RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d
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DONALD C. BOWIE

A 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.

At 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.

It 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.

By 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.

True 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

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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
99

residents in 1932, under conditions quite similar, the efforts of which they were capable. It was thought that at the best the Chinese government would be compelled to sue for terms within three or four months: nor did the foreign residents of Shanghai appear to feel much concern at the prospect of such an issue; the years of pin-pricking told. Despite the precedents recently set in Manchuria, where the Japanese had driven out foreign enterprise, there were many who really believed that the Japanese would “clean up the Chinese mess”, as they called it, and usher in a beautiful era when all obstructions would be removed to a profitable trade untrammelled by notions about "unequal treatment".

On my return I found Nanking settling down to war. Most of the foreign ladies had left by steamer for ports upriver, the International Club band was dispersed, the cinemas were closed, the leak in our swimming pool got worse, coupons were required for petrol, and the irreplenishable stock of liquid refreshment at the Bungalow Club diminished at an alarming rate.

There were particularly heavy air raids on the 19th and 20th of September, and so it was with some astonishment on the evening of the 20th that we heard over the wireless Admiral Hasegawa's warning to foreign residents of Nanking to move out because,

"the Japanese Naval Air Force may after noon on September 21st have to resort to such offensive measures as bombing and otherwise upon the Chinese forces, as well as all the establishments pertaining to their military operations and otherwise around Nanking."

He spoke after a month of bombing as though the bombing had not yet commenced. Japan waved the big stick with singular effect. During the night of the 20th there was a frenzy of packing and on the morning of the 21st the remaining foreign ladies left by steamer, and several offices closed down and transferred themselves to Wuhu. The men who were staying behind made arrangements to "cruise" for the day. The various embassy staffs boarded their respective gunboats; and many civilians hoarded the S.S. "Whangpoo" which promptly at 11 a.m. took the Butterfield hulk in tow and steamed away, while our small party had the use of a launch on which we crossed over to the far side of the Yangtze to anchor a couple of
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