\nA Colonel Watanabe of the Japanese medical service visited us", "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": 207441, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n201\n\nin the recreation room and put disinfectant in a bowl outside the Japanese office. The general spoke to nobody. Two months earlier, in March I had been ousted from my office in the front of the building and this pleasant room henceforward became the headquarters office of the Japanese within the hospital. I was surprised that they had not seized this earlier.\n\nOn 23 August 1943 the President of the Japanese Red Cross Society, Prince Shimatsu, inspected the hospital. At all times the appearance of the hospital was good, but at this as at all inspections the Japanese laid great stress on having the recreation room looking specially well. In addition to white cloths on the tables and vases of flowers all the musical instruments and equipment for indoor games had to be laid out on display. As usual the inspecting officer had no parley with patients or staff.\n\nI have records of only three occasions on which British doctors from P.O.W. camps were allowed to visit Bowen Road. Major Ashton Rose, Indian Medical Service, was the doctor accepted by the Japanese as being in administrative medical charge in Sham Shui Po camp. I believe he had considerable influence with them, in so far as any prisoner could have influence. On 5 March 1943 he visited the hospital bringing with him some patients for admission and came again on 23 March with an officer patient for specialist eye examination. On the second occasion he stayed to lunch, a phrase which of course indicates a higher degree of sophistication than in fact we deserved. It was however something for us to be able to entertain a guest at all. We learned from Ashton Rose that the general state of prisoners in Sham Shui Po was improving and that the men were fitter. On 13 May Captain Woodward, an Australian serving with the I.M.S., came over from Kowloon to have medical advice about himself and on this occasion Saito came too.\n\nIt seems curious now to look back upon such things, but up to March 1943 the bomb and shell damage to the hospital inflicted fifteen months earlier had gone substantially unrepaired. The top floors were badly damaged and as I reported earlier the kitchen in the middle section connecting the two blocks of wards was completely destroyed. Rain poured in at these places as well as at other damaged areas and the recreation room below the kitchen was unusable in wet weather. The fact that we did not carry out repairs earlier probably resulted from our preoccupation at that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207442, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "DONALD C. BOWIE\n\ntime with very ill patients, with food and from uncertainty about our future. We seemed to be living from day to day. In March however, during an administrative inspection, Saito required us to repair the ward damage and also to remove the 'Mimi lau' concrete blocks with which we had protected the ground floor wards on the harbour side during hostilities. We took this as an indication that a move was not imminent. Our sappers, helped by some of our own R.A.M.C. men, made an excellent job of the repairs and in due course the recreation room became usable again.\n\nAt this time our interpreter was Takeyama, an amiable buffoon on whom I spent some time trying, though without any success, to talk about war news. On 1 April 1943 he caught me for an April fool over visitors' parcels, and this is the only attempt I can recall at joking between the Japanese and me.\n\nOn 13 April 1943 the so-called 'unfits', e.g., those over 60, the blind and those who had lost limbs were sent to camp. Numbers of our patients in the hospital with neurological disabilities were notable and pathetic sights about the hospital with their high-stepping gaits, seeking the support of walls to maintain their balance as they moved. Those with visual defects developed a characteristic carriage of the head as they tried to see round their blind spots.\n\nAbout now we had a series of searches in the hospital and on 26 April all civilian clothing which was discovered was removed by the Japanese. This belonged to those of us whose peace-time base had been in the hospital and who, on the departure of our wives, had been allowed to store personal possessions in some of the vacated married quarters. These married quarters were thoroughly looted after our surrender, probably by Japanese. On one hasty stolen visit I paid soon after our surrender, I found the storage rooms thigh-deep in the possessions of the families of our men. Boxes had been broken open and the contents had been strewn about. I rescued a few of my own possessions but lost these again when the Japanese seized them later. When this civilian clothing was taken away, I protested strongly and made great play with the fact that the Japanese had no right to remove the possessions of medical personnel, and I handed in lists of all personal clothing known to have been removed. Of course, they were never returned, and in August 1945, I learned of the eventual fate of these possessions.\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207443, "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n203\n\nThe Japanese appetite for reports continued to be insatiable and they sought to learn details about our hospital pre-war, particularly as regards staffing, equipment, numbers in wards and so on. All of this information was in official publications which were already in Japanese hands. I suppose it allowed Saito to compare our standards with those of his own army. In July 1944 he took a photograph of the medical staff in Bowen Road and at another time he asked for certain text books on obstetrics and gynaecology which we lent him though we never got them back.\n\nOn 9 June 1945, in a long search of the hospital, he took away all our case sheets, operation books and admission and discharge books which had been carefully preserved and which served as the basis for the statistical and factual accounts of our experiences to be found in the Official History. Thereby he got rid of a mass of material which would have made sorry reading in the originals. I had of course already extracted all the information I wanted, and so the loss was not disastrous. I found it remarkable when on 28 August after the Japanese capitulation I demanded a written acknowledgement that these had been, as he said, burned that he signed this at once. I even took the trouble to get witnesses to his signature, one being our Major James Anderson and the other being Hasegawa who was Saito's interpreter at the time. On the same occasion he affirmed to me, also in writing, that all the civilian clothing he had taken from us in Bowen Road had been stored in Japanese headquarters and later stolen by the Chinese. At this time the British naval relieving force had not arrived, we had no arms and I was quite astonished at Saito's complaisance. I had expected a haughty refusal to acknowledge any responsibility.\n\nSaito like Tokunaga was condemned to death by a War Crimes Court in Hong Kong in 1946. This sentence was later commuted to 20 years imprisonment and later still this was again reduced to fifteen years. When I try to form a judgement on Saito I do so solely upon our experiences with him in the hospital. I do not know if he was a career officer in the Japanese army, what we would call a regular officer. He was apparently deeply imbued with the mores of his army, he was usually short-tempered and irritable, and as I have said earlier I never established any relationship with him even professionally. He gave us that to which he or his commander considered we were entitled under the Geneva Convention so far as lay within his power, though he showed no tendency to do more", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207444, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "204\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nthan he need. The improvement in his attitude to us in 1945 as the war drew to a close was significant. I never felt safe with him. His management of drafts of patients coming to our hospital from P.O.W. camps showed gross negligence particularly in the early year or so and I found it scandalous that he allowed a patient with acute and easily remediable intestinal obstruction to reach death's door in 1942 before allowing him to be sent to the hospital. How far blame should be laid on Saito and how far his commander, Tokunaga, should bear responsibility I do not know. I was then, and still remain, glad that we did not have to have Saito as our master if we had been losing the war,\n\nI thought Sergeant Seino was the most intelligent of all the Japanese army administrators with whom we came in contact. It was he who was most closely concerned with our routine affairs. He retained his dignity and upheld his position, but he was a man who could be talked to though not easily swayed. He never let his army down, and he never slapped me though he did, I know administer a token slapping to one of our officer patients whom he had caught communicating on a family matter with the outside world through the medium of our parcels. I do not know what happened to him after the Japanese surrender, but so far as we were concerned he did his duty fairly and earned a degree of my respect.\n\nJapanese officers and N.C.O's nearly always wore swords and always on duty wore what used to be called field boots in the British army in the First War and between the wars when they were worn by cavalry and gunner officers and by field officers in other regiments and corps. The Japanese used to skiff (or \"skliff\" is likely an OCR error for \"scuff\" or \"skiff\") their feet along the ground thus making an important noise as they walked, well suited to the dignity of their wearers.\n\nAt first in 1942 the guards were drawn from Japanese units but later were Formosans (Taiwanese). The latter were of no great quality and were poorly clad and equipped, and some of their N.C.O's were pettily officious and often over ready to take offence. They wore ankle boots with canvas uppers and rubber soles and there was a separate compartment in the canvas for the big toe. It was often startling to meet them on a verandah in a blackout as they moved silently along with fixed bayonet and rifle at the trail. These guards interpreted their own orders in such matters as the amount of lighting allowed during blackouts and the time of our", "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": 207450, "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": 218, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "210\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nwe knew that men were searched by guards on arrival in camps, drugs being confiscated. I do not remember however hearing of any serious punishment being inflicted on men discovered to be carrying drugs.\n\nOn 29 July 1945 Saito handed over five cases each marked case 111, of medical supplies from the American Red Cross. These contained cresol, dextrose in saline, saline, capsules of vitamins A and B, distilled water and dried human plasma. I don't know how he got these but they were sophisticated packs of a type quite new to us.\n\nENTERTAINMENTS\n\nSome entertainment in the form of sing-songs was provided in the seven months after our surrender on occasions when the recreation room was not flooded. At this time few of our patients were fit to go to the recreation room, but we were lucky in another direction. Corporal Carter of the Royal Signals had been wounded, and as he recovered a proposal was made that the wards might be wired and provided with loud speakers to receive a programme of gramophone music coming from a station within the hospital. I was fully occupied as a surgeon at this time and I do not know who conceived the idea. The necessary work was done, though, and the Japanese agreed to allow two periods of music each day. The operation room for this venture was a bunk occupied by Corporal Carter who soon extended his activities. These sessions were very valuable in distracting patients' attention in 1942 and 1943 from the grim realities of wounds, sickness and undernourishment. Carter, an enterprising extrovert, not overburdened with nerves soon contrived to listen to news broadcasts from British sources. He was joined by one or two others, equally bold but perhaps a little more careful, and soon we were having daily bulletins of the contents of British news broadcasts. When I took charge of the hospital these came to me and were made known by word of mouth to patients and staff. I do not now recall that any major news came by this route. The items related to the same events as we read or had deduced from the local newspaper, but of course were put out with the emphasis on our side. Carter was also asked by the Japanese to repair their wireless set on several occasions and did so. He thus had the pleasure of listening to British broadcasts inside Japanese quarters. In his own bunk where he received the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207467, "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": 235, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n227\n\nlera, and dysentery using Japanese material was completed in the same months.\n\nIn mid December the first move was made to restrict the area round the hospital in which we were allowed to move and the wire was brought closer in to exclude us from the peacetime N.A.A.F.I. block, the senior warrant officers' quarters and the tennis court. Christmas passed quietly, marked by the issue of extra food which had been prudently accumulated over a long time. The wards were decorated and carols were sung on Christmas Eve. We returned to reality with a night search by Seino in which he confiscated all electric heaters he found.\n\nI JANUARY 1944 23 MARCH 1945\n\nThe British Military Hospital remained in Bowen Road till 23 March 1945 when it moved to the Central British School in Kowloon. It will be convenient therefore to cover the whole of 1944 and the first three months of 1945 in this section, and to leave the remainder of 1945 up to our release in August to be considered in a later section. Conditions in Bowen Road and in Kowloon were quite different.\n\nOn 1 January 1944 we had 234 patients, but by 31 December the number of patients had dropped to 145 and the staff had fallen to 55. During 1944 deaths numbered 14, and between January 1945 and our move to Kowloon in March a further two patients died. For the last ten days of January 1944 we had no patients on our dangerously ill list for the first time since our capture. This happy position did not last.\n\nThe decline in the number of patients was the result of two factors. Firstly, prisoners of war who had survived thus far had constitutions which had become better adjusted to the type of diet which was alone available to them while no further outbreaks of infections disease occurred. The general condition of our patients and staff upon whom our observations were made drifted slowly down, and in 1944 and early 1945 more of our staff were admitted for hospital treatment than at any other period during our imprisonment. The second cause was a Japanese order to me by Saito on 19 November 1944 to reduce our total of patients and staff to 200, and during that month two drafts totalling 9 staff and 96 patients left for camp. The timing of this decision should be seen against our predicament in Bowen Road resulting from growing shortages", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207469, "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": 237, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n229\n\nKowloon were stopped by the Japanese, though I never found out why this was done. We did receive, however, lump sums which allowed all except commissioned officers to be given 30 yen in February from the British and Canadian Red Cross Societies, 15 yen in March from a Relief Society in England which I never identified, 17 yen in June from the British Red Cross and 25 yen in August from the same source. Even now I recall the pleasure with which this money was received. A small degree of independence was restored to men by their acquisition of money controlled by themselves.\n\nIn January 1944 all staff were required to wear identity numbers issued by the Japanese. In February Saito searched the hospital including stores and roof and the same month, following an air raid, all in hospital were ordered to have their hair cropped close. I have said that the practice of growing beards which set in directly after our surrender had long died out and everybody was shaved and wore his hair short so the new order created considerable resentment. I led the way with a close clipper crop for myself and we soon got used to our altered appearances. I can only suppose that Saito was getting out on us some irritation he had to endure from his own people or from the increasing air attacks. I nagged at him to get this order rescinded but it never was and it was 1945 before we began to return to our normal hair-cuts without his authority, a change which passed without comment by Saito.\n\nOn 11 March a Japanese supplies officer came with Saito and inspected men's kits, the linen store, the steward's store and the wards. Our staff were paraded to hear a speech from the supplies officer in which he said that the Japanese would do what they could to keep us supplied but we must be prepared for some shortages. He added that the prisoner camps in Kowloon, both for officers and for other ranks were worse off than we were but that the Japanese would not cut supplies for our hospital unless shortages compelled them to do so. I was required to read a short announcement prepared for me in English by the Japanese to the effect that we should be very grateful to them for what they were doing for us, and this theme was elaborated in language which was obviously constructed by someone who had learned English in Japan but had never heard it spoken among English-speaking people. I remember emphasising the incongruities of the construction of the note in my reading of it, but though we all took this incident as a warning of what was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207470, "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": 238, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "230\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nlikely to follow neither I nor any of those present realised the straits to which the Japanese were being reduced by the Allied blockade.\n\nOn 1 April I had to give Saito a certificate in writing that no Japanese school children, soldiers or ordinary spectators had been allowed to come and look at us in the hospital, in fact that we had not been put on display for the curious to gape at. I had no difficulty in complying, for nothing of this kind had ever happened. My explicit clearance certificate was amended and returned by the Japanese and though their version was, I thought, less exculpatory than the original I was still able to sign it without reservation. On 20 June Watanabe told me that we must keep all our worn-out clothing including even the fandoshis and this was yet another indication of the deteriorating situation on the Japanese side.\n\nOn 1 July Saito brought a senior doctor to see our equipment in the operating theatres, the X-ray department, the laboratory, the physiotherapy and the ophthalmic departments, and they also looked at our disinfestor arrangements. A little later photographs of the operating rooms, the X-ray department and the laboratory were taken.\n\nOn 7 August Watanabe took away the remainder of the kit which Colonel Shackleton had left behind with us, seven boxes in all none being locked. On 10 September Saito again made a search and took more plain clothes. On 6 November a Japanese officer searched the operating theatres and X-ray department in the basement, knocking out some bricks in walls in the process. Directly after this search was completed Saito and Seino repeated the whole procedure.\n\nIn our small community I got news very quickly of any unusual happenings and one day late in the year I was told by our own people that two members of the gendarmerie, the Kempeitai, had arrived. I believe that they were identified by the Japanese guards and a notable stillness fell upon the hospital, guards and guarded alike. The former were clearly concerned to keep out of trouble while we knew enough about the reputation of the gendarmerie to keep quiet and avoid provocation. I was not summoned to accompany them nor were any of our local Japanese authorities but I observed two very powerfully built men whom it would have been unwise to provoke. They paid a few perfunctory visits to different parts of the hospital and then left. I never knew if this visit was any", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207473, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n233\n\nMail for prisoners came in well by our standards in 1944, and the record was established in a Red Cross message dated January 1944 to a man from his wife in Australia which he received in May. At the other extreme one letter from a wife in Stanley Civil Internment Camp and dated 4 September 1944 addressed to her husband was delivered in Bowen Road at the end of October 1944. The husband died in our hospital on 27 October 1943 and of course his death had been reported at once to the Japanese. All in hospital were now allowed fifty words on their outgoing cards irrespective of destination once a month. In October 1944 six of our patients and staff handed in through me forty-word messages to their families on the offer that these would be broadcast by the Japanese. Replies were invited. These messages were returned to me as lacking in drama. The contents were, like all such messages devoted to personal and family affairs and could be of no possible interest to anyone except the recipient. I never heard that any messages submitted for broadcasting were received at home.\n\nSeveral times during 1944 I re-classified for Saito all our patients under certain heads; first there were those fit to return to camp; next came those with visual defects, the result of dietary deficiencies but generally physically fit; the third showed patients unfit for military service by reason of age, wounds etc. Those not included in the lists were under treatment with a reasonable prospect of restoration to fitness for camp, fitness for camp being judged in all cases as being unlikely to come to harm by such a move. The first category of patients, numbering fourteen were having no treatment and needed special accommodation only; in the second case we advised that patients could go to camp into special accommodation so long as they received eight mg thiamine by injection every second day and were seen by our ophthalmologist every two months (we had produced this list with great care some months earlier). In the third category there were 94 names including 24 Canadians, Portuguese and 1 Dutchman. A series of drafts left hospital for camps and our staff was likewise reduced by 10 R.A.M.C. and R.A.D.C. in April. Japanese policy became clear when on 19 November 1944 Saito notified me of their intention to reduce the total of patients and staff in Bowen Road to 200, and a final draft of 9 staff and 46 patients left for camp on 22 November.\n\nOur men were better adjusted to their diets, but some of those admitted from camp were showing serious signs of undernourishment.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207477, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n237\n\ndays in selected cases but without improving the condition of their patients.\n\nIn addition to beautifying our cemeteries further by means of tiles removed from walls in the hospital, a wooden Memorial Cross was completed and erected in the front cemetery to those of 27 Company R.A.M.C. who had been killed. The names of the men had been skilfully carved by a patient, Private Medhurst. The ideas for beautifying the cemeteries and for the memorial cross as well as for many of the improvements made in the hospital came from many sources and I was able to give all encouragement to men with ideas and to provide materials when available.\n\nThe year 1944 was a bad one for the supply of our Japanese rations and fuel. In February we had our last baking of bread using flour, and by that time the flour was very stale and weevily. In compensation the ration of rice allowed by the Japanese was raised from 384 grammes first to 570 grammes and later to 600 grammes daily. We were never able to issue rice on these scales because of the short weight sacks to which I have referred before. A typical disappointment came in March when the ration was cut back to 480 grammes, the cut being made retrospective to 1 March. March also brought news through Watanabe who told me that Red Cross bulk supplies would be delivered twice a month and I prepared lists of items we considered desirable, again keeping my suggestions within the bounds of what I guessed to be practicable in Hong Kong. Saito told me on 8 March that supplies I had asked for on 29 February after one of his searches could not be provided. This was an advance for me because so often in the past I never heard what the decision was on any request. In our first receipt of Red Cross supplies in March we received cod liver oil which I allocated to the medical officers for use as they judged proper. We had also received some shark liver oil from visitors and I used this by adding it to any stews we had in proportion of 5 minims for each person in the hospital. At this time we began to issue to all in hospital soy bean powder as such, instead of making what turned out to be rather repulsive milk from it. We continued to make soy milk for certain patients on the assumption that it might be more readily absorbed. Our meals were often late, mainly because of difficulty of getting good fires in the kitchen. Deliveries of rations were often irregular and we were generally uneasy about the system. Our guards seemed to share this anxiety. The quality of rations", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207478, "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": 246, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "238\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nwas specially poor also about this time some of our rice was wet and a stock of bran became hot but we still used every scrap of food. We did have one splendid feast in August 1944 when we received one issue of unplucked pheasants and partridges packed in Manchuria in 1941. Our cooks prepared a stew which made a memorable addition to our rice and vegetables. The game had obviously been in cold store in Hong Kong and electricity cuts must have endangered the refrigeration and so we benefited. In August the Japanese were very active in storing rice and a total of 250 sacks were stacked partly in our hospital building where the Japanese held the keys and partly in the Japanese medical quarters. This was another of the very heavy fatigues which devolved upon staff. It was usually non-nursing staff who did work of this kind, though some of the nurses joined in which clearly meant that they welcomed even heavy labour if it involved a change in their routine.\n\nThe Red Cross local bulk supplies allowed us to make our basic diet of rice and vegetables much more palatable and, just as important, they showed our people that a valiant attempt to meet their needs was being made. Our morale, depressed by the third year of our captivity was lifted.\n\nMr. Zindel visited us in August and again in December 1944. In August after the usual formal and silent round of the wards I was summoned to the Japanese office where I found Tokunaga, Saito, Zindel and an interpreter. Zindel then asked me what food stuffs we needed, making the point no doubt for the benefit of the Japanese that he had asked similar questions of the officer placed in charge by the Japanese of the other ranks camp in Sham Shui Po. I asked for food containing protein and vitamins, saying that these were our main need though we also needed sugar to replenish our falling stock. He told me that fresh meat was not available which came as no surprise to me but most helpfully offered beans, which I welcomed. I followed up this very short talk with a list addressed to Zindel through the Japanese, again limiting our requests to items which we judged might be available. At Mr. Zindel's December inspection no conversation was allowed though the visit was marked by an air raid.\n\nIn August 1943 we had no mains water for 36 hours and had to carry what we needed from the reservoir where the water level was too low for our pumps to be effective. Thereafter we had no trouble for some months though we were reproached for using", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 207486, "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": 254, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "246\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nAll of Mr. Campbell's records of receipts of Japanese rations were removed by Saito on 17 February in order, he said, that they could be examined by Japanese checkers. We never got them back.\n\nOn 19 March 24 lorry loads of beds (100) and mattresses and medical equipment left the hospital. On 21 March 109 patients with four doctors and 5 nursing orderlies were transferred to huts in Sham Shui Po leaving four officers and 56 staff with 15 so-called strong patients. I left with these on 23 March for Sham Shui Po. This was the only time I had been in a P.O.W. camp and by then the prisoners, like ourselves in the hospital, had become adjusted to the conditions. The hospital equipment had gone to the Central British School in Kowloon. We had stripped Bowen Road of every single article and structure we thought might be useful to us on our new site. In this, the Japanese seemed to encourage us.\n\nTHE REASONS FOR THE RETENTION OF\n\nTHE HOSPITAL IN 1942 AND ITS REMOVAL IN 1945\n\nIn the conditions following our surrender, it is not hard to understand the Japanese decision to leave a British Military hospital, which they found as a going concern, to care for Allied sick and wounded. Such a decision enabled them to conform with the provisions of the Geneva Convention, a political decision, while at the same time using an immediately practical alternative to involving their own medical services. Our hospital must have been a showpiece to their own inspecting officers and to the Red Cross representatives, both International and Japanese, and illustrated how they were conforming with the provisions of the Convention. They clearly succeeded in creating a good impression, as shown by the spontaneous remark to me of Mr. Engelbacher (I am not certain of the name) of the International Red Cross at the inspection on 21 December 1942 by Mr. Zindel and himself. He declared that we were better off than patients in a Japanese military hospital. This might have been true, but at that time, I was oppressed by the deaths of the last few months and the condition of large numbers of our patients, and I received the information with some coldness.\n\nThe arrangement under which we continued to occupy our own hospital must have provided quite serious administrative inconveniences for the Japanese. So far as I know, we provided the only concentration of British P.O.W. on the Island, though the Stanley Internment Camp, some miles away, held civilian internees and was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207488, "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": 256, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "248\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nThere was no lift. By now we were caring for 15 patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis. The medical officer staff was slightly different from what it had been in Bowen Road (See Appendix C) and contained one new member, Captain Coombs. The changes had been made by the Japanese and I was not consulted, though Coombs was a valued and welcome member of the staff.\n\nThe building was arranged in two wings, and looked at from the front the left hand wing was given over to Japanese quarters. In the centre was a large Assembly Hall while our hospital occupied the right hand wing. The Assembly Hall was out of bounds to us except on special occasions. I had hoped to get a member of the Hong Kong Volunteers to come with us from Sham Shui Po as a rice cook, but he did not turn up, and Corporal J. O'Grady took charge. Our practice was now to cook all our food in bulk and not by wards and messes in their own containers as in the past. The kitchens had shallow rice boilers and our rice from now on improved considerably. The electricity generator had been damaged during the move but repairs were started by our engineers. The church was sited in the Central Clock Tower room. Saito gave us a Hongkong News from which on the 14 April we learned of the death of President Roosevelt and we held a memorial service for him on the following day.\n\nA refrigerator was converted to act as a steamer, steam being delivered through the top, and the cooks baked some very good so-called cake and made some experimental bread without flour which turned out to be excellent when judged by our standards. We even began to fry the bread sometimes when we had enough oil. On 19 April four blinded men and two old men arrived, the former with attendants to look after their needs. On 20 April Colonel Tokunaga made an afternoon inspection and we were ordered to remove all beds from verandahs and all staff except the steward and one cook were required to sleep in the barrack room. Visitors arrived to deliver parcels the same day but they had to leave them for collection by us some distance away from our front door. With 134 patients and no beds on verandahs our space was pretty crowded. By now our non-medical staff was building up and we had one shoemaker, two tailors, one barber, two cooks, three rice grinders, four vegetable men and three wood men. We also used two men for pots and pans and two appear in my diary as having duties connected with beds though I cannot now remember", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207490, "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": 258, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "250\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\ned out of bounds. One Volunteer died at 11.15 a.m. on 27 April and having no acceptable mortuary we conducted the funeral at once to a site near Argyle Street, a short distance from the hospital.\n\nThe Japanese celebrated 29 April as a holiday in honour of the Emperor's birthday, and we received two issues of cigarettes for staff from the Japanese. Early in May we got plants including tomato and pakchoi, from a Chinese garden and had already planted onions. On 2 May Saito told me to try the main switch and true enough on the following day the mains electricity supply was restored. More mail came in and on 4 May parcels arrived from our visitor friends, two being for the Hong Kong Volunteer who had died on 27 April.\n\nOn 5 May Saito put on the lights on the platform of the Assembly Hall and there was a concert which my diary shows to have included items in Japanese and English, though my memory does not recall details. On 7 May we ran a lottery for a consignment of Red Cross pullovers, blankets, underpants, vests, gloves, wool hats, green hats, mosquito nets, towels, jackets, and cardigans. There were two towels and eighteen jackets, but in all other cases the numbers were between thirty and thirty-five. By 10 May engineers were wiring up the room used as the operating theatre and X-ray room and were arranging to run our generator two days later to allow examination of our tuberculous patients and to allow a couple of minor operations to be performed. By now we had an additional supper meal including at times sweet meatless rissoles, cake, buns, and soup. For a time we had no ration beans and the vegetables were poor. The absence of beans was serious for us since we had been issuing 28 grammes daily after fish ceased to be provided. About this time pay for staff and officers came in and I asked that those who were attending the blind might also be paid. We had another concert on 12 May and by the middle of the month I estimated that we had 42 patients who on their expected recovery would be eligible for turn-over with patients from Sham Shui Po. Some of these were already being employed by us on the one-month temporary basis. On 19 May we had a concert for the third Saturday running though I record that the turns were of mixed interest but that the standard was poor.\n\nSmall quantities of mail continued to come every week or two and I received a card dated July 1944. We were carrying out anti-mosquito measures both inside and outside our wire and we received", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207491, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n251\n\n1056 packets of cigarettes costing 1.50 yen each and we sold them at a 10 sen profit on each packet. This allowed six packets per head for 176 patients and staff and all were taken up. We lost a clock from the kitchen on 19 May and concluded that trading was still going on. On 22 May we admitted an acutely ill officer from Sham Shui Po and on 24 May a Canadian soldier died and was buried at once. At this time we were very short of both Japanese and Red Cross food stores and though the compradore came on 26 May and took money he was not allowed to bring goods to us or to the other camps.\n\nOn 28 May the Japanese warrant officer in charge of rations gave Mr. Campbell a new scale to be effective from 1 June.\n\n \n \n Staff and Employed\n Patients and Non-employed\n \n \n Rice\n G.510 + 30\n 32 + 32\n \n \n Meat\n G.660 = + 60\n \n \n \n Vegetable\n 540 = + 140\n 360 = + 70\n \n \n Salt\n 10 =\n 8\n \n \n \n No change\n ** + 3\n \n \n Sugar\n 10\n 5\n \n \n Tea\n 8\n 2\n \n \n \n \n 1\n \n \n \n Nil =\n \n \n \n \n \n + 3\n \n \n Oil\n 3\n 3\n \n \n \n 9\n 9\n \n \n \n 31\n I\n \n \n Curry\n 20 + 20\n 15\n \n \n \n \n +15\n \n \n Beans\n Nil\n Nil\n \n \n \n 60\n -\n \n \n \n \n 31\n \n\nI imagine that these figures were target or even show figures for the Japanese, for the issues we could afford to make were always lower in practice.\n\nOn 29 May I was passing the R.E. shop with Saito when he went in and Q.M.S. Tyas told him how badly we needed diesel oil and cement. I remarked that I was being pressed every day for these stores, to which Saito very fairly responded that I was troubling him every day too on the same subject. We were very short of cooking oil and I reported that our present stock allowed only 0.85 litre for the whole hospital daily. Saito also promised to look into the supply of beans which I told him had vanished from our rations. I pressed him about canteen goods and said we were exceedingly short of salt, and of wood for fuel and that we fed our cooking fires only on wood which we had stripped from buildings in Bowen Road.\n\nThe same day Saito produced the old undertaking not to escape which all the staff and patients had signed in Bowen Road on 26", "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": 207493, "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": 261, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n253\n\nour entitlement to vegetables for two days was 191.5 kilos while we received only 64.5 kilos.\n\nOn 6 June, which my diary remembered to record as Derby day, I have a note that we had had two small issues of meat one about 26 May and another a few days later. We minced the meat up so as to get it distributed throughout the rice as chow fan and through the vegetable in stews. We were collecting vegetable issues each day by hand from Argyle Street and our own gardens while being successfully cultivated were not producing enough to affect the main hospital diet though sick patients did profit. By now we were doing a good deal of gardening outside the wire.\n\nOn 7 June a note in my diary recorded for the first time that overnight two of our men on night duty had their dinners stolen. The empty containers later reappeared, having been taken by the guard sergeant.\n\nOn 8 June we had a welcome intake of Red Cross stores, the last receipts having come on 9 March. On this occasion we received 200 catties of beans (266 lbs); 100 catties wheat (133 lbs); 35 catties lard (47 lbs); 23 lbs peanut butter; 24 lbs preserved meat; 49 lbs cube sugar; 243 duck eggs and 20 bars of washing soap. This splendid intake allowed us to issue one half egg to each person in hospital.\n\nIt was on 9 June that Saito searched the hospital for three hours and took away for examination, he said, all case sheets for patients, all patients' records, operating books etc. that he could find. He also took documents relating to 27 Company R.A.M.C., together with some possessions taken from individuals. No one ever saw these again and I have recorded elsewhere how I got from Saito written acknowledgement of what he had done.\n\nOn 10 June a second working party of 20 men came from Sham Shui Po to make gardens near our cemetery in Kowloon.\n\nOn 20 June I asked for some less fit men from the first working party to be taken off work and returned to camp and I also gave Saito at his request a list of men fit for discharge. These numbered only six. At this time I have a curious note in my diary that I signified approval to Saito on behalf of the officers concerned for the Japanese to use the interest on our savings for the benefit of all. The Japanese request was conveyed in a letter in their own language which was explained to me orally by Saito through his interpreter. I must have understood the proposal at the time but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207494, "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": 262, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "254\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nI have no idea now what this meant. The first working party was transferred to another job and though none of the less fit had gone back to camp none of these were being worked.\n\nIt was at this time also that we ran out of rice, having deliberately issued for consumption on the scales approved by the Japanese. As a punishment Mr. Campbell and I were both slapped. We would not have run the risk of an empty rice store in earlier years but by then we were becoming more confident of our position. We did in fact go short for a day but fresh supplies came in within 24 hours. This was a very good intake, about 360 kilos, and I was able to work out a good ration on the basis of 510 grammes for 100 employed and 397 grammes for others, assuming that our stocks had to last until the end of July. We had another very good Red Cross intake on 29 June and at this time we were having 113 grammes rice for breakfast, 145 grammes for dinner and tea as well as 113 grammes for working party suppers. I learned also that much of the working party's work on air raid shelters had been undone by heavy rain. I also have a note that our steward's store was well wired up by us though I do not now remember who the predators were suspected to be.\n\nOn 7 July a Canadian officer died, admitted from Sham Shui Po on the 29 June. There was in this case a strong suspicion that the cause of death was encephalitis of the Japanese B. type. The next day a Hong Kong Volunteer died suddenly from a severe haemorrhage. On the same day the Japanese guard moved out of the Japanese half of the school building and we understood that Saito was going to live there. By 19 July Saito himself took check parades and we were still hoping to receive certain things that we had asked for such as a cross-cut saw and some drugs. On 11 July a Canadian soldier had broken his leg while working on a tunnel to be used by the Japanese as an air raid shelter. Splints were applied in a Japanese hospital and he was sent to us for admission. The working party reported to me that the tunnels they were digging were of amateurish design and were highly dangerous. I gathered that the sides and roofs were very inadequately shored up and there had been a number of falls of earth from roofs and sides. I tackled Saito at once about this, and he later told me that we could be reassured since the Japanese officer in charge said that they only needed more timbers to be used and all would be well. As a statement of the obvious this seemed to me to be pretty good.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207495, "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": 263, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n255\n\nThe men of the working party were not in the least bit reassured and took special care, and fortunately all members of both working parties left on 17 July unharmed.\n\nAbout now Saito, in response to further pressure by me authorised the issue of rice from stocks up to the daily amounts then authorised i.e. 660 grammes for staff and 510 for others and Mr. Campbell arranged this accordingly. Saito wanted me to spare ten men for work on a garden by the cemetery but I could only spare about three for seven of the staff were sick now, five being engineers.\n\nThe stock of multivite capsules ran out on 16 July and we resumed injections of 2 mgm of thiamin on two days out of every three. Some of the staff were pretty sick with fever at this time and we had one certain and one suspected case of amoebic dysentery. I was able to send a few mosquito nets, stretchers and mattresses to Sham Shui Po, and this was a notable advance.\n\nOn 24 July Saito handed over five cases of American Red Cross Relief Supplies. Each contained four quart tins of cresol saponated solution, one litre of 5% dextrose in normal saline, one litre of normal saline, one bottle of 100 capsules each containing concentrated vitamins A and D, 25 bottles of sterile distilled water and two packages of water purification sets.\n\nAt this time in the compradore's shop prices were as follows: — Brown sugar 254.50 yen per lb; syrup 528 yen per tin; tomatoes 20.50 yen per tin; tomato sauce 62.95 yen per bottle; rock salt 24.50 yen per lb; Chinese cigarette papers 3.36 yen per packet; matches 12.50 per box; tausi beans 50.50 per tin; white beans 215 yen per lb.\n\nMy diary for 28 July contains a remarkable entry to the effect that a Hong Kong Volunteer, a Hong Kong man, had received from a Hong Kong bank all his securities about ten days earlier. I have no idea now what the details were but this occurrence illustrates that lines of communication existed with the world outside of which I knew nothing.\n\nAbout the end of July we had to reintroduce certain economies in our use of food. By then our stock of beans was very low and the amount of vegetables coming in was small and included a lot of peppers. We were down to three sacks of rice in hand when fortunately we received another forty each containing a nominal 60 kilos.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207496, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "256\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nOn 4 August Mr. Zindel carried out a Red Cross inspection of the hospital together with Colonel Tokunaga and his staff, the whole lasting only about twenty minutes and I had no conversation with him. At this time we had been receiving small quantities of fresh meat at weekends and this had gone on for a few weeks before meat was replaced by salted fish, the first fish we had had for a long time. In early August the weather was remarkably cool, dull and showery with the wind varying from S.W. to N.E. The barbed wire was now being brought closer to the hospital and excluded the playing field. We had two dangerously ill patients on 7 August and we received a drum of diesel oil from Saito via our engineers.\n\nMr. Sims was able to repair a burned out high tension cable on our X-ray set and I noted that we put an extra lock on the linen store, a further indication that active trading was still going on. The last Red Cross supplies we had received came in on 29 June and we were running short. Our wheat stock was exhausted and we stopped cooking buns but continued to produce a so-called cake each week and bread made from rice and beans was issued every second day. The Japanese issue of cigarettes for workers which had been due on 20 July arrived on 8 August and Saito told me that wood for fuel was very difficult to get and asked me to economise. We had made two attempts without success to make a wood saw from iron bedsteads. We had now a working party wiring and installing a water supply and a lavatory in the school sports pavilion for the use of the Japanese. We were given 186 small towels, enough for one to each person in hospital and the remainder were raffled. By now the hospital was tired of the lack of news, but remained fairly cheerful except for the blight of three patients on the dangerously ill list. On 15 August one British patient died, thus making the fifth death which had occurred in the Central British School. On 16 August we had a funeral, and a young bull was sighted in the hospital compound but just escaped us. On the same day my diary contains a note to the effect that the war was over, news which reached us via the guards. It is rather remarkable that the official surrender had been made only the previous day in Tokyo. I tackled Saito directly, asking for news but he replied that he had none, though he did promise to tell me as soon as any was available. Next day I asked Saito again in the morning for news and was answered very brusquely that he did not understand my question.", "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 }, { "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": 207500, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "260\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nfeet to help aircraft expected to drop supplies the next day. The sign had to be yellow, and the Japanese straw sleeping mats called tatami were used to construct the sign. Some huts in the Indian camp were blown down. We got Tokunaga and Saito to turn over St. Teresa's Hospital to us while we helped also by housing a number of people in our Assembly Hall. Our staff of rice grinders had stopped functioning and we had to use R.A.M.C. orderlies to help. We had been hoping that our sisters would have arrived but a party of them had apparently missed a ferry connection. A nearby typhoon accompanied by heavy rain caused the air drop of supplies to be postponed but the weather moderated and our marooned visitors were able to leave. Two women members of a religious order arrived from St. Teresa's Hospital distressed that a Japanese officer had disturbed them the previous night and I took them to the Indian camp where I arranged the move of patients and staff through Indian Army officers to St. Teresa's Hospital and I set about compiling lists of patients from all centres in order to classify those needing treatment and special transportation when relief arrived. We had a number of Canadian officers to lunch and Major Crawford was a welcome visitor later when he came to see the Canadian patients in hospital. He himself seemed in reasonably good shape by the standards of those days.\n\nIn consultation with Colonel Field certain difficulties over medical arrangements in some camps were remedied. The sisters in St. Teresa's Hospital were keeping three rooms for their own use and the Japanese were moving out. The St. Teresa's staff and patients would be fed from the Indian camp and we were now getting news over the radio which suggested that a relief force might arrive about the end of the month. An emergency operation was performed in our hospital on a patient admitted from camp. The disease was the same as that in the case of the patient whom I reported earlier had been received by us in Bowen Road in 1942 after ten days illness, when he died before surgery could be undertaken. Early surgery would have saved this patient and operation was totally successful in the case of the patient we had just admitted. Staff and patients were again being allowed out locally.\n\nBy 26 August I had occupied the office which Saito had used, and in St. Teresa's Hospital the sisters were now content with the arrangements while they also had access to houses at No. 317 Prince Edward Road, Major Evans was in charge here with Captain", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207501, "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": 269, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n261\n\nI was straban while Ashton Rose was preparing a medical report on Sham Shui Po. At this time we were being asked by the British Military Administration to submit lists of our kit which had been taken by the Japanese but I imagine that this only added to the papers with which they had to deal at that time. The Colonial Secretary was installed in the French Mission at Battery Path and heads of government departments followed shortly afterwards. Commander Craven and Major Boxer left us for staff duties in Hong Kong and I arranged for two barbers to come and stay for a few days. Six of our Q.A. sisters arrived and another six came late at night accompanied by very necessary male escorts from Stanley. We were delighted to see them and put them all up and fed them but it was early morning before I got to bed.\n\nOn 27 August Saito came back and I pressed him again for our medical records and he excused himself by saying he had been so busy. The Indian hospital had 259 patients and 45 staff and I arranged an X-ray session for Indian patients including a number suffering from tuberculosis. Selwyn-Clarke sent us a gift of brandy and cigarettes, showing that though he did not use these comforts himself he would not deny them to others. Miss Dyson now back in her rightful position as Matron set about getting overalls for her sisters, a splendid boost to the morale not only of these ladies but of the patients and staff as well. Madame Lebon made these and our army promised payment.\n\n1\n\nWe finally closed our compradore's shop and agreed a business settlement with the compradore on the basis of him taking out cash plus goods to the total of $8831.06 yen. We had an excellent concert provided by Sham Shui Po, and some of the Hong Kong Volunteers, particularly those of mixed race, were slightly built and made up very attractively as girls. Members of the Indian camp and the Internee Camp at Ma Tau Wei attended and as usual in these days I was very late to bed. We found it necessary to control visiting hours in the hospital because of the very large numbers of people we had roaming about.\n\nOn 28 August we got smoke flares from our people for touching off by day to guide our aircraft when they were dropping supplies and the Japanese also sent in smoke cylinders for a like purpose. They also sent in 3 bottles of whisky, 4 of peppermint for the dispensary, 8 of brandy, 50 of port, 6 of gin and 20 of sherry. I at once arranged a general issue of 2 ounces of port per head, a meagre ration which I thought was wise at the time.", "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 }, { "id": 207518, "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": 286, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "278\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nSaito. He acted without giving reasonable consideration to the cases of sick people put to him as needing hospital treatment, so that many for whom hospital treatment could have been life-saving were not sent in.\n\nWhen the hospital moved nearer to the camps in Kowloon in 1945 we began to see signs that it might be going to be used properly to receive the more serious cases in the camps as they occurred and so fulfil its proper function. If we had been moved near to our sources of patients at the beginning of our imprisonment we might have served our sick more extensively and would have been of greater value to the camp doctors. A move then, when we had a hospital full of seriously wounded, would have been dangerous for these men. By the time the move occurred the need was much less pressing though our availability did, I believe, do much to improve our service.\n\nI do not know what relations existed between Saito and his commander Colonel Tokunaga, but while I must, in justice, be careful in reaching judgments, I consider that as a medical man Saito failed to do much that lay within his power for our sick, particularly those in camps. In saying this I do not claim for our prisoners more than the standards of care allowed by international agreements. A coordinated plan to apply such resources as we commanded in camps and in hospital would have made a vast difference to the medical story of prisoners in Hong Kong.\n\nWhile therefore I can agree that we in the hospital fared better than many in Japanese hands I must also record my conviction that the possession and careful husbanding in the hospital of our own resources played a very large part in such successes as we achieved. Any success that attended the efforts of any of us would have been immensely diminished without the aid of Mr. Zindel and the Red Cross Society and our generous friends in Hong Kong.\n\nWithout the life-saving measures provided by the medical services in the P.O.W. camps, using makeshift resources, many patients would never have reached the hospital at all.\n\nTHE STAFF\n\nMy main purpose in writing this account is to record the history of the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong, from 1942 to 1945 and those who served on the staff or were patients there. The account fails to record some of the colourful personalities we had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209849, "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-1983", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "86\n\nLoan Word\n\nChinese Characters\n\nMeaning\n\nGung ho\n\nI A\n\n*Gweilo\n\n鬼\n\nLiterally 'ghost' or 'devil man', used to refer to Westerners. Widely current in Hong Kong.\n\nHan\n\n漢\n\nOf, relating to, or having the characteristic of, the period of the Han dynasty; of, relating to, or being a nationality group of Chinese descended from the original Chinese constituting an overwhelming majority of the population and the dominant cultural group: belonging to the Chinese proper as distinguished from other nationality groups.\n\nHakka\n\n客家\n\nOne of a tribe or race of Chinese dwelling in parts of southern China, particularly in the province of Canton, descendants of immigrants from northern China in the middle ages; also their dialect,\n\nHoey (wui)\n\n會\n\nA society of Chinese; especially a secret society. In Hong Kong a savings club.\n\nHong\n\n行\n\nA foreign trading establishment in China or Japan.\n\nHyson\n\n熙春\n\nA species of green tea from China.\n\nI-ching\n\n易經\n\nAn ancient Chinese book of divination and a source of Confucian and Taoist philosophy.\n\n*Kaito\n\n街渡\n\nLiterally 'street ferry', used to refer to boats plying between various points in Hong Kong.\n\n*Kaifong\n\n街力(坊)\n\nLiterally 'street square', used to refer to a neighbourhood, especially to community organizations.\n\nKaolin\n\n高嶺\n\nA fine white clay produced by the decomposition of feldspar, used in the manufacture of porcelain; first employed by the Chinese, but subsequently found in many places.\n\nKetchup\n\n茄汁\n\nA sauce made from the juice of mushrooms, walnuts, tomatoes, etc.\n\nKowtow\n\n叩頭\n\nThe Chinese custom of touching the ground with the forehead, as an expression of respect, submission, or worship.\n\n*Kuk\n\n局\n\nLiterally 'association', 'society', 'committee'.\n\n*Kung hei fat choy\n\n恭喜發財\n\nLiterally 'wish you grow prosperous'. A Chinese New Year greeting.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 } ]