The
"ESCAPE" team, |
|
From
left to right
Larry
Tipton//Father Raymond de Jaegher//Arthur W.Hummel
Centre
front
Father
Tchang// … and his Chinese friends who helped L.Tipton and A.Hummel to find
their way to the Chinese guerrillas …
to: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: A SUCCESSFUL GETAWAY
Date: mercredi 27 novembre 2002 9:10
Father
Hanquet remembers:
All those who were in
Weihsien prison camp know that Tipton and Hummel had made an evasion during the
month of June 1944, but what they don't know, is how it was prepared and how, finally,
it succeeded. I will try to give them that complementary information.
For a few young and dynamic
prisoners who didn't have family responsibilities, evading camp was a constant
dream. I was one of them. It was also a means to lessen the monotony of the
camp days.
Well, to do so, there were a
few conditions to respect. Firstly, absolute secrecy was a major clause. Father
de Jaegher, who was one of those young and dynamic elements, and with whom I
shared the same room, had the same desire of evasion. We however never spoke
about it.
Every one of us, without the
knowing of the others, was trying to put up a contact with a Chinese from the
outside. That was the second condition to accomplish: to find a serious
arrangement with a Chinese from the exterior who sometimes came into camp. This
service would have to be well paid for, and that would be done by Larry Tipton,
often seen with Father de Jaegher and who had a few gold bars, a necessity for
the transaction.
Tipton and R. de Jaegher were
often seen in the mornings, walking to and fro on the sports field pretending
to improve their Chinese language while, in fact, they were exercising their
muscles for the long walks they would have to make, once outside. That was
during the winter period of 1943-44.
Meanwhile, R. de Jaegher kept
on trying to establish a contact with the cesspool coolies that came daily to
empty the prisoners' latrines. As for myself, I was lucky enough to meet and
make friends with a Chinese carter bringing the vegetables into camp. I talked
about it to R. de Jaegher, and we decided that I could maybe try something
about it. As my Chinese friend seemed trustworthy and quite serious, we
promised him a good reward by the means of Larry Tipton's gold bars. That was
during the months of March-April, 1944.
One day, my Chinese contact
brought me a written message: "our plan is well established, and on the
chosen day, we would be met and provided with donkeys or mules on a road
boarded by trees, situated beyond the valley at the North-East end of the camp.
We were to have a little flag with the mention: "welcome to our foreign
friends". We hoped to travel by night so as to reach a safe enough point
by the following day.
We had now to select the
date. We had observed the moon and decided to choose a night when the moon
would rise after midnight, which would ease our moving about. Don't forget that
in those days, there was no street lighting. That got us in the whereabouts of
the 10th of June.
In the meantime, Father de
Jaegher had had difficulties with our immediate ecclesiastic superior in camp,
Father Rutherford. He had been informed of our project by another Father,
(N.W.), and had pronounced an ecclesiastic sanction in the terms of:
"suspensus a divinis" if ever he left the camp. He had to, he said,
because it was vital to avoid the eventual reprisals by our Japanese captors
towards the Christian prisoners in camp.
Tipton was very disappointed.
He absolutely wanted to leave the camp with a missionary. You must know, that
in those days, local churches easily welcomed the travelling missionaries.
Father de Jaegher told me of
this interdiction, and it was agreed between us that I would take his place.
Alas, whilst sitting on my bed, and while, in great secrecy, I was
confectioning my back sac, my colleague, Father N.W. saw me doing so and
quickly concluded that I was going to take Father de Jaegher's place in the
escapade. He told so to Father Rutherford who called for me and pronounced the
same banning as he had to R. de Jaegher.
A hasty meeting was held, and
we decided that Tipton would ask Hummel to take our place. He immediately
accepted which allowed us to keep the schedule previously established for the
getaway.
Now, we had to choose the
place and the exact time such as to involve the smallest amount of people and
however succeed in our task. As for the place of the breakthrough, we quickly
found complicity at the end of an alley (in the vicinity of n°10) where we hid
a ladder, absolutely necessary to go over the boundary wall high of more or
less 2.40 metres. In those days, on the other side of the wall, there was just
a fence with 6 to 7 barbed wires of which the uppermost was electrified. We
believed that the current was put on that wire only after 10 P.M., which was
curfew time, and also the moment when a Japanese guard switched off all the
lights in our compound for the night. We weren't sure about that and told the
escapees to wear rubber-soled shoes and rather put their feet on the big
porcelain isolators while climbing over the fence.
We had also to make sure that
there were no Japanese guards around. On the chosen night, our group of 6 or 7
friends were all in place and watching in the different alleys in order to get
the ladder in place, against the wall. The time was then, 9.30 P.M. and in less
than 5 minutes, Tipton and Hummel were beyond the wall and over the fence.
We were, however, very
anxious to avoid any mishaps, and had previously arranged with them for a
recuperation procedure if ever they missed the "contact" at the
scheduled location. That is why,
between 6 and 7 in the morning, the following day, I had to be waiting for them
near the boundary limits not very far away from our bloc n°56 at a place,
behind the wall that was invisible from the watch towers. I hid myself just
behind the morgue ready with a thick strong rope. If ever I heard the cry of
the owl, I had to thrust the rope over the wall to help them back into the
compound.
You can easily understand
that on that particular night, we didn't sleep very much and that I sighed with
relief after 7 o'clock in the morning when I got out of my hiding place just
behind the morgue.
Now, we had to give the best
possible chances to our two escapees in order to let them get away as far as
possible from the camp. As we know, the Japs made a roll call every morning at
8 o'clock. At that precise moment we all had to stand in a row in front of our
respective blocks and in the order of our badge-numbers. Tipton lived with us,
on the first floor. Actually, it was Mc. Laren who was responsible for us
towards the Japanese Commandant. I secretly informed Mc Laren of our projects
and arranged with him that as warden of our bloc, I would give the alert as
late as possible. At the roll call, I would simply say that Tipton was already
working in the kitchen. It is only around 10 o'clock that morning, that I
mentioned Tipton's absence to Mc Laren. He then asked me, in the presence of
the camp's Commandant, to go and make sure that he was not in the toilets or
anywhere else. The same thing happened for the missing of Hummel. While I was
going all over camp to search for Tipton, the rumour spread fast, and at about
11, I came back empty-handed, and informed the irritated Commandant. He was
very sure of himself and absolutely certain to recapture the escapees. As a
precautionary measure, he put all the escapees' roommates under room arrest.
Even, days after that, and from time to time, they had us rounded up in the
middle of the night and guarded by armed Japs.
As for the escapees, they
rapidly managed to reach the Chinese guerrilla forces and shared their lives
with them for 14 months. They managed to smuggle a radio, in small parts, as
well as medicines for the hospital and supplements of flour.
It is only the day after the
parachutes came with the Americans that we saw, one morning, our two escapees
all tanned by the sun and in excellent health.
E. Hanquet.
from: "Mary Previte"
to: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: SUCCESSFUL GETAWAY -
and historian making oral history of
Weihsien
Date: jeudi 28 novembre 2002 5:00
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Father Hanquet, for your fascinating
story of Tipton and Hummel's escape
from Weihsien.
Remember how the Japanese counted and counted and counted us over and
over again at roll call when they
discovered that two men had escaped?
The escape prompted the Japanese to move the men out of the hospital and
move Chefoo School children in. Children were less likely to be spying or signalling to Chinese over the wall near the
hospital.
I do hope you will keep telling the Weihsien stories from the
perspective of a group up in the
camp. Our teachers shielded us children
from many realities of the camp.
On another subject -- Xun LIU, who identifies him or herself as a
post doctoral fellow at Harvard, has contacted me for information about
Weihsien.
Xun LIU writes, "I am a
cultural historian of modern China and am currently a consultant on an oral history project on the Weixian survivors
with Dr. Pedro Loureiro, an oral
history expert and the chief archivist at the Pacific Basic Institute at Pomona Colege in Los Angeles,
California."
I will suggest his
contacting Natasha about signing onto
our bulletin board.
Mary Previte
from:
"Leonard Mostaert" <mostaert@hinet.net.au>
to: "TOPICA"
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Tipton
Date: mardi 3 décembre 2002 10:49
Tipton lived just behind us in block 52, and my Mother, with others used
to have lessons in Chinese from him. When Tipton went over the wall, my Mother
disconsolate..... who is to give her Chinese lessons now ? Everybody reacts in different ways.
We were in block 53, and had our place
during roll call in front of our block. My father was the Jap translator for
our section, and walked with the guard so that he could explain anything in
Japanese. The morning after the escape of Tipton and Hummel, I was very anxious
to see what would happen as the guard and my Father got to the spot where
Tipton should have been.....a lot of hand waving went on, yells and the
stamping of feet, then my Father started miming the "going over the
wall" signs. We all laughed at that which made the guard absolutely red
with rage, I thought that something terrible would happen to my Father. The
guard then just spun around and rushed off with as much dignity as he could
muster, leaving Father standing there and not knowing just what to do. We
waited a very long time after that, and eventually everything was sorted out.
It's amazing how much does
come back if you really try.
Leonard Mostaert No. 248
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