[
    {
        "id": 212187,
        "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-1990",
        "page_number": 129,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "106\n\nburst all round us. There were three Japanese aircraft, whose pilots circled and dived repeatedly. The gunboats were caught by surprise and it was only on the third attack that they got their Lewis guns into action, thereby possibly disturbing the aim of the attacking planes, because again fortunately there were no direct hits.\n\nThe first bomb attack took place at 1.30 p.m. At about 2.30 p.m. three larger machines, in formation, approached at a height of 6000 feet. They were seen to drop a pattern of six heavy bombs, which fell near one of the Asiatic Petroleum Company's steamers, but once again did little damage, owing to what appeared to be poor lateral splintering qualities. This time the gunboats opened with both their \"pom-poms\" and their 3\" guns but without effect.\n\nThe Staff Captain together with the British Military Attaché and the British Consul, who had been in the \"Scarab\", had boarded one of the merchant ships the previous night to go 60 miles up the river to Wuhu to contact the Japanese troops, in the hope that they would be able to arrange to avoid further incidents. Following on these raids, signals were made to the Staff Captain at Wuhu enquiring whether it would not be better to move the ships. At that time we did not know that the U.S.S. \"Panay\" and the three Standard Oil ships had already been sunk, and we were still awaiting a reply from Wuhu, when a third attack was made at about 4 p.m. by three aircraft which made a succession of dives to 600 feet, but they received such a warm welcome from the gunboats that they missed their targets and soon made off.\n\nAll the British ships had Union Jacks painted across their decks: on my ship, for instance, the Jack was 25 feet wide. There could be no further illusion regarding the possibility that these attacks had been made by mistake. The continuous raiding, following on the shelling of the previous day, began to demoralize the Chinese crews, and the numerous Chinese refugees from the various British offices in Nanking, with whom the holds of the ships were packed. It became imperative to take action of some sort.\n\nThe \"Ewo\" hulk, lashed alongside the S.S. \"Whangpoo\", had had the worst of it. The pair of them offered the largest target at which it was natural for the Japanese pilots to aim. It was fortunate that the refugees had been taken out of the hulk after the first attack, because the thin plank walls of her deck house were now riddled",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212188,
        "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-1990",
        "page_number": 130,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "107\n\n: with splinter holes, and inside broken glass and damaged furniture lay scattered around. In the vain hope that she might avoid further attention the \"Whangpoo\" had taken the hulk for a \"cruise\" up the river, while a British officer stood all the time with a loaded revolver guarding the lashings to prevent the excited crew cutting the hulk adrift. It was eventually decided to move an anchor over to the hulk and to moor her off by herself. To the officers of the Merchant Service this sort of thing is all in a day's work. To stand on his bridge and listen to the flow of language addressed by the Captain of the \"Whangpoo\" to the panicking refugees below was a treat not to be missed.\n\nIn the evening a reply was received from Wuhu that the officer commanding the Japanese troops had declared that, if any ship moved on the Yangtze it would be fired at. He was the notorious Colonel Hashimoto, a prominent member of the young Officers' group, who staged the military rising in Tokyo in 1936 during which several leading members of the Japanese government were murdered.\n\nThe news was discouraging and we had to face the possibility that in the morning the attacks would be renewed and the ships sunk, because we could not expect our phenomenal luck in avoiding direct hits to repeat itself. It was decided that before dawn all the merchant ships should be placed along the north bank, where there was deep water, so that the Chinese could step off onto the shore to hide in the reeds. That night it was thought wiser to leave all the ships' lights on in the belief that the Japanese would be less likely to fire at ships, of whose presence they had been repeatedly notified, than if the ships blacked-out and showed no marks of identification. Hurried arrangements were made against the possibility of having to abandon ship. We opened the Captain's safe and shared out thousand-dollar bundles of notes, on the one hand to save them going down with the ship, and on the other to finance any cross-country travelling which might lie before us.\n\nDawn found the ships tied up at intervals of 200 yards along the bank, with only a few foreigners and members of the Chinese crews left aboard. The bulk of the refugees were hiding in the reeds. Many of the sailors and engine-room hands, as well as the Chinese employees of the foreign firms, decided not to risk another day in this dangerous neighbourhood, and disappeared into the interior of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212617,
        "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-1991",
        "page_number": 171,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "151\n\nalong the dismantled track ran no trains, under whose wheels we could get our dummy mines, as we had been able to do in Burma where the alarm created by their noisy, if harmless, explosions had often confused the Indian engine drivers.\n\nThe magistrate was helpful: he devoted two days to tramping round with us from village to village, until we could decide where accommodation for the school might be most suitable; and he promised to build a short length of road to connect the village finally selected with the motor road so that our lorries could drive right up to the door. The village was some miles outside a small country town; I shall call it Chin Ya, the Golden Duck.*\n\nNew Year's Eve fell while I was making these investigations. The local general, with that consideration which is the charming mark of Chinese breeding, fearing I should be lonely, invited me to dinner. Since arrival in the 3rd War Zone I had asked to be kept informed of any parties of foreigners escaping from Shanghai, but no news of any escapes had come through. It was accordingly with the greater pleasure, as we were sitting down to dinner, that I was surprised by the entry of a tall bearded figure, wearing a long Chinese gown, and heard myself addressed in English. He was the first foreigner to escape from Shanghai, an American, Mr. Hawkins, the manager of one of the branches of the big American bank which had offices in China.\n\nHe told us his story while we ate our dinner. Having only just returned from leave in the States, he was staying at an hotel, which happened to be near the Bund. Early on the morning of December 7th he was wakened by the sound of gunfire. He went out to investigate and found that Japanese destroyers were sinking H.M.S. Peterel in the Whangpoo River just off the Bund. He realised that war must have broken out and dashed round to his bank to 'phone his manager. He then returned to his hotel, packed a small bag, got into his car, and drove out to the stables in the western suburb, where a friend kept two ponies which he had permission to ride. He saddled the ponies, and riding the one while leading the other, passed through the gate at which a Japanese sentry stood guard where the road crossed the barbed wire barrier surrounding Shanghai. The barrier had originally been put up by the foreign troops holding the\n\n* It is in the Tianmushan mountains, near the border of Chekiang and Anhwei, near the country town Anchi",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    }
]