RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d
CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG

151

Bowen Road. This report was fortunately completed long before the Japanese on 9 June, 1945, burned the original case sheets, operation books and other records from which they were compiled. Also preserved were records of rations provided by the Japanese, of gifts from the British and other Red Cross Societies, of gifts from Local Red Cross sources and local well-wishers, and menus of our meals and special diets. I still have all this material and it provides the basis for the account I now write. I did not, unfortunately, preserve any copies of the propaganda leaflets dropped by the Japanese during hostilities or of the English language Hongkong News, published under Japanese auspices in Hong Kong during their occupation.

The delay of thirty years in writing this story needs explanation. When I first came home I shared the plight of thousands who returned after years when we were completely out of touch with the changes that had taken place in the world, ignorant of the details of war, of the changes in the country and in the services and of the way people lived. The vocabulary was new, the developments were enormous and we had much ground to make up physically. It was not too difficult to acquire a veneer; it was less easy to take our places with any assurance in the new world of 1945 and 1946. Much work was needed. When I resumed duty in the army, after my release, I was given a chance to play a part in the Royal Army Medical College, Millbank, in the postgraduate medical training of R.A.M.C. officers, and in expanding the training of specialists. I seized this opportunity eagerly for I was well aware of the defects in the training of myself and my contemporaries. My time became fully engaged in this work. Four years later a chance was offered to me to play a similar part in civil life on appointment as a Regional Postgraduate Dean, in the British Postgraduate Medical Federation, University of London. The need for improved training was quite as urgent in civil life as it was in the army, the field was bigger, and it was not until I retired from that appointment many years later that I found time to return to the task I had wanted to tackle for so long. It seemed to me that an account of events in Hong Kong, as known to me, might provide a useful contribution to the history of the Colony, and that the achievements of the staff and the fortitude of the patients deserved to be recorded. I thought also that here and there perhaps, those serving today might discern from the story something of value to themselves and their Corps.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d
290

Editor's Footnotes

DONALD C. BOWIE

1. Dr. Bowie's own career and achievements, before and after the historic events of which he writes, will be of interest to readers of this Journal. They are as follows:

M.B. 1918. University of Glasgow.

F.R.C.S. Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh 1929.

Honorary F.R.C.G.P. (Royal College of General Practitioners) 1969.

Sir Arthur Keith Medallist, Royal College of Surgeons, England, 1969.

Main Appointments, Army.

Commissioned R.A.M.C. 1918.

Served in U.K., France, Germany, Turkey.

Seconded to Egyptian Army 1923-25.

Shanghai Defence Force 1927.

Territorial Adjutant, 54th East Anglian Division T.A. 1928-30,

Surgical Specialist, British Troops in Egypt 1930-35.

Surgical Specialist, Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, London 1936-39,

Surgical Specialist, British Troops in China, Hong Kong, 1939.

Prisoner of War, 1941-45.

Reader in Military Surgery, Royal Army Medical College, London 1946-48. Consulting Surgeon, Middle East Land Forces 1948-50.

Retired 1950. (voluntarily)

Civil.

Regional Postgraduate Dean, British Postgraduate Medical Federation, University of London in North West, South West Metropolitan and Wessex Hospital Regions, 1950-70.

Now Retired.

Dr. Bowie was awarded the O.B.E. (Military) in 1946.

2. Dr. Bowie's account of Japanese attitudes and behaviour can usefully be set beside the comments of Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke and Dr. Li Shu-fan, the eminent Hong Kong surgeon, who both experienced them at first hand. Sir Selwyn writes (pp. 71-72 of his autobiography referred to at p. 178 above):

Nobody can deny that man's potential for cruelty was exhibited on an appalling scale by the Japanese in the stress of war. It was predictable in the circumstances that I should suffer my share of ill-treatment at their hands, and this is what presently came about. Yet the feature of their character that stood out from that whole experience was in fact their unpredictability. They would be acquiescent, even humane, when least expected, vicious with sudden fury after a phase almost of apathy. They could respect, sometimes, a principled stand or an unflinching argument, and yet visit a meaningless rage upon the helpless. To attempt to understand them was the plain duty of anyone seeking to protect a community that was at their mercy, and the first lesson to be learned was that surrender violated their military code, making a prisoner a non-person. But this too was a generalization, and as such to be guarded against as one guarded against racial prejudice. For men are not cast in one mould, even by war, even by a code or an ideology.

Dr. Li's account of Hong Kong under Japanese rule is given in chapters 6-9 of his autobiography, Hong Kong Surgeon (London, Victor Gollancz, 1964) in which his comments at pp. 159-160 are relevant here.
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