The British decided to publish a list of priorities for eligibility for sea passages in the event of a sudden need to evacuate. This caused ill feeling amongst the British community. Some men married to Chinese started selling their `seniority’ on the list. Others said they did not want to go. Others said that they merited being on the `Diplomatic’ list. The haggling stopped on the 8th December 1941, a Monday morning when the Concession woke up to find the Japanese Army in complete control, and the Consul-General froze the list.

The front of the hotel had a Japanese machine gun pointing towards it. I rushed to my room door and looked down the corridor: there was a Japanese soldier with a rifle and he waved me to go back to my room. I went back in and sat on the bed, terrified. Had they taken Mum? Had they taken the baby? What was going to happen to me? I was left alone in my room for what seemed like hours. Nobody came near me and I was hungry and a little frightened, so I hid beneath the bed, just in case!

Then the door opened and I heard Mum’s voice; she sounded as scared as I was. `Ronald, Ronald where are you?’ I got up from under the bed as she came into the room to tell me that I would not be going to school. She went on to say that she did not know what was happening, but had ordered the cook to make breakfast and serve it in their bedroom. This last seemed a very good idea to me, because I had foreseen my morning porridge going down the pan and the threat of hunger for the rest of the day lingered.

`What about Dad?’ I asked as we walked along the corridor.
`He has been arrested and taken away by four Japanese soldiers, to be questioned,’ she told me. `I am sure he will be back soon.’ In the event he was held for a week by the Japanese Military Police in the Masonic Hall on Race Course Road.

By this time we were in her room, where Roger was in his cot gurgling. He was two months old to the day. I kept asking questions, including the fact that I had not seen Funainai about.

`Most of the servants have been sent away,’ Mum said. `Funainai has gone to her relatives’ house.’
`But she didn’t say goodbye,’ I wailed. Life without Funainai would be awful, as she was like another indulgent aunt. I had momentarily forgotten that I now had to share her with Baby Roger.
`She had to go at once. The Japanese soldiers sent her off with the others. They left only the cook to do breakfast,’ Mum explained.
`Maybe they will let her back later.’

Mum was trying to cheer me up and she succeeded. Especially when she announced that the Grammar School had closed until further notice.

Later in the day we found that my grandfather, `Bert’ Fleet, had been taken from his house in Meadows Road at breakfast and was also in the cells. Granny Fleet had been left on her own.

It was a fait accompli, and resistance would have been impossible. There had been no fewer than 30,000 Japanese soldiers around Tianjin, and the British Municipal Emergency Corps — all of two hundred part-time `military’ businessmen — would not have made much impression on the Imperial forces in a battle. To avoid a needless slaughter, the Corps were voluntarily disarmed, and the Rising Sun — or `Poached Egg’ — took control. All adult male Britons were rounded up and after a night in the cells in the Gordon Hall they were now incarcerated in the Masonic Hall on Race Course Road, where they would remain for up to four months.

By March 1942 most of the adult English males had been allowed home to their wives; very few of them were of military age, as those in that category had already left to join the British Army in the summer of 1941, to serve in Europe or the Middle East, although events meant that they virtually all ended up in Burma. Dad, being a businessman with no technical qualifications, and therefore not considered a potential saboteur, was released; he then tried to carry on the business by selling the goods that the company still had in its warehouses. The Chinese staff still required paying, and I detected that finance was tight. Those who remained in Japanese detention tended to be engineers by profession, and so considered capable of sabotaging facilities, and thus posing a potential threat to Nippon.

Initially, house arrest was the order of the day and we were confined to the house after dark. But by April 1942 the Japanese had decreed that we were to keep Tokyo time, which meant advancing clocks by two hours, and they had also issued obligatory red armbands with the character `ying’, which was the nearest they could get to `English’,39 and formal curfew hours were established.

Ironically, the Japanese did not understand Chinese customs or traditions; red was the colour of celebration for the Chinese, and `ying’ also meant `victorious’ or `winner’.

Dad came home one day and told Mum about the armbands. The both laughed as they knew what the translation meant. `Trust them to make a mistake like that, but, we can all go round proudly wearing them now.’

`I could remember Grandpa Bridge had told me that in Chinese the word Ying meant conquering race,’ I put in. `But, everybody says that Japan is winning.’

`They are not winning the propaganda war,’ Dad replied. They probably didn’t realise it.’
`Stop telling Ronald things like that,’ Mum interrupted, He might repeat them unwittingly to someone else.’

Dad slapped me on the back. `Just remember that we must still wear the armbands whenever we go out. Roger has one that can be pinned to his bib. It tells the world that we are English.’ The Americans could also have a laugh. Their red armbands had the character `Mei’, which was the nearest the Japanese could get to `America’. `Mei’ meant `beautiful’ or `good’. The word `country’ in Chinese was ‘Guo’, which was nearly always added when talking.

I, as an eight-year-old, was not considered a threat by the Japanese: no minder or police escort for me. Consequently I often visited my maternal grandmother in her house on Meadows Road. Her husband was kept in the Masonic Hall Detention Centre until the end of March 1942 `under guard’, although she was able to get small food parcels to him in January and February 1942. Grandpa Fleet was released after just under four months due to age and infirmity. (He had suffered a hernia after being pushed over by a Japanese soldier in December 1941.) After a couple of months, Funainai was allowed back to be Roger’s amah, and to look after my clothes, but it was never the same for me. A chapter of my young life was over and I had been propelled a long way, and fast, into early adulthood.

We were allowed to visit my Uncle Alwyne Ogden, the British Consul-General, only on rare occasions. He, his wife Jessie (née Bridge, Dad’s elder sister), their daughter Anne and son Brian were virtually locked up in the Consul-General’s House at 1 Race Course Road.40 The sentry on their gate ensured that they kept to their curfew hours, which were more stringent than ours. It was always nice to visit my cousins, as they had bicycles and I could ride round the garden. The Ogdens had been allowed to keep their servants because the Japanese seemed to respect diplomatic niceties.

Mum and I were able to visit my paternal Grandmother, who was seventy-five and frail. She had moved in with Freda (née Bridge, Dad’s eldest sister) on Parks Road near the Union Church with her husband, my uncle by marriage Tullis Lewis. He was temporarily held in the Masonic Hall by the Japanese Army; he was an engineer and part-time Fire Brigade Chief. (He only turned out if there was a big fire.) That absence caused endless worry to his wife and mother-in-law. Mum during her visits always got dragged into that conversation, which allowed me to sneak up to Uncle Tullis’s train room and play.

Dad’s two RCA Victor Radios, his Ford V8 and the Rover car were confiscated, although he was given a receipt that they would be returned at the cessation of the conflict. (As an aside, I sent copies off to the Japanese Ambassador in London in the year 2000. To be told that Emperor Akihito was now on the throne and the Japanese Government did not accept the validity of the signature of one of Former Emperor Hirohito’s officers!) One of the radios was later returned with the short-wave capability removed, and then confiscated again in March 1943, never to be seen again.

The British Tianjin Grammar School was requisitioned, along with all the other British municipal buildings. The older grammar school pupils were all told in January 1942 that they could call at the school to collect their books. The Japanese Military Authorities had given permission, and on Saturday us children assembled in the school. The school hall was packed and Mr Woodall the Headmaster came in and sent us all to the classrooms to collect our books. As soon as a form got into its room the door was locked. The teachers helped as they spent the next couple of hours filling in forms, and waiting for the Japanese to let them go. The Headmaster then ushered us all out into the playground where the officer in charge was going to address us. A red carpet was laid out to the side entrance ready for his arrival.

However, his adjutant decided that this was not impressive enough and the red carpet was wheeled round to the main entrance. Mr Woodall got in a quick but very loud word to the assembled children. `Be very serious. Do not laugh,’ knowing how the Japanese hated any, even imagined, ridicule at their expense.

Through the interpreter the Major began, but the interpreter seemed to be stuck on a few words which were repeated over and over. `Very sorry we must take school from you. We do not want to take school but Military Orders say we must. Very sorry but Military Orders must be obeyed. You continue your education somewhere else. Very sorry.’

My books came home with me in the rickshaw.

My parents did not have much time to teach me anything, Dad was constantly being summoned to the Japanese Headquarters. The trouble seemed to be that one of Dad’s companies, Hotung Land, had a contract to look after the buildings of the former British Army Barracks. I overheard my parents’ conversation and realised the issue: the Japanese were convinced that Dad had the keys to the safes in the barracks. I never found out whether the Japanese thought that the safes contained arms, bullion or just money. Anyhow, by the end of 1942 the Japanese were very frustrated and used explosives, to find that indeed the safes lay empty.

I did get stuck into my algebra and geography books. Mum was finding it very hard without servants to look after a baby and a near-disobedient boy — me — under the prevailing conditions. I had to obey the rules of the curfew and stay in after dark. I was fortunate in that I had the run of the hotel, but there was really very little to do, but still I did not have to get up early because there was no school to go to.

After a few weeks boredom set in, and then, after a lot of haggling with the Military Authorities, there was an attempt made to educate the British and American children by establishing a school at a large private house in the British Concession, occupied by Wilfred Pryor, the Acting Chief Manager of the Kailan Mining Administration and his family. His daughter Gillian was a little older than I, and his youngest daughter Shirley two years my junior.

The Pryors’ drawing room was transformed into a classroom, allocated to Form Three, and seventeen of us trooped in every morning. The floor was beautiful wood-block parquet and impressed me. All the furniture had been moved out, chairs and a large blackboard replacing them. My seat was close to the French window overlooking the garden, and I spent many hours, particularly during French or English Literature, working out what the Pryors grew in their garden. I noted with approval that there was evidence that they used straw to cover up their grape vines, climbing roses and clematis. I could still remember Grandfather Bridge’s exhortation that to grow European plants in the harsh North China climate one needed to wrap the plants with straw and lay them on the ground41 during the winter months.

School continued each Monday to Friday from just after nine to five. Three lessons in the morning, and two plus games in the afternoon. The garden was not big enough for teams; use of the Minyuan Ground was negotiated as it was not far. But using different houses meant that teachers had to cycle or use a rickshaw between the various classes. It was considered safe or more controllable for the adult teacher to move than the children. Thus games were back on the timetable.

Fraternisation continued erratically with French friends, who had all declared themselves Petain supporters, and thus allies of Japan and hence outside Japan’s regulations. Other European nationals surreptitiously tried to help. Social ties with Germans and of course the Japanese were cut completely.

Whilst I was in the hotel, the lack of guests meant that I had all the corridors to myself. Mum, concentrating on Roger and finding washing clothes by hand a real chore, could afford me little time and hence supervision had evaporated, allowing me to run riot. I took to watching the Japanese sentries on the back yard of the hotel and on the front. The latter were relatively friendly and even on occasions offered sweets. The back overlooking the Bund was quite different. They had a machine gun in a sandbag emplacement. I tried to get near to see if it was loaded on a number of occasions, but that always woke the soldier up and he shouted and waved his arms. I realised that it was a step too far, and scarpered in terror.

The Chinese and Sikh constables of the former British Municipal Police continued with their duties under Japanese officers, as did the Russian Sergeants. Some categories within the population, although technically British, were free of any restrictions and did not have to wear armbands: those British citizens not considered European enough, women married to Japanese or their allies, Chinese wives of Maritime Customs officers, and their children under five. Maritime Customs officers themselves were treated like the rest of us. In July 1942 diplomatic and selected people were notified they would be exchanged, but would have to travel to Shanghai first.

The British diplomats, who included Uncle Alwyne and family as well as others, were augmented on the `exchange’ by adults who could wangle their way onto the passenger list. They were all taken to Shanghai in early August and on 16th August 1942 they sailed from Shanghai on the Kamakura Maru, known by then as the Wangle Maru, to Lourenço Marques.42 This was in Mozambique, a Portuguese colony, hence neutral, where the actual exchange for a similar number of Japanese citizens took place on the Swedish SS Gripsholm.

In early September I learnt that the Pryors’ house had been requisitioned, so now school was `off for all those under ten. Grandpa Fleet was back with his wife in their Meadows Road house, where they stayed for the next six months or so. I used to go virtually daily in roughly school hours to be taught by Grandpa Fleet, mainly mathematics, history and geography. As no names for streets in Tianjin were allowed by the Japanese, his house, which had been 143 Meadows Road, was now House 143 Road Number 20.

It was three-quarters of a mile from where we lived in the Court Hotel and I only had three roads to cross to get there; cars were few and most goods were carried in human-pulled carts. Mum was tied up with the baby and, because of the performance of getting him into a pram, I said to Mum that I could walk to Grandpa’s on my own. I enjoyed the freedom to be by myself. My grandparents’ house was spacious, with Grandpa’s study at ground level off the garden; he had a weakness for growing flowers, especially poinsettias and hollyhocks. I used to think it strange — the short and the tall — but they were rarely out together. The floor above had the bedrooms, and I used to use the small room above the entrance if I stayed a night.

Dad had done business with a certain Russian-Swiss Company, Bryners, that specialised in shipping and forwarding. He was apprehensive as to how things were going to work out so decided safeguards were necessary, and as a precaution contacted them. Mr Bryner43 allowed the Bridge family silver, linen and upright piano (which had been buried during the Boxer trouble in 1900) and valuable furniture to be stored in wooden packing cases under at least 40 tons of coal, and there it stayed for the duration of hostilities, in the Bryner warehouses or godowns. The amount of coal went up and down but the boxes were never exposed. Mum was dismayed when it was collected in 1945, as the linen was black, but she recovered it and it washed up well. Some is still in use as I write seventy-odd years later.

The apprehension about possessions rubbed off on me, for whilst I knew that my toy soldiers were portable, the same could not be said of my train sets. I had been told some days before that Aunt Freda and her husband were staying in Tianjin, and not going to camp, because old Granny Bridge was excused internment and they were being allowed to stay behind as her custodians.

When going in and out of my parents’ bedroom I noticed Dad’s Browning 0.32 on top of the wardrobe. I think he had forgotten where it was; I realised that it might be, to the Japanese, `big trouble’, so I smuggled it into the train room while packing up the train, wrapped it in an oily cloth and stuffed it behind loose bricks and carefully screwed the train table back. I was only just in time at packing up the train and deliberately forgot anything about the revolver.

The Japanese Army then deemed it necessary to implement a new policy: the concentration of Allied civilians from isolated premises into one place, especially if they were living in places where they might `spy’ on troop or ship movements. People who owned their own property were sometimes able to stay in it. But our flat at the back of the Court Hotel overlooked the Bund, and was considered a strategic location by the Japanese Military. They feared that we might count ship and troop movements. So we were given a few days’ notice before being forcibly relocated.

Whilst the armband curfew regulations remained in force, the venue chosen for the Bridge family, and those Britons whose houses the Japanese Army had requisitioned, was the Talati House Hotel, owned and run by a British-Indian family, the Dhunjishahs. This was effectively requisitioned and filled with Allied citizens in September 1942, although the enforced `guests’ were invited by Japan to pay for their own food and accommodation. I, my parents and brother exchanged the luxury of our `company’ flat for the cramped quarters of two small single hotel rooms. Sadly, Funainai had to be paid off as a result of the move to Talati House. We had become accustomed to the almost daily changes and upheavals. The new rooms were much the same distance from Granny and Grandpa’s house, in which they were allowed to stay. So, my erratic teaching by a 65-year-old pensioner could continue.

Christmas 1942 came somewhat muted: few presents could be exchanged, church services allowed only by daylight. Mum was always strained and almost short-tempered. I managed to get out of her much of the reason why. When the Japanese had taken over on 8th December 1941 she had been carrying my brother, then two months old. She was being ushered rather fast along a corridor and stairs with the usual `Speedo’ cry when she tripped and fell. The shouts reached a crescendo and the soldier, thinking she had deliberately tried to delay matters, hit her with the butt of his rifle, right across her kidneys. I think Roger had sensed that something was wrong and tended to cry more, possibly thinking that he could summon help. Mum had then got to my room, but felt that there was no need for me to know.

When rumours first began circulating within the city that the American and British civilians would soon be shipped out, nobody really believed it. I just hoped that we would be able to move to my grandparents’ house; that was not on the agenda though. My ninth birthday came and went completely uncelebrated, and then on March 12th 1943 each adult Briton received a letter from O. Joerg, Consul for Switzerland,44 in charge of British, American and Dutch interests, enclosing a copy of the letter that he had received from the Japanese Consul-General.4S Internship in a Japanese camp was now the order of the day.

Readers will note that the Japanese and Swiss Consular authorities, in communicating with each other, did not use the then language of diplomacy, French, but rather a style of written English familiar to Whitehall’s Civil Service and the British Military Staff Colleges; indeed, the precepts of Victoria’s British educationalists had percolated to every strata of almost every nation’s endeavour in the Far East. Britain had been around for a long time and had intended to run things the British way. The `loss of face’ with the fall of Hong Kong and then of Singapore had made a huge dent in Britain’s standing in the Far East, and knowing the thought processes of Eastern cultures it would probably never recover.

The instructions attached to the Swiss letter allowed each prospective internee to ship a case, a single bed and a few books, plus one sewing machine per 100 prospective inmates. These to be ready for an inspection by the Kempetai one week before the individual’s departure, when the Japanese Army conducted a very thorough and ransacking search, which ensured that the cases were no longer able to be secured properly and so the contents were largely pilfered on the later journey. All other possessions were to be locked away and the Kempetai would place seals on the locks, where things would be left untouched until the war finished, no sooner uttered than realised to be a hollow promise. Houses and flats were to have a detailed inventory made of all contents and the keys lodged with the Japanese Army for safekeeping. There was no need to include cars or radios as separate receipts had already been given when they were confiscated.

Imperial Japanese Consulate
11th March 1943

Dear Colleague,

I have the honour to inform you that owing to military requirements enemy nationals residing in Tientsin who are American, British, Dutch and Belgian citizens are ordered to leave for Weihsien, Shandong Province to reside in an assembly.

The party is scheduled to proceed to Weihsien in three groups, the first leaving on the 23rd, the second group on the 28th and the third group on the 30th instant.

I should be much obliged if you will kindly inform those enemy nationals under your charge to this effect. Instructing them that they should prepare for the assembly in conformity with the instructions attached herewith.

I have the honour to be,
Sir and dear colleague,
Your obedient servant.
Tomotsune Ohta

My Grandparents, Bert and Elizabeth Fleet, told us that they were scheduled for the 23rd March departure. Whilst Mum, Dad, Roger and I were on the 30th March; my paternal grandmother, Minnie Bridge, could stay behind with her eldest daughter Freda and Freda’s husband, Tullis, both of whom, as I had already found out, were excused camp to look after her in their house. There was then frantic activity to catalogue inventories of house contents (although in our case that had been done when we were turfed out of our flat in the Court Hotel), buy suitcases, pack trunks and crate beds. This `deep sea’ baggage was to arrive at Weihsien in early April. Those that had not been relocated were told to inventory their houses and leave the lists and the keys with the Kempetai.

Destination: ... Weihsien