Notes:

1
Edmund John Clarence (Eddie) born June 9, 1932. Like me, he lives in Sydney, Australia. He is a proud parent and grandparent. During his working life he was a stockbroker.

2
North China Herald and Supreme Court and Consular Gazette published Shanghai March 1, 1881. Death announcement is given as February 20, 1881 at Ningpo. Notification of death is at front page, obituary is at page 192. The obituary article is similar in style and content to a report carried in The N.-C. Daily News published March 2, 1881. The N.-C. Daily News of February 25, 1881 carried a report of Cooke's burial. Cooke's Death certificate obtained from the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages (London) confirm date of death. Bradbury family collection.

3
For his services as an officer in the combined British and Imperial Chinese forces during the Taiping Rebellion, Cooke was offered and received a Certificate of Merit under an edict issued by the Imperial Chinese Emperor, T'ung chi. The certificate outlines his battle victories and the wounds he sustained as a member of the Chinese-styled "Ever Victorious Army". Cooke in 1868, through the Ningpo British Consul, had to separately receive the permission of Queen Victoria before he could accept the certificate because of his British citizenship. Certificate and consular letter are in the Cooke family collection.

4
The newspaper articles (see Footnote 2) referring to Cooke's death refer to him as a Colonel or a Brigadier. On the Marriage certificate obtained from Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages (London) for the November 15, 1884 marriage between Cooke's daughter Nellie and Arthur Vere Brown, Cooke's rank is given as Major-General. Bradbury family collection.

5
The Shanghai Cemetery Register for the 1880s has Cooke listed at Number 999. Bradbury family collection.

6
Marriage certificate of February 14, 1881. Copy obtained from Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages (London). Certificate shows Cooke was 44 and Sage 30. Bradbury family collection.

7
Marriage certificate of February 12, 1898 obtained from Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages (London). Bradbury family collection.

8
Marriage Certificate spells her name Steiglich but her Death certificate spells the name as Steglich.

9
Death certificate of May 26, 1919 obtained from Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages (London). Bradbury family collection.

10
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

11
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

12
In the late 1800s, Tsingtao, which is located on the south-east of the Shantung Peninsula, came under German control. The Germans laid out a modern city and attracted heavy engineering and chemical industries to the area. It was from 1899 a free port and the headquarters for regional German naval forces. In 1914, Japan as a consequence of World War I in which it sided with the Allied powers led by Britain and France against the German-led coalition, successfully blockaded Tsingtao port. Japan then occupied the city until 1922. It gave up control of Tsingtao as a result of the Washington Naval Powers conference. Throughout the inter-World War period (1918-1939) Tsingtao's industrial infrastructure grew strongly and the city's layout was noted for its parks and gardens.

13
My family had never seen a home laundry until we came to Australia. My mother and I were astonished to see our first one. We were amazed to discover that Australian homes had a separate room just for washing laundry. Our first had a copper [a large copper pot for boiling dirty clothing] and two tubs. We soon learned how to use it.

14
Employed at the club were George and Shura Kuzmenko, who migrated to Australia after World War II. The International Club after the war became the temporary headquarters of the American Red Cross where I worked for a while.

15
Licia (nee Pezzini) Childress. Now lives in California.

16
The de Zutter family settled in the US after the war.

17
The Japanese reasons for the invasion of China are complex. In the 1930s, militarist factions gained control of the Japanese Government. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria where there were extensive Japanese interests plus mineral and farming resources desired by Japan. Subsequently, a considerable number of Japanese were settled there. In 1937, Japan began its invasion of northern China on the grounds it was protecting its economic interests and the Japanese citizens who had settled there. Their invasion was helped by the weakness of the Chinese Nationalist Army which was no match for the Japanese forces. In 1938, the Japanese took Tsingtao because of its strategic significance to the Japanese. It provided a good port for Japanese shipping and access to well-developed rail infrastructure.

18
Japanese internee armband given by Japanese Army to Joyce Cooke to wear, December 1941. Bradbury family collection.

19
Under then and present international law, the Baliantz family should not have been interned because Armic, as an Armenian, was stateless. The Japanese interned him, his wife and his young daughter by claiming falsely that Armic was Iranian (Persian). They then refused him access to the Persian officals who would have proven that he was not Persian. Armic was born of an Armenian family in Manchuria. Despite his first Japanese bashing and the terrible consequences, Armic never gave up his subsequent fight with the Japanese. During his internment at Wei-Hsien he involved himself with Father De Jaegher who set up a small team to collect intelligence from the outside world. Armic managed to steal Japanese-language newspapers from the guards and translate them. He also got hold of a Japanese guard's radio which he had offered to repair. The radio was hidden in the camp's church altar and it was played quietly during Catholic services so that news services from the Allied side could be monitored in secret. Armic was beaten by the guards when they discovered the radio ploy. He was again savagely beaten when he told the Japanese guards he would name his child, if it was a boy ― that was then being delivered in the camp hospital ― Arthur, after US General Douglas MacArthur. This beating by the guards took place in the hospital delivery room in front of his wife, Armen. She was in labour at the time of this beating. [I knew Armen in camp and Tsingtao as Tsolik Baliantz.] Personal communication from Armen Baliantz. Bradbury family documents.

20
It was quickly claimed soon after our arrival that the US novelist Pearl Buck (The Good Earth, interalia) and US publisher Henry Luce (Time, Life, Fortune) were born in the Wei-Hsien training centre. Buck (nee Sydenstricker) was born 1892 in West Virginia USA and Luce was born 1892 in Tengchow, Shantung province. Both sets of parents were American missionaries who served in China. Buck's first husband, John Buck, who she divorced in 1934, was also a missionary in China. Consequently it is possible the parents of Buck, Luce, or Buck's first husband may have used the Wei-Hsien facility. The assertions that Buck (1892-1973) and Luce (1892-1967) were born there are not correct.

21
List of internees dated June 30, 1944 giving names, marital status, nationality, age, sex and occupation. Bradbury family collection. Pamela Masters in her memoir The Mushroom Years, published 1998 by Henderson House Publishing, Placerville, California, writes of at least one French national acquaintance in the camp. However, the list of internees mentions no people of French nationality. See Further Reading.

22
The number of Australians and New Zealanders in the camp list of internees appears disproportionately high compared to the other major nationalities ― British and US. Most of the Australian males were either missionaries or businessmen. Analysis of the countries where the Wei-Hsien internees settled after liberation suggest that Australia and New Zealand took a disproportionate number of them. This latter observation is based on address lists I have been given at international reunions of camp inmates. Bradbury family collection.

23
Father Schneider was a Franciscan friar. In my autograph book he wrote in rhyme of his cobbling under the heading `We aim to Please'. It went:
"For all the coining years in Wei-Hsien,
1944 -45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53,
When Life's foundation totters, Visit Wei-Hsien's one and only shoe shop."
This is followed by his signature and the date: New Year's Day 1944. Bradbury family collection.

24
Sister Rosemary Lynch RN, of the Mater Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, has told me that peanut butter is an excellent food often used in treating people suffering malnutrition in poor countries.

25
Graduation certificate. Bradbury family collection.

26
Family document. Bradbury family collection. It says that I graduated from the Gregg Shorthand School, Tientsin. Grace Norman, the principal of the school who was in the camp with us has crossed out Tientsin and inserted Wei-Hsien and the date: April 28, 1945. Mrs Norman had brought the pre-printed certificates with her into the camp.

27
See Further Reading.

28
In his unpublished memoir This is Leo's Life by Lionel (Leo) Harold Twyford Thomas (1905-2000) a camp inmate, Leo writes of the camp soldiers: "We were very lucky that the ordinary guards at the camp were ex-consular staff, [In other words, they were poorly trained combat garrison troops sent to earlier protect Japanese commercial and consular interests in China] and not regular army officers, with only the head honcho an [well-trained combat] army man." Whatever they were, I found them frightening on most occasions.

29
Father Scanlan's autobiography Stars in the Sky, published by Trappist Press, Hong Kong, 1984, extensively deals with his internment by the Japanese (pp 122-184). He relates some of the issues and incidents I mention in this book.

Father Scanlan was taken with most of the other Catholic religious (about 400 priests, nuns and brothers) from the camp on August 16, 1943 to Peking where they were interned in monasteries, seminaries and convents until the Japanese surrendered in Peking on August 19, 1945.

Father Scanlan suggests the Japanese agreed to the removal of most of the Catholic clergy because Vatican officials argued with Japanese officials that the Catholic clergy were ― if a citizen of any earthly country ― citizens of the neutral Vatican state and thus should not be interned. Separately he suggests, the Vatican officials argued the Japanese could need the Vatican as an intermediary for any future negotiations of a Japanese ceasefire with the Allies. At the time of the removal of these clergy from Wei-Hsien, Allied victories in Asia against the Japanese were starting to mount.

The departure of many of the Catholic clergy from Wei-Hsien was deeply moving. Many of them had been our teachers before camp and in camp. While in camp they became our friends, carers and co-workers. They were never shy of volunteering for hard work and they were great bearers of comfort to all. As they were taken away there were real fears among us watching their departure that they would be massacred. It was a terribly sad day, the day they left. Many cried, regardless of religious persuasion.

Some Catholic clergy stayed behind until liberation to minister to the camp population and engage in tasks for which they were specially equipped such as teaching and nursing.

After a short post-war period in China, Father Scanlan returned first to a Trappist community in Wales. [The correct term for Trappists are members of the Cistercian Order. The term, Trappist, comes from La Trappe in Normandy, France, where there is a Trappist abbey. Trappists practise a stringent rule of austerity and silence.] Father Scanlan subsequently returned to China for a short time before joining Trappist communities in Canada and the United States. In the early 1950s, Father Scanlan left the Trappists and became a diocesan priest in the United States where he served parish communities on the east and west coasts.

Two of the Trappist monks with Father Scanlan at Wei-Hsien and Peking – Fathers L' Heureux and Drost – after their eventual release from internment returned to their Trappist monastery north of Peking. They were later taken into custody by Chinese Communist forces with other priests, brothers and students of the Trappist community and treated brutally. As a result of the hardships and torture they suffered, they died. They are two of the 33 people from the Trappist community in China who have been put forward as worthy candidates for canonisation as saints by the Catholic Church. Their candidature is still pending (February 2000) because the present Chinese authorities are opposed to permitting hearings about the nature of their deaths in China.

30
The imprisonment of Father Scanlan inspired a song which we all quickly learnt. It is sung to the tune of If I had the Wings of an Angel. Called The Prisoner's Song, it was penned by an anonymous inmate. Its words are:

Oh, they trapped me a Trappist last Wednesday,
Now, few are the eggs to be fried,
So, here in this dark cell I ponder,
If my clients are empty inside.

There's a great big basket on the outside,
Just brimming with honey and jam,
But how can it come onto our side,
If the bootleggers don't know where I am?

It is dated 1943. Family document, Bradbury family collection.

31
There are 48 references to Henry Collishaw and his wife Florence in the official history of the Australian Salvation Army. After the war, he rose to the rank of Brigadier.

32
Unpublished memoirs: This is Leo's Life by Lionel (Leo) Harold Twyford Thomas, Bradbury family collection.

33
Family document, Bradbury family collection.

34
Father Raymond J De Jaegher wrote his memoirs of the camp in a book titled: The Enemy Within. It was published by the Society of St Paul, Bandra Bombay – 50, in 1969. A Sinologist, who was extremely fluent in Chinese, he set up a highly successful postal communications systems with the outside world from the camp using supportive Chinese. Consequently, he was a significant gatherer of intelligence information which was supplemented from time to time with secret monitoring of Allied news broadcasts using secret radios in the camp. These broadcasts detailed Allied successes in the war against Japan.

Father De Jaegher played a key role in organising the only escape from the camp, and was a significant adviser to the camp's management committee in general matters of dealing with the Japanese. As the Allies' war progressed against the Japanese, Father De Jaegher noted a decline in the guards' morale. He advised the committee on how to treat with Chinese Communist-led forces. These forces, towards the end of the war, began encircling the Wei-Hsien area. His advice to the committee possibly averted a massacre of the camp's inmates.

He recommended the camp leaders not to provoke a revolt by the camp's inmates as suggested by the Chinese Communists in a secret communication to the camp. He warned a camp revolt could lead to the gathering Communist forces ― who were no friends of non-Chinese (contained in the camp) and the Japanese guards ― massacring both the inmates and the Japanese. He counselled that the camp patiently wait for Allied liberation. His suggested strategy was accepted by the camp's leaders.

They were guided in that decision by Father De Jaegher and others analysing the information they were gathering from secret radio monitoring and incoming documentation being brought in secret messages by the Chinese toilet coolies [see text]. His advice was later proven to be well-founded. In the last days of the repatriation of liberated internees from the camp, Communist forces blew up the key Wei-Hsien railway infrastructure. This forced the Allied forces to fly out the last remaining Wei-Hsien internees.

Post-war, Father De Jaegher again largely worked in Asia. He became internationally famous as an anti-Communist campaigner and prominent as an adviser to the largely Catholic-led, anti-Communist leadership of South Vietnam. This country was formed in the mid-1950s following the 1954 collapse of French-led forces to Vietnamese Communist forces. A partitioned Vietnam into south and north sectors then followed as a result of international talks. South Vietnam eventually fell in 1975 to Communist forces, despite protracted and considerable military and financial support from the US and other countries including: South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. This Viet Cong success led to the reunification of Vietnam from South and North Vietnams into present-day Vietnam, a Communist state.

See also Further Reading.

35
Because of the Trappist monks' imprisonment and the need for the monks to verbally communicate, the Catholic bishops who were also interned agreed after a synodal meeting that the Trappist monks could be released from their vow of silence during their internment in the camp. The monks quickly took full advantage of the bishops' ruling. They became loquacious. It was to our amazement. As children, we solemnly believed that the Trappists could only speak when saying prayers alone.

36
Stars in the Sky by Father Patrick Scanlan. Published by Trappist Press, Hong Kong, 1984.

37
Sulpha or sulfa drugs belong to a group of anti-bacterial drugs derived from the red dye, sulphanilamide. They were first discovered by a German chemist in 1935. According to the Concise Colour Medical Dictionary published by Oxford University Press, Oxford in 1994, the use of sulpha drugs has declined in recent decades because of "increasing bacterial resistance to sulphonamides and with the development of more effective less toxic antibiotics".

38
Chariots of Fire, a film, 1980. Directed by David Puttnam. Won the Oscar award given by American Academy of Motion Pictures for Best Picture, 1981.

39
Second in the race was Lionel (Leo) Twyford Thomas who subsequently settled in Australia. He died in January 2000. See also Further reading. According to my calculations, the race was run over a distance of about 800 metres. This distance estimate is based on a detailed map of the camp prepared by the honorary Swiss Consul-General's representative, Mr V E Egger, who lived in Tsingtao. During the war, Mr Egger also acted as the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Mr Egger visited the camp on several occasions, bringing with him Red Cross supplies and money which was called comfort money. Inmates could apply for the money if they signed a promissory note undertaking to repay it after the war. Map copy is in Bradbury family collection. Mr Egger also issued in 1943 safekeeping receipts on Shanghai Swiss Consulate-General letterhead to my mother for personal jewellery she had brought to the camp and the title deeds to our Tsingtao home. The Swiss Government from late 1941 undertook to represent British interests in Japanese-occupied China. Receipts are in Cooke family collection.

40
See Further Reading.

41
Article in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution dated August 9, 1981, page 22-A. A copy is Family document. Bradbury family collection. Hummel was born in China of American missionary parents. He was teaching in a Peking school at the time of Pearl Harbor. After his escape, Hummel and Tipton joined Chinese guerrilla forces fighting the Japanese. Tipton was a tobacco company executive.

Father Raymond De Jaegher outlined the preparations for the escape in his book: The Enemy Within.

In March 2000, Mr Hummel confirmed the date of the escape and his subsequent activities with Tipton until the camp was liberated in a personal conversation.

42
See Further reading.

43
The original two escapees were to be Tipton and De Jaegher. A fellow priest told De Jaegher his role should be to remain in the camp because he was the camp's best intelligence gathering operator. De Jaegher's place in the escape was taken by Hummel, who volunteered for the job.

44
Readers now wanting another view of Wei-Hsien seen through the eyes of a woman who was there until August 1943 when she was repatriated back to the US, are invited to read Chapter 15 – Another view of Wei-Hsien – before reading the next chapter. The chapter includes extracts from a report given to the US State Department in December 1943.

45
The first wave of parachutists landed at 10.15 a.m. on August 17, 1945. The time and date was recorded by one of the parachutists in my autograph book. All the first-wave parachutists signed my autograph book. Bradbury family collection.

46
In retrospect, there is no doubt that the war was lost for the Japanese well before its official ending. The use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki suddenly and unexpectedly stopped a lot of killing and casualties which would have occurred if the Japanese had continued to resist surrender to the Allies. I believe in the dropping of the bombs because it saved many lives by quickly ending the war. Among those lives saved were the people in the camp with me.

47
Among the parachutists was US Army Lieutenant James Jess Hannon. Hannon, when serving with the US Parachute Infantry, was captured at Anzio, Italy, during the war. He was then held as a German prisoner of war at five camps. He escaped from the last one in Poland and made his way to Romania where he was rescued by the US Air Force. He was subsequently posted as an intelligence officer and assigned to US Special Forces in Kunming, China. The parachutists took off from Hsian airport, China. Hannon was injured in the landing and had to receive attention at the camp's hospital. In a letter about his experiences, he writes: "Wei-Hsien Prison Camp and the condition of the prisoners was not comparable to anything in my experience. They were indeed fortunate, apparently unaware that prisoners of German and Japanese forces throughout the areas they controlled experienced monumental and unparalleled horrors. Most of the [US parachute] team stayed at the camp several days." Letter from James Jess Hannon, Yucca Valley, California dated February 17, 1998. Family documents. Bradbury family collection. In February 2000, Hannon was quoted in an interview that he had written a film script about his war experiences and he was having talks with film producers about the possibility of the script being used in a film. Associated Press, February 21, 2000.

48
The quick surrender of the Japanese suggests they had been advised by their command of the Allied plans to liberate the camp. Some people who were in the camp have since claimed that the camp inmates' leadership knew of Japan's capitulation.

49
Dropped with the first wave of canisters were leaflets which were headed: "ALLIED PRISONERS". It reads: "The JAPANESE Government has surrendered. You will be evacuated by ALLIED NATIONS forces as soon as possible. "Until that time your present supplies will be augmented by air-drop of U.S. food, clothing and medicines. The first drop of these items will arrive within one (1) or two (2) hours.

"Clothing will be dropped in standard packs for units of 50 or 500 men."

The leaflet then outlines the clothing, medicines and food to be delivered. Subsequent drops came from aircraft flying from as far away as Okinawa, Saipan and Guam. Aircraft used for the drops included B29 Super Fortresses. Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

50
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

51
The radios were supplied by the Americans.

52
Obituary notice for Brian Harry Thomas Clark, born Shanghai, died North Vancouver, June 2, 1988. Bradbury family collection.

53
Camp souvenir documents. Bradbury family collection.

54
The mid-1944 list of internees shows that citizens of other countries overrun by the Germans, such as Dutch, Belgians and Poles, were interned at Wei-Hsien.

55
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

56
Most of the US forces which initially came ashore at Tsingtao were Marines of the 6th and later 1st Divisions. The major wave of seaborne troops arrived in early October. The 6th Division troops at the time of Japan's capitulation in mid-August were being readied in Guam for the invasion of the main islands of Japan which was called off because of the Japanese surrender. The 6th Division had earlier participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Japan's capitulation meant the 6th was diverted to northern China to handle the surrender and repatriation of several hundred thousand Japanese soldiers and citizens. Separately, the presence of the US forces served as a bulwark against Japanese arms falling into Chinese Communist Army hands and units of that army seizing control of strategic assets such as the significant coastal ports and railways nearby. US forces patrolled major roads and rail lines throughout large areas of Shantung province because the Eighth Communist Route Army was very active in the hinterland regions of Shantung province.

57
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

58
In March 1991, a two-metre granite stone from Scotland's Isle of Mull was taken by train to Wei-Hsien from Hong Kong and erected above Mr Liddell's grave in the former camp compound. Engraved on the stone in English and Chinese is the following quotation from Isaiah Chapter 40, Verse 31 in the Old Testament of the Bible:

"They Shall Mount Up
With Wings As Eagles
They Shall Run
And Not Be Weary."

This monument was put in place because the Chinese authorities refused permission to place a headstone on Liddell's gravesite. The monument was dedicated in June 1991. The stone was provided by the Eric Liddell Foundation which was established in 1990. Based in Hong Kong, the foundation's objectives include helping promising Chinese and British athletes. South China Morning Post, March 22, 1991. Bradbury family collection.

59
See Further Reading.

60
While I was living in Singapore, Father Scanlan, on a trip to Australia, visited my parents and brother at West Ryde, Sydney. My brother Eddie clearly recalls the visit and believes it was in 1951.

61
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

62
Referred to in Chapter 4. Also see Further Reading.

63
Father Scanlan began studying for the Catholic priesthood under the tutelage of the Redemptorists at Ballarat, Australia. In 1919, he went to Europe where he was accepted into a Trappist community. He was ordained in Nottingham, England, in 1928. Before his capture and after his release, he was often a Trappist seminary professor.

64
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

65
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

66
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

67
Family documents. Bradbury family collection.

68
In the Joy of Cooking, published by J.M. Dent and Sons, London, England 1946, the book discusses current views of caloric intake. It says: "In general and depending also on age, sex, body type and amount of physical activity, adults can use 1700 to 3000 calories a day. Adolescent boys and very active men under 55 can utilize close to 3000 calories a day. At the other extreme, women over 55 need only about 1700 calories. Women 18-35 need about 2000 calories daily. During pregnancy, they can add 200 calories and, during lactation, an extra 1000 calories. Children 1-6 need from 1000-1600 [calories]."

69
The claims are largely based on a telegram received in late-August 1945 by Earhart's husband in the US. The telegram, sent more than a week after the camp's liberation, is reportedly sourced Wei-Hsien and retransmitted via the US Embassy in Chungking to the US. It says: "Camp liberated; all well. Volumes to tell. Love to mother."

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