Remember
eating gao liang and lu dou for breakfast in Kitchen #1?
mtpre-@aol.com
Jun
11, 2000 12:53 PDT
From Mary Previte:
I hope you've all read Desmond Power's book, LITTLE FOREIGN DEVIL, which
includes several chapters about Weihsien. Order it through pan-@bookwright.com
Another wonderful book about Weihsien:
The Mushroom Years by Pamela Masters.
Order it through Pam-@hendersonhouse.com Memories from Mary
Taylor Previte, New Jersey
Remember when we lived on gao liang (broom corn) and lu dou for
breakfast? (Can you believe I've found lu dou here in a health
food store?) Lunch in KITCHEN #1 was always stew, stew, stew.
"S.O.S" we called it: Same Old Stew. I remember one day when the menu
board listed T.T. Soup for lunch. TT Soup turned out to be turnip top soup.
My stomach was much too shrunk for fancy food. Cooks in Kitchen #1 saved the
sugar -- I think it was for Christmas -- and created pudding for a holiday
treat. When my tummy rebelled at anything so rich, I took the pudding back to
our Lower School Dormitory (LSD) in the hospital and put it on a shelf.
The pudding died there on the shelf. When it gathered dust, I threw it out.
When our Taylor family took a nostalgia trip to Weihsien several years ago, I
made my daughter take a snapshot of me standing with my tongue out by the door
of our dormitory in Block 23. That's where our teachers made
us stand while they spooned powdered egg shells onto our tongues. I remember
gagging and coughing and trying to wheeze the grit out. Remember? Oh,
horrors! Prisoner doctors made everyone save egg shells (from
eggs bartered through the black market) and grind the shells up for us children
to eat as pure
calcium.
I was weeding my garden today, pulling up pig weed. Pig weed always makes me
think of Weihsien. Late in the war, our Chefoo Schools teachers taught us to
identify and pick pigweed and burdock. We ate it boiled -- sort of like
spinach. It has a very iron-y taste. We were weed eaters!
No matter what, our Chefoo Schools teachers insisted on good manners.
There is no such thing, they said, as
one set of manners for people in the outside world and another set for the
concentration camp. You could be eating the most awful-looking glop out of a
tin can or a soap dish, but you were to be as refined as the two princesses in
Buckingham Palace. Sit up straight. Don't stuff food in your mouth. Don't talk
with your mouth full. Keep your voice down. And don't complain.
We were God's representatives in the concentration camp, our teachers said, and
God was not represented well by rudeness or grumbling.
Bless my soul! No wonder we survived!
Mary Taylor Previte, USA
website
and photo Natasha Petersen
Jun 14, 2000 07:33 PDT
By: Date Email Name
(1
- 6 of 6)
nata-@roanoke.infi.net
mtpre-@aol.com
jebry-@yahoo.com
pag-@bookwright.com
bea-@xtra.co.nz
albertd-@worldnet.att.net
The above are the names on list. I found a website -
weihsien - that has interesting material that can be downloaded. I printed one
titled Light & Darkness that compares the conditions at Weihsien to an
internment camp in Texas. I have not had time to go through all that is offered
at the site. I also wondered what you think of the following idea.
Each one on the list to give a short bio along with scanned photo taken shortly
after release from Weihsien. I do not have a scanner, but Kinko's here in
Roanoke charge $10 for one photo scanned onto a disc. I will try to get mine
done within the next few days.
Natasha
to subscribe blank e-mail to weihsien--@topica.com
to post message send
to weih-@topica.com
hope
that this helps! Natasha Petersen
Jun 15, 2000 09:50 PDT
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Enjoy!
Regards, Natasha
Let me know if there still is a problem
looking for clinkers jebry-@yahoo.com
Jul 01, 2000 20:27 PDT
Does anyone remember getting up before daylight and
going to the ash piles to look for clinkers, coal that had not burnt
completely? I also remember that we
were all in groups of six or eight and we collected can labels from the cans that came in packages
or from the trash the Japanese soldiers
threw out, which could still be the cans from packages to the internees. The group I was in had
collected 650 labels by the time we
were liberated. Perhaps, after the drops if we had continued to collect them we would have made 5000, huh?
Love to all , Emily.
Attachment: image/pjpeg
Re:
message from Weihsien Pamela Masters
Jul 04, 2000 16:23 PDT
Natasha, Natasha! -- You'll have to read The Mushroom Years, my book on
Weihsien, which covers dear Amelia, and a heck of a lot of other things.
Most of the questions you've asked to date on the Weihsien web page – which
incidentally, I think is excellent -- I've covered in that zany little opus.
Both Major Stan Staiger (who lives close by me in Reno, Nevada) and Des Power
said they couldn't put the darn book down. Incidentally, Staiger's comments on
the Amela Earhart saga finally put Jim Hannon's story to rest. Hannon, if you
recall, was the lieutenant who parachuted in and banged up his shoulder on
landing. He wrote a movie script covering his conclusions on a wasted woman,
called "The Yank", that he found in camp, and who was spirited away
(according to him) in a Japanese Betty Bomber! Very Hollywood, and very
intriguing. Trouble was, there wasn't a scrap of truth in it! I don't know
about you, but I feel our own lives have so much intrigue already in them, who
needs Hollywood?!? All the best for now.
Pamela
Natasha Petersen wrote:
Hello!
I have been reading documents found on the site
'Weihsien'. I found the following, that is part of a document sent to the State
Department.
Apparently, there was some question of Amelia Earhart being at Weihsien.
Weihsien was not a prisoner of war camp. It was a Civilian Assembly Camp - an internment camp. According to a
1995 letter by one of the American soldiers who liberated Weihsien on August
17;, 1945 there were no Japanese military personnel in charge of the camp. It
was run by a Mr. Izu of the Japanese Consular Service. All internees were well
documented. Amelia Earhart was not there.
On the 18th a general inspection was made of the camp and twelve internees were
hospitalized and selected for early departure due to poor health. They were
evacuated by C-47 on the 28th.............
My memory is certainly of a number of Japanese soldiers and officers at our
camp.
I am probably misreading the whole document. The document is about Amelia
Earhart, and perhaps part of this was a hoax.
Comments anybody?
Natasha
Re:
message from Weihsien Beard
Jul 05, 2000 19:40 PDT
On 4 July, Natasha Petersen wrote:
<snip>
Weihsien was not a prisoner of war camp. It was a Civilian Assembly Camp - an
internment camp. According to a 1995 letter by one of the American soldiers who
liberated Weihsien on August 17;, 1945 there were no Japanese military
personnel in charge of the camp. It was run by a Mr. Izu of the Japanese
Consular Service.
< <snip>
For clarification, I refer you to 'Shantung
Compound', Langdon Gilkey (1966) p44. "Strictly speaking....we were
in...'puppet' territory, held by the Japanese since 1937...Thus we were under
the Consular Service...Our guards were a part of the [Japanese] consular guard
rather
than soldiers in the regular army."
I was interested to read on at p34 about Izu, the Japanese official in charge
of housing and engineering, whose 'boss' was Koza - p44. This raises an
interesting question which relates to Natasha's quote, stating that "It
[the Weihsien Civilian Assembly Centre] was run by a Mr Izu of the Japanese
Consular Service". Were there in fact two officials named Izu, or could it
have been that the one and the same Izu had by the end of camp been promoted to
the position of Camp Commandant? Can anyone throw light on the matter?
In 'Chinese Escapade' (1949), Laurance Tipton (who together with Arthur Hummel
-later to become US Ambassador to China - were the two June '44 escapees),
makes reference on p.232 to the Japanese airfield at Ershilipu, some five miles
from the camp. There was also a Japanese garrison at Fangzi, five miles to the
s.w. These regular troops would have backed up our 50 or so guards should there
have been any mutiny in the camp. It appears that the bell up on Block 23
belltower would have been used by the Japanese guards as a call for assistance
in an emergency - hence their palpable anger when the bell was rung by
pranksters on VJ Day. Does that ring any bells for
anyone!!
David Beard
Weihsien
and Amelia Earhart. mtpre-@aol.com
Jul 07, 2000 23:43 PDT
The Amelia Earhart controversy rages on. After
Associated Press articles appeared across the USA about my finding our
liberators, someone from the Amelia Earhart Society tracked me down. He
contacted me again and again and again. He quizzed and he quizzed and he
quizzed. I told him I was 12 years old when we were liberated. I most certainly
did not know names of all the grown ups in the camp. I knew of no Amelia
Earhart. No answer I gave him satisfied him. I felt that he wanted only one
answer -- that Amelia Earhart was in Weihsien. I referred him to members of our
liberation team. I referred him to grown ups in the camp. I referred him to all
the books. As far as I know, he contacted none of them. I finally stopped
responding to this man's inquiries.
This man told me that Jim Hannon had released a book about Amelia Earhart last
year with Pacific American Books. I asked Jim Hannon about it. (I keep in
regular touch with each member of the rescue team.) Gin Hannon (Jim's wife)
told me she wished it were true. The book has not yet been released.
I believe they hope to release the book this
year, timed with the 55th anniversary of the ending of the war. I believe the
title will be: Amelia Earhart, 1945.
When I visited Jim and Gin Hannon in Palm Springs in February , they showed me
the planned cover of the Amelia Earhart book in a portfolio of Jim's writing.
Jim is a prolific writer.
Several years ago, The Amelia Earhart Society published an interview with one
of our liberators -- no real name given -- telling about his finding this woman
whom the Japanese kept doped in Weihsien. Jim Hannon was the source of this
interview. He said the Japanese kept her under guard and
separated from the rest of the prisoners in the camp. She was
cared for by a nun, he says. They called her "The
Yank." Jim Hannon has not been able to tell me exactly
where in the camp "The Yank" was detained.
Jim himself has told me this story.
No other member of the rescue team knows anything about Amelia Earhart in
Weihsien. Langdon Gilkey, author of Shantung Compound, says there was no such
person. Amelia Earhart is not on any prisoner list I have seen.
After National Public Radio broadcast the story about the liberation of
Weihsien on May 11, Gin Hannon wrote to me that they were deluged with dozens
of e-mails from the Amelia Earhart Society people. Most of these letters
challenged the validity of the facts in the broadcast. I have not been able to
find out from Gin Hannon what facts these people challenged. For certain, not
one of them was there on August 17, 1945.
I agree with Pamela Masters. Yes, yes, yes. You must read her book, The
Mushroom Years. You will not be able to put it down. It's
wonderful. You can order it from Pam-@hendersonhouse.com She
discusses the Amelia Earhart controversy extensively in her Author's Note.
Mary Taylor Previte, New Jersey
Re:
Weihsien and Amelia Earhart. Pamela Masters
Jul 08, 2000 08:25 PDT
Dear Mary --
So you went through a hounding too! Don't Amelia's fans and followers ever give
up? I probably will regret writing this, but I must. My sister Margo knew who
the Yank was. She always has. The woman was a very close personal friend of our
family who went through a nervous breakdown in the camp. `She contacted Margo
as soon as they both hit the States. She was still in dreadful straits, but
over a couple of years, with lots of therapy and help from her loving husband
and children, she pulled out of it and can now look back without the trauma of
those
years grabbing at her guts. They're a beautiful family, and none of them
deserves to be hounded at this date. Why, oh why, can't the AE Society, Jim
Hannon, and all the others out there stop dishing up this baseless story!?!
Sorry, Hon, didn't mean to get so worked up on this, but it seems so pointless,
and almost cruel to those who really cared for Amelia Earhart.
Thanks for the kind remarks on The Mushroom Years -- you're a real friend.
Best love -- Pamela
reflections Natasha Petersen
Jul
09, 2000 07:49 PDT
Hello everyone!
I am groggy not as a result of drinking, but from memories of Weihsien.
They came flying into my mind, and my head is about to burst from thoughts of
the past. Pamela, thank you so much for sending me your book. I, as other
readers, found it difficult not to finish the book in one
sitting. Helping the cooks of Kitchen 2 I remember as
hard work, but fun. Cooking in the Diet Kitchen taught me to cook without a
recipe. Laundry duty at the hospital was horrible - bloody sheets etc., and not
enough soap. My hands were red and rough for the duration of my laundry duty. I
believe that the most unpleasant duty was to wash out and to disinfect the
latrine. I smoked my first cigarette up at the bell tower. I enjoyed school,
but am amazed that our teachers were able to hold classes and teach us.
I remember the first night in Weihsien. Some slept on tatamies (?) some on the
floor. I know that I was not with my father that night, and cried myself to
sleep. I remember scrounging for partially broken furniture that had been piled
up somewhere in the compound. The early spring was very cold, and I kept my
head under the blanket. For a very short time, my father and I supplemented our
camp diet with tinned food that we had brought. Unfortunately, our supply soon
ran out. I remember the outdoor dances. I did not go to many of the ones held
indoors.
I must not ramble on and
on. Thanks Pamela. I am looking forward to seeing you again.
I have found through a local bookstore, that the one and only copy (they say)
of Tipton's book is $120 I have written to the UK and Colorado. I hope that I
will be able to get a copy for less. I have also requested a copy from the
Library of Congress.
David Beard, describe the gardening. Perhaps I worked there too.
Desmond, have you been in touch with Arthur K.
and ? Clark?
Natasha
Gardening Beard
Jul 10, 2000 03:11 PDT
Hello all!
Natasha asked me to describe the gardening. Well, Natasha, firstly, you
wouldn't have worked there, because it was just a leisure occupation – a fun
thing, tilling a plot af land right by the hospital. Looking at the map in
'Shantung Compound', adjacent to p.146, the plot was probably between No 59 and
the hospital.
It was basically 'social gardening'. I can't
remember who else was involved, apart from the teenage White Russian girl from
N.E.China. We enjoyed messing around with seeds and plants, trying to get
things to grow.
There was some sort of thatched enclosure nearby, in which we took breaks from
gardening if the sun was too hot, as it was quite often. Jim Taylor has
informed me that some of our school staff, keeping an eagle eye, it seems, on
our activities, were concerned lest there was some sort of hanky-panky going on
in there at these times!
Can anyone else better describe the 'thatched enclosure'?
David Beard
Re:
Gardening Pamela Masters
Jul 10, 2000 06:34 PDT
Hi David -- I remember the garden patches out
that way, as I often visited my Dad who did the book binding. Don't tell me you
never got a wiff of that horrible fish glue he used? Just before you came to 58
and 59, there was the women's sewing room, if memory serves correctly, and
Dad's stinky little workshop was either attached to it, or very close by.
Incidentally, I thought the vegetable gardens looked great. Of course, it could
have been because anything green and edible looked great to me in those days! –
the memories keep piling. Have a great day! -- Pamela
Re:
email list of internees mtpre-@aol.com
Jul 21, 2000 19:48 PDT
Welcome, Stanley Nordmo,
Where are you writing from? And who told you about our wonderful Weihsien
memory bulletin board?
You have a couple of months of catching up to do. This memory link started
following National Public Radio's May 11 broadcast in the USA
about the liberation of Weihsien. Former Weihsien internees began connecting
with memories.
I do hope you'll start cranking out your own Weihsien memories right away.
So far we've chattered away about liberation day, Boy Scouting, bird watching,
gardening, gaoliang and ludo for breakfast, and much, much more.
I've sent a few of the memories to the Chefoo Magazine.
I'm so glad you've joined us. Please pass the word to other Weihsien people who
have e-mail addresses.
Mary Taylor Previte, New Jersey, USA
Re:
email list of internees Stanley Nordmo
Jul 21, 2000 22:28 PDT
Hi, Mary
I am writing from Phoenix Arizona. Natasha Peterson sent me an e-mail about the
Weihsien bulletin board. We are both registered to attend an Old China Hands
reunion in Scottsdale this October. The organizer Peter Stein has been
communicating with us via e-mail and did send out a an e-mail list.
The reunion is now at full capacity so the waiting list has been closed.
Close to 90% of the OCH registrants have bonds with Shanghai and the 9
internment camps in the vicinity Other places represented
include Tientsin, Peking, Harbin, Tsingtao, Macau, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Kuling,
Taming, Hankow. Weihsien and Chefoo. Many of the registrants listed more than
one place particularly with reference to schools attended.
There will be six of us from Weihsien including Pamela Masters . In the 1999
issue of The Chefoo Magazine, you mentioned in your whole hearted endorsement
of her book The Mushroom Years that Major Stanley Staiger had read it through
non-stop and felt that it should be a best seller.
As a retired pathologist I recall some of the medical aspects. It seems that
'yellow' jaundice was prevalent. In retrospect I assume that what we had was
only hepatitis A which ordinarily does not lead to long term liver damage. This
did however keep me from becoming a blood donor. With the footwear that we
didn't have, it was easy to stub a toe and get a secondary infection.
Antibiotics of course were not available to us. I was on the trainload out of
Weihsien since I had come down with typhoid and was then treated at the German hospital
in Tsingtao. It is really surprising that we never had a polio epidemic. The
theory is that people exposed to unsanitary conditions are in a sense protected
by building up immunity. As a senior medical student at Boston University
School of Medicine, we had a polio epidemic in the city. The patients who came
down with polio were . usually from the affluent suburbs and not from the
slums.
Stanley Nordmo, Phoenix, Arizona. U.S.A.
Re:
"yellow" jaundice in Weihsien mtpre-@aol.com
Jul 23, 2000 15:16 PDT
Welcome aboard, Stanley Nordmo,
Yes, I remember "yellow" jaundice. I'm
another Weihsien student who was
alleged to have had "yellow" jaundice in the camp. That's one
of my memories of the Chefoo Lower
School Dormitory (LSD) in Block 23. And because of it I, too, have never been allowed to give blood.
Does anyone else remember the makeshift stoves
prisoners built inside these rooms? Our
teachers -- Miss Carr, Miss Stark, Miss Lucia -- constructed a stove for cooking right in the middle of the LSD
dormitory.
When eggs were available, they cooked scrambled eggs on that stove. I
suppose the fuel was coal or coal dust
or coal balls.
Eggs also supplied egg shells -- for calcium. As decent
food diminished and threatened our
health, I remember the Chefoo teachers lining us up at the door of the dormitory and spooning powdered
eggshells onto our tongues -- a
primitive calcium supplement. Horrible! Horrible! It felt like chewing
sand.
We used to cough out and wheeze out as much of the powdered eggshell as we could. I was fascinated to see Weihsien
reports in the National Archives
verifying our eating egg shells - "very poor quality." When
our Taylor family took a memory trip to
Weihsien, I made my daughter take a memory
picture of me with my tongue out on that very spot by the door of
the dormitory.
That building is gone now. Actually, not much is left
of the Weihsien we knew except the long
rows of rooms.
But Shantung officials recently passed along an inquiry
to me: Is anyone in America
--government, church -- interested in re-constructing the site of the
concentration camp? (Through roundabout channels, these Shantung authorities
had gotten a copy of my book. The part about Weihsien has been translated into
Chinese. Can you believe it -- an article quoting from my book appeared in a
Chinese newspaper this year! Amazing!)
Mary Taylor Previte, New Jersey, USA
State
of Weihsien CAC site to-day Beard
Jul 23, 2000 21:06 PDT
Mary Previte's info. about the reported interest
of Shandong authorities in reconstructing the site of the '43-45 Weihsien CAC
site is fascinating. But is it in any way realistic? Mary, what strings can you
pull? Bill Gates?!
When I visited Weihsien in June '86, Block 23 had just been demolished.
The hospital and the nearby water tower, where I had pumped zillions of gallons
of water, still stood, as did the former Japanese guard quarters which in '86
was Weifang No 2 Middle School building.
Some time before I visited Weifang (Weihsien), a memorial plaque to Eric
Liddell was unveiled at the No 2 Middle School building.
Regrettably I didn't know about it at the time and wasn't shown it.
Since then, of course, as many of you will know, a memorial walled garden, with
moongate, was built by the Chinese on the site of the internment camp,
providing a beautiful setting for Scotland's memorial to it's greatest sporting
son Eric Liddell - a red Mull granite monument, engraved in gold in both
Chinese and English. A V-J Day 50th anniversary celebration ceremony
was held there on 17th Augusst 1995.
So, who has been at the old camp site recently? Any comments?
David Beard
mtpre-@aol.com wrote:
<snip>
That building is gone now. Actually, not much is
left of the Weihsien we knew except the long rows of rooms.
But Shantung officials recently passed along an
inquiry to me: Is anyone in America -- government, church -- interested in
re-constructing the site of the concentration camp? (Through roundabout
channels, these Shantung authorities had gotten a copy of my book. The part
about Weihsien has been translated into Chinese. Can you believe it -- an
article quoting from my book appeared in a Chinese newspaper this year!
Amazing!)
State
of camp Stanley Nordmo
Jul 24, 2000 02:05 PDT
I was there in September 1989 after David
Beard's 1986 trip and did see the room set aside for the history of the
compound with photographs and memorabilia portraying the Presbyterian
missionaries with one display case honouring Eric Liddell, and many others featuring
the exploits of the school in the decades. since the war.
The original hospital building was still intact in1989 and had been converted
into student housing. After getting permission, albeit given rather
reluctantly, we climbed to the room on the top floor where we had bunked as
teenage internees,.The accommodations for the current occupants were just as
primitive and short of space as they had been 44 years before..
In 1995 Neil Yorkson reported that the old hospital was too squalid for them to
be allowed to enter. A new hospital building was about ready to be opened 100
yards away. .
Stanley Nordmo
memories WMJ-@cs.com
Aug 08, 2000 04:11 PDT
It's great to be on the Weihsien list and I have
enjoyed the notes already sent in. To
answer the question by Stanley Nordmo, Mary Taylor Previte, and David Beard, let me share impressions from
June 20, 1999 when I went back to China
for the first time since, Oct. 1945!
My Husband, Walt Jackson, and I went with Impact International to work with the English department of Ocean University
in Qingdao. It was a wonderful
experience and we had some excellent contacts with students and I was
able to give one lecture to a class of
about 50. I began by dating myself and giving
my history in their province from 1938-1945. I wrote out on the black
board how we spelled the names of the
towns during that era and then wrote them as
they are today. After that I told about the Japanese invasion and
subsequent 3 years interned first at
Temple Hill in Chefoo, and then at Weihsien. Told about our deliverance by the 7 valiant American paratroopers on
Aug. 17, 1945...and then about the time
in their town Qingdao. Showed them the
picture the girls in our class had taken with our gifts of 1,000 yuen
from the mayor of Qingdao. I wore my
badge and told them all about roll-call,
counting in Japanese. etc.
Walt and I had the delightful privilege of spending a day visiting
Weihsien [now Weifang]. It had all been
pre-arranged with the authorities there and
we were met by the Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and
given a tour guide for the day. He
directed us to the former site of the camp. I
had my home-made map with me and my name/number badge pinned to my
dress. Ha!
The modern city streets gave no hint that this had ever been the location
of the former Presbyterian Mission
Station turned Weihsien Civilian Assembly
Center
I was awed and thrilled to be walking on that location and took in all I could. Walt was designated photographer for
the day. We were taken to the beautiful
2nd Middle School building on the site of the old Block 23-former school building. The front gate faced the
front of the school so I was confused
when later former building did not fit my map...finally figured it out that the building faced a different way
and then everything fell in place.
We were given a royal welcome at the school by the Principal or President
as he is titled there. He led us up to
the 2nd floor and a lovely sitting room
where we were served hot tea and fruit. I gave my greetings and
appreciation for being allowed to visit
the place where I had been interned by the
Japanese in WW11 and liberated 54 years ago, [55 this summer] and
expressed my desire to see the former
hospital building and any other that was still
standing and, of course, the Memorial garden featuring the beautiful
Eric Liddell memorial stone. There were
6 people in our party, and I had at least
2 Chinese speakers to interpret for me. However, the President leaned over and told me in perfect English, "We are
very proud of the 2nd Middle School of
Weifang because it is one of the finest schools in all of China, having been founded 117 years ago by American
missionaries!." He also said they are
4th in soccer.
The President also explained emphatically that they were glad to have us,
but the time needed to be short as the
students were taking their examinations
that day. Knowing the importance of these exams, I assured him that we
would keep to the time limits set.
There were several reporters [?] taking videos
and pictures during the entire visit. On the way to the Memorial Garden
we were informed that I am the 41st
internee to return to Weihsien. Could we have some feed back
on that? I would love to know if that is accurate.
The trip to the garden was fast and I was overwhelmed to be there... lots
of pictures and then final
greetings-exchange of gifts/remembrances with the President. [One gift he gave me was a copy of Mary Taylor
Previte's "Song of Salvation"
article from 8/85 Philadelphia Sunday News Magazine]
As we walked toward the gate we passed a large gray house, our tour guide pointed out was one of the original
buildings... I was sure it must have been
one of the former missionary houses occupied by the Japanese during
camp days. I asked to see inside and
was refused permission as "It is now
occupied by some of the teachers and off bounds."
We were reluctantly preparing to leave, but as we came near the gate, some
of the President's men came behind us
and said to me. "Mrs. Jackson, we
understand your disappointment in not being able to see more of the properties, we have changed our mind and we
want to take you to the old hospital
building." Excitedly, we got in our van and followed the leader out through the main entrance, driving left and
then left again... very short distance.
Getting out of the van they pointed to a very dilapidated building, much smaller than I remembered, and said this is
the old hospital. We were not allowed
inside and the time was very short, but it could have been about half of the hospital, because I have heard from
another recent visitor to that site,
that half the hospital is still standing, but will probably soon be
gone if not entirely by now.
I said, "Well if this is the hospital", pointing to the 2nd floor,
"that was my dorn room and this
must have been where we had roll-call", and proceeded to give them a demonstration. All enjoyed
that and we quickly left the area.
Our tour guide was happy to take us to get some Weifang gift items, and we found a beautiful Butterfly kite [Weifang is
the Kite capital of the World], and
some good picture post-cards. Enjoyed a delicious dinner in an air-conditioned restaurant. Remember how hot
Weihsien got in the summer?
I will always be most grateful that the Lord made all this possible. Even now a year later it still seems like a
dream. Doubt that I will ever get there
again, but will read with interest any further information that is gleaned from the former internees. Of course,
I have kept up during these
years through the Chefoo Magazine, put out by the alumni of the former
Chefoo School. I had the joy of
visiting Chefoo, now Yantai, the next day, but
that's another story.
I did not see the "History Room", and with the area so closely built
up all around the camp site, I wouldn't
know where a re-construction could take
place.
Matters of health have been touched on. I have a few ailments that could date back to that experience, but was
recently diagnosed with Osteoporosis
which could very well date back to that time as we were so short of
calcium during bone growing years. It's
serious enough that I have "fracture risk" at any time...treatment is helping to strengthen the bones, but
there is no cure. But I often praise
God that we were protected and kept well and strong physically, spiritually and mentally, through those years.
Marjorie Isobel [Harrison]
Jackson (Brother James Paul Harrison was also interned)
Weihsien
Liberation Day mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 08, 2000 20:17 PDT
Hello, Everyone,
This evening I dug out Langdon Gilkey’s memory of the
liberation of Weihsien. Langdon, who lives in Virginia now, wrote SHANTUNG
COMPOUND in 1966. It’s still in print.
August 17 will be 55 years since seven American heroes liberated us from Weihsien.
“...the boy who spread
the word made it clear as he ran through the
kitchen yard screaming in an almost insane excitement, ‘An American
plane, and headed straight for us.’ We all flung our stirring paddles down
beside the cauldrons in the kitchen, left the carrots unchopped on the tables,
and tore after the boys to the ballfield. At this point the excitement was too
great for any of us to contain. Suddenly I realized that for some seconds I had
been running around in circles, waving my hands in the air and shouting at the
top of my lungs. This plane was OUR plane. It was sent here to tell US
. To tell us the war was over. The plane’s
underside suddenly opened. Out of it floated seven men in parachutes. The height
of the incredible!
Without pausing even a second to consider the danger, we poured like some
gushing human torrent down the short road. The avalanche hit the front gate,
burst it open and streamed past the guards. Some of the more rational internees
were trying to fold the parachutes. Most of us , however, were far too ‘high’
for the task. We just stood there adoring, or ran about shouting
and dancing...”
--Langdon Gilkey, VA
I hope this inspires you to sit down this very day and
drop a note of memory or thanks to the team of “SEVEN MAGNIFICENT MEN”as
Desmond Power calls them. Please, please, PLEASE drop them a note. They are now
all over 80. Most of them will not be alive to thank on the 60th anniversary of
their heroic rescue of Weihsien.
Mary Taylor Previte -- New Jersey, USA
Addresses
of Weihsien liberators mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 08, 2000 20:25 PDT
WEIHSIEN RESCUE TEAM
(DUCK MISSION) -- current addresses
Mrs. Raymond Hanchulak (Helen) (widow of Raymond)
Birthday
of Raymond Hanchulak: August 23, 1916
Birthday
of Helen Hanchulak: April 18
Phone: 717-472-3520
P.O. Box 4
243 Laurie Lane
Bear Creek Village, PA 18602
James J. Hannon Birthday: November 12, 1919
Phone: 760-364-4580
P. O Box 1376,
Yucca Valley, CA 92286
James W. Moore Birthday: October 5, 1919
Phone: 214-341-8695
9605 Robin Song Street
Dallas, Texas 75243
Tad Nagaki Birthday:
January 25, 1920
Phone: 308-762-2968
RR 2, Alliance, NE 69301
Mrs. Peter Orlich (Carol) Widow of Peter)
Birthday
of Peter Orlich: May 4, 1923
Phone:
718-746-8122 Birthday
of Carol Orlich: June 13, 1921
15727 20th Road
Whiteston, N.Y. 11357
Stanley A. Staiger Birthday: December 30, 1917
Phone: 775-825-3766
Village of the Pines
700 E. Peckam Lane, Apartment 259
Reno, NV 89502
Re:
Weihsien Liberation Day jim bryant
Aug 09, 2000 14:37 PDT
Dear Mary,
Thank you for replying to my letter. I still have things to talk to you about
when you have time.
Yes we are getting your messages, including last nights.
I wanted to ask you, are there two web cites? Before Natasha started the Topica
one you had started the one for Weihsien memories. I wondered if they were
combined or are still seperate.
We are heavy into getting ready for Jim to retire. We are trying to get rid of
a lot of excess baggage via yard sales,Rescue Mission, Salvation Army, Etc. He
will be retiring in October and we will have to make some kind of a move about
November 1st. I really am not looking forward to another move, but I believe
this should be our last for many years to come. We have a R.V. and hope to
travel and visit all my Weihsien buddies. We will see.
Get a lot of rest when you can, we cannot have you under the weather. Love
Emily
Fwd: Weihsien]
Natasha Petersen
Aug 12, 2000 05:07 PDT
Our latest subscriber: ?
Thompson Can anyone help him with accessing the previous
messages. I did not go through the subscribing process, but have tried to help.
I am not sure whether I am correct.
Natasha
Re: [Fwd:
Weihsien] mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 13, 2000 06:01 PDT
Natasha,
If you give me ? Thompson's e-mail address, I can send him a lot of the earlier Weihsien
memories. I believe he is Dr. Stanley Thompson from Iowa.
Last week I mailed out about 30 letters to Weihsien people, mostly in the USA and Canada, telling them about the
WEIHSIEN BULLETIN BOARD and urging them
to send thank you notes to our liberators on the August 17 anniversary of our liberation. My guess is that he's
responding to my letter. I hope other will also respond. I've sent past
memories to quite a few Weihsien people who contacted me. I keep trying to get them to sign onto the
bulletin board.
Thank you SO much, Natasha, for this beautiful gift you've given us.
Mary Previte
Aug
17th 1945 Thompson
Aug 14, 2000 12:17 PDT
Since Mary wants a "memory from Aug 17th
1945" here goes:
"Although I was as thrilled as anyone else when these guys dropped from
the sky, I never connected with any of them personally. I was a shy 13 year
old. My friend and classmate David Birch tells me that he and I were playing
ping pong in Kitchen #1 when the sound of an airplane drew us outside. When we
got to the front gates they were open and we went out. I followed the kids
ahead of us at a run. Thats when I was stopped by a weed patch. I don't know
what they are called but they grow prostrate along the ground and produce lots
of tiny little thorny tetrahedral stars that always have one thorn facing the
sky. I was of course barefoot ! I lifted one foot and saw perhaps 20 thorns up
to the hilt in my calluses. I knew there must be a similar number in the other
foot. I wanted very much to sit down and pull them out, but that would only
have put another 50 of them in my bum. I walked on the thorns for 15 or 20
steps till I got out of the patch, sat down, pulled all the blankety-blank
things out of my feet and took myself home to treat my bleeding soles. As you
can see, this little experience has completely colored my memory of Liberation
Day !
We heard that one of the parachutists had been slightly injured, and wondered
if he had known that the kao liang was 12 feet tall when he made a
landing. I remember hearing that one the guys had his 45 out
as he listened to the noises converging on him and only put it away when a
crowd of jubilant kids burst through the kao liang."
Stan Thompson
Natasha,
If you give me ? Thompson's e-mail address, I can send him a lot of the
earlier Weihsien memories. I believe he is Dr. Stanley
Thompson from Iowa.
Last week I mailed out about 30 letters to Weihsien people, mostly in the
USA and Canada, telling them about the WEIHSIEN BULLETIN BOARD and urging
them to send thank you notes to our liberators on the August 17 anniversary
of our liberation. My guess is that he's responding to my letter. I hope
other will also respond.
I've sent past memories to quite a few Weihsien people who contacted me. I
keep trying to get them to sign onto the bulletin board.
Thank you SO much, Natasha, for this beautiful gift you've given us.
Mary Previte
liberation photo
Thompson
Aug 14, 2000 16:21 PDT
Does anyone know the source of this photo ?
There must be quite a few copies around. Who had a camera with film in it in
Aug 1945 ? On the back is a note in my mother's hand "Liberated from
Weihsien Camp, Aug 1945". I have had this photo since Weihsien. It doesn't
look like people, it looks more like 55 gal drums of DelMonte canned peaches,
powdered coffee and the like !
Stan Thompson
Re: Aug 17th 1945
mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 14, 2000 18:04 PDT
Great job , Stanley! Thanks for a lovely memory.
Will you please e-mail me -- now -- your telephone number?
I'm trying to get Associated Press to do an August 17 story about our memories of the rescue. I'd like to have
your phone number handy in case they
nibble.
Our rescuer, Jim Hannon, gave me a picture of the B-24 bomber dropping supplies over Weihsien. He said a former
prisoner gave it to him.
Have you a picture of yourself from around 1945?
Mary Previte
Re: Aug 17th 1945
Thompson
Aug 14, 2000 21:01 PDT
Mary,
Here's my info.
H. Stanley Thompson M.D. (a retired professor of Neuro-ophthalmology at U of
IA)
2096 Kestrel Ridge SW
Oxford, IA, 52322
Tel: 319-683-2822
Fax: 319-683-2823
Re: liberation photo
Albert de Zutter
Aug 15, 2000 14:02 PDT
With regard to Stan Thompson's query: No, I don't know the source of the
photo, but it is quite obviously a B-29 dropping supplies. The B-24 that
dropped the rescuers is a two-engine job that flew much lower and dropped its
supplies (the first few days) quite accurately, mostly on the ball-field. The
B-29s flew much higher and spread their bounty widely over the landscape.
Al de Zutter
Does anyone know the source of this photo ?
There must be quite a few copies around. Who had a camera with film in it in
Aug 1945 ? On the back is a note in my mother's hand "Liberated
from Weihsien Camp, Aug 1945". I have had this photo since Weihsien. It
doesn't look like people, it looks more like 55 gal drums of DelMonte canned
peaches, powdered coffee and the like !
Stan Thompson
Douglas Finlay
mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 15, 2000 19:28 PDT
Dear Mary,
I have a piece of sad news to report. Yvonne
Finlay phoned last night to tell me
that her husband Doug died of a heart attack. The thing I remember most about him in Weihsien and in Tientsin
right after liberation was the
overwhelming crush he had on your sister (or was it you?) while in camp.
Desmond
Douglas Finlay, 6' 6 1/2", was one of Weihsien's superstar athletes. He
and Eric Liddell used to compete. When I tracked Douglas down in Canada a year
or two ago (thanks to Desmond), Douglas told me that he had
been racing on the ballfield when this
young gazelle of a girl came running after him. It was my sister Kathleen. To the horror of our Chefoo teachers,
they fell in love. Chefoo School
students were not supposed to fall in love with non-Chefoo School people. Come to think of it, Chefoo School
students probably weren't supposed to
fall in love. PERIOD. Douglas told me that someone -- a Chefoo teacher, I think -- even
spoke of having Bishop Scott marry
them. We four Taylor children-- Kathleen, Jamie, John, and I -- were flown out in the second planeload released
from Weihsien. Kathleen never saw
Douglas again. We stayed with our missionary parents in northwest China
for about a year before returning to
the United States. Douglas and his parents
returned to Tientsin for a while. He became a magazine publisher in
Canada.
In the last couple of years, he had been shuttling back and forth to China
in a couple of international business
ventures.
In Weihsien, Douglas's parents lived in Block 16, I think. Douglas had lived in the Hospital until the escape of
Hummel and Tipton. After the escape,
the Japanese moved all those young adult men -- and Douglas --from the Hospital where they could see too easily
over the camp wall and transplanted
them to Block 23.
I loved Douglas's mother. My own mother was too, too far away. And I
hadn't seen her for 5 1/2
years. I remember giving Douglas's mother one of my chocolate bars from the Red Cross.
I'm feeling so sorry that I did not talk and write more frequently to
Douglas to capture more of his
memories.
Does anyone else have Douglas Finlay memories to share?
Mary Taylor Previte
More sad news
Stanley Nordmo
Aug 15, 2000 20:58 PDT
Dear Mary
I do not know if you receive the China Connection or not. I just got the summer
issue which carried the obituary of Marcy L. Ditmanson who died in Green
Valley, Arizona (date not given) at age 81.
He attended American schools in Kweiteh, Tsingtao and Kikungshan in the class
of 1936. Following graduation from Augsburg College he returned to China for
graduate studies at Yenching University.
He was then interned in Weihsien where he met Joyce Stranks. (Since they were
not from Chefoo, they fell in love) They married in 1948. (His parents were
Lutheran missionaries in Honan province and her parents from Australia were
with the Salvation Army in Peking
.
Marcy graduated from the University of Michigan medical school before he and
his wife went to Taiwan where he started a clinic in Chiayi which grew into a
large hospital.
He spent part of 1972 in Bangladesh treating the victims of the war with
Pakistan.
In 1981 he returned to Michigan where he practiced orthopedic surgery.
I met them in 1990 at the Old China Hands Reunion in Anaheim, and again at a
1994 Northwest Regional China Council symposium held at :Linfield College,
McMinnville , Oregon. As an orthopedic surgeon he had just returned from one of
his many trips to China taken between 1993 and 1997 where he conducted seminars
on the rehabilitation of disabled children.
I had no idea that they had moved to the retirement community of Green Valley,
Arizona, located south of Tucson. .
Joyce's address: Joyce Ditmanson
2035 S. San Bay,
Green Valley AZ 85614
So long for now
Stanley Nordmo
snor-@amug.org
Re:
More sad news
Stanley Nordmo
Aug 16, 2000 09:01 PDT
Mary
Joyce Stranks is the daughter of Brigadier Stranks of the Salvation Army.
I'm sure you're right about her singing like an angel, given the musical
heritage of the Salvation Army.
Oscar V. Armstrong is the editor of The China Connection which is published
quarterly. The annual subscription is $12.00. He is a retired diplomat who
served in China.
Address: The China Connection
4831 Drummond Ave.,
Chevy Chase MD 20815-5428
telephone 301-654-0480
The China Connection averages 16 pages per issue and covers commentary about
recent events in China, past history and culture, announcement of future
reunions of the many schools which operated in China, (Chefoo Schools
excluded), personal reminiscences, reviews of books related to China, and an
obituary column. There is virtually no overlap between the information in The
China Connection and The Chefoo Magazine.
Stanley,
Thank you for the news about Marcy Ditmanson. Do I
recall correctly that Joyce Stranks ( who married Marcy) sang like an
angel? Isn't she the daughter of Brigadier Stranks of the
Salvation Army in Weihsien?
Please post details of how to sign up for the CHINA
CONNECTION.
Thanks. Mary
Today is Liberation Day
mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 17, 2000 04:23 PDT
Hello, everyone,
Today is LIBERATION DAY. Fifty-five years ago, seven
brave men parachuted from a B-24 bomber
named "The Armored Angel" to liberate us from the Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center.
I'm going to phone each one today to say thank you
again. You in the Americas, I hope you
will, too. If you're too bashful to say thank you, just call them to tell them your memory of that day. It will mean
SO much to them.
Just a reminder: at the age of 80, Tad
Nagaki still farms his land in Nebraska
so is rarely at home before dark. Call after dark, Nebraska time -- which is two hours later than my time
here in New Jersey.
Here are the telephone numbers. Mary
Previte, New Jersey, USA
WEIHSIEN RESCUE TEAM (DUCK MISSION) -- current addresses
Mrs. Raymond Hanchulak (Helen) widow opf Raymond Hanchulak
Birthday
of Helen Hanchulak: April 18
Phone: 717-472-3520
P.O. Box 4
243 Laurie Lane
Bear Creek Village, PA 18602
James J. Hannon Birthday: November 12, 1919
Phone: 760-364-4580
P. O Box 1376
Yucca Valley, CA 92286
James W. Moore Birthday: October 5, 1919
Phone: 214-341-8695
9605 Robin Song Street
Dallas, Texas 75243
Tad
Nagaki Birthday:
January 25, 1920
Phone: 308-762-2968
RR 2, Alliance NE 69301
Mrs. Peter Orlich (Carol) widow of Peter Orlich
Phone: 718-746-8122 Birthday of
Carol Orlich: June 13, 1921
15727 20th Road
Whiteston, N.Y. 11357
Stanley A. Staiger Birthday: December 30, 1918
Phone: 702-825-3766
Village of the Pines
700 E. Peckam Lane, Apartment 259
Reno, NV 89502
P.S.
on Weihsien liberation day
mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 17, 2000 04:50 PDT
POST SCRIPT ON THE RESCUE DROP:
Rescuer Tad Nagaki was the first to tell me he remembered that August 17
was a windy day.
Rescuer Jim Hannon says that Eddie Wang, the Chinese interpreter, froze
when his turn came to jump from the
B-24 bomber that morning. Jim says he had to
push Eddie Wang out of the plane. As a result, Jim says, he himself got
a bad start on his own jump and injured
his shoulder in the drop. Jim was an
experienced parachuter. Indeed, he had trained troops in
parachuting. Jim knew
all about prison camps. He, himself, had been captured by the Germans and held in German POW camps in Europe in
1944 and had escaped.
Before they set out from Sian that morning, Jim Hannon, who was in a group called the Air-Ground Assistance Service,
advised the team that seven men would
be no match for whatever Japanese forces would meet them on the ground. He says the team had at first planned to
come heavily armed. He says he felt
that would invite disaster. As a result, each man parachuted, carrying only one side weapon apiece.
Major Staiger says they used faster-opening Bristish parachutes. He
ordered the drop at about 400 feet --
astonishingly low -- to leave less space and
time for the Japanese to shoot at them as the team drifted to the
ground.
Jim Moore, who was the son of Southern Baptist missionaries to China, had attended and graduated the Chefoo School in
the 1930s. He told me that the first person
he asked to see when he got inside the walls of the camp was "Pa" Bruce, the headmaster of the
Chefoo Schools.
Mary Previte, New Jersey, USA
Re:
P.S. on Weihsien liberation day
Albert de Zutter
Aug 17, 2000 09:50 PDT
I am attaching a column I wrote on the 50th
anniversary of Weihsien Liberation Day. It appeared in The Catholic Key, weekly
newspaper which I edit for the Catholic Church in Kansas City, Missouri.
Albert de Zutter
Happy
Memories...and Wet Blankets!
Pamela Masters
Aug 17, 2000 10:50 PDT
Hi Friends --
I don't know if this is the time or place to pass this on, but the date is
right. Actually, this happens every August 15, to commemorate the day the
Emperor surrendered 55 years ago. For all of us it's good to remember there is
a flip side to our happy celebration. Japan honors
this date in quite a different way...
I received this message from Gil Hair, executive director of The Center for
Internee Rights, and it shows there is still a pot simmering on the back
burner, and that we'd better take the time to see if we can't turn down the
heat under it. Gill wrote --
"It is that time of the year when Japanese officials make their annual
pilgrimage to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. This event always raises the level
of indignation on the part of Japan's WWII victims and survivors, for it
exemplifies once more the duel standard that exists
between what the world tolerates on the Part of the WWII Axis nations --
Germany and Japan.
"The Yasukuni Shrine is where the Japanese WWII
war criminals are interred and revered. Do you think the world would tolerate a
cathedral in Germany dedicated to the Nazis and the Nazi WWII war criminals? I
don't think so, and rightfully so.
"Having visited the Yasukuni Shrine three time,
I'm always amazed at the special building at the shrine containing the
artifacts and history of the war criminals and the glowing commentary of the
Shinto priests on how the Japanese war criminals killed and butchered their
enemies. It
reflects again the attitude of the Japanese that there is pride, not shame, in
what was done. It further reflects the growing element of the
ultra-nationalists in Japan and its support by many members of the Japanese
government. This is the opposite in Germany, where the Neo-Nazi movement is
strongly opposed by the German government. Isn't it time to end this dual
standard of morality and to hold Japan and Germany to the same standards?"
An article in The Japan Times, dated August 9, entitled
"Eight Ministers Plan to Visit Yasukuni Shrine," listed the eight
members of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's cabinet who were going to make the
pilgrimage. Mori, at that time, had not made up his mind to go with the
group, or go separately...
I am amazed at the complete dedication of Gil Hair --
who spent his war years in SantoTomas in the Philippines -- for his unending
battle to see we receive an apology and reparations from Japan. Possibly, that
is the only way we'll be able to cool the pot that is still slowly simmering on
the back of the range...
I started out as a member of ABCIFER, but now am also a
member of CFIR, the Center for Internee Rights in Miami Beach, Florida, the
organization that Gil heads. Instead of my going into all CFIR's
accomplishments, maybe it would be better if you logged on to
www.netcom.com/~expows and pulled up the info yourselves. Their e-mail address
is exp-@bigfoot.com. For any of your friends who are not on the internet, here
are some additional addresses:
The Center for Internee Rights, Inc., 6060 La Gorce Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33140
Phone: 305-864-2558; Fax: 305-861-8550
Now, let's get back to celebrating! The past 55 years haven't all been a bowl
of cherries, but I'm sure glad I was around to live them to the hilt!
-- Pamela (Bobby Simmons) Masters
Address
for Joyce Ditmanson
Stanley Nordmo
Aug 17, 2000 12:21 PDT
Mary
I just talked with Esther Ditmanson, Marcy's sister. who lives in Minneapolis.
Joyce is visiting her sister in Australia and will not be back in the States
until sometime in November. Joyce will continue to make her home in Green
Valley her base, but will be visiting her sons, daughter and grandchildren in
California and Minnesota.
The address: Joyce Ditmanson
2035 S. San Ray,
Green Valley AZ 85614
Telephone number: 1-520-648-1163
So long for now
Stanley Nordmo
snor-@amug.org
Re:
P.S. on Weihsien liberation day
Natasha Petersen
Aug 17, 2000 13:16 PDT
Albert,
I cannot open your attachment.
Natasha
Albert de Zutter wrote:
I am attaching a column I wrote on the 50th anniversary of Weihsien Liberation
Day. It appeared in The Catholic Key, weekly newspaper which I edit for the
Catholic Church in Kansas City, Missouri.
Albert de Zutter
Liberation
Day glimpses
Stanley Nordmo
Aug 17, 2000 14:18 PDT
Salutations to all
I was on the top floor of the camp hospital along with fellow students, when
one of us heard a faint burred humming sound. As this grew louder, our first
thought was that it was just another Japanese plane. We crowded to the window
and realized that the drone of the plane was unfamiliar to us, and hoped
against hope that it was an American plane.
As the plane circled over the camp, we were thrilled to see the American
markings and then witness the heart stopping descent of the parachutes.
One analyst concluded that the parachutes were actually deployed with attached
dummies in order to draw enemy fire. Should this have occurred, then the plane
would have returned to its base without completing the mission.
Fortunately for all of us, the 7 heroes risking their very lives on our behalf,
gloriously fulfilled their mission
We joined in the stampede to and through the gate. to welcome our liberators.
As I recall there were no casualties.
The leaders in our camp had prepared for the possibility of such a wild chaotic
exuberant exodus from the compound on the day of actual liberation by creating
their own police unit with the members sporting a red armbands. Their immediate
task was to get the women and children back into the camp and allow only the
able bodied men to recover the support supplies that had been air dropped by
the rescue plane. Without their efforts, we might still be roaming the
countryside.
Stanley Nordmo
Re:
P.S. on Weihsien liberation day
Albert de Zutter
Aug 18, 2000 09:27 PDT
Here's what I wrote in 1995, the 50th
anniversary of Weihsien Liberation Day. It appeared in The Catholic Key, weekly
newspaper of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in
Missouri:
LIBERATION CAME AUGUST 17, 1945, ON THE WINGS OF A B-24
By Albert de Zutter
Catholic Key Editor
IT WAS A HOT August day.. From our second-story room we could look over the
10-foot brick wall topped by electrified wire into the field of grain outside
the compound. That day Aug. 17, 1945 there were no peasants in
coolie hats tending their crops.
We heard the drone of an airplane engine. The Japanese had a two-seater
bi-plane that they flew in the area occasionally, so the sound of the engine
aroused no immediate interest.
But the sound persisted, and, as we listened more carefully, we realized it was
different more powerful than the putt-putt of the
single-engine bi-plane.
I remember standing at the top of the outside staircase leading up to the room
where our family of four had spent the last 2-1/2 years in that Japanese prison
camp in China,
and seeing the sun sparkle off the aluminum body of this unknown airplane as it
turned in the
distance and started back toward us, dropping altitude. It grew larger and
larger and the roar of its engines grew stronger and stronger, until finally it
was almost directly overhead and we saw the insignia on its wings.
"IT'S AMERICAN! It's American!" we shouted to one another, needing
one another's assurance after all that time of uncertainty about our fate and
the progress of the war.
Every one of the 1,500 civilian prisoners who could walk must have come out to
see this airplane, this symbol of hope and a power that perhaps could match or
surpass the power of the Japanese Imperial Army of Occupation that had ruled in
China for the last eight years f our lives.
Having made a low flight over the center of the walled compound, the silver
bird which, we ere told later, was a
B-24 circled back and gained altitude. As I stood at the top
of the outside staircase, shirtless, barefooted, my spindly legs brown from the
sun sticking out from my khaki shorts, I saw the silver bird out over the field
again, this time going from right to left. I was afraid it was leaving.
Then objects began dropping out of the plane and
parachutes began to open, and I could see arms and legs moving!
Without further thought, I and hundreds of other prisoners rushed toward the
main gate of the concentration camp and hurtled past the startled Japanese
guards standing there with bayonets on rifles. We turned left on the dirt road
and then pounded into the fields, heedless of the brambles and stones and
thorns under bare feet.
The seven Americans were crouched down, .45-caliber Tommy-guns held ready when
we reached them. It must have been a strange experience for
them and perhaps a great relief to be rushed
by a ragamuffin crowd of undernourished men, women and children instead of an
armed enemy.
Those six army officers and men and one naval officer were carried triumphantly
on the shoulders of the men of the camp back through the main gate. The
American contingent was led by a major, to match the Japanese major who was in
command of the prison camp at Weihsien. American intelligence about the camp
was supplied by two young men in their 20s who had escaped and joined Chinese
Nationalist forces close by. One of those men Arthur Hummel
later became the American ambassador to Beijing, appointed to that post by
President
Ronald Reagan.
In the commandant's office just inside the camp gate there was a short, tense
confrontation between the two majors. Following the American major's demand
that the Japanese major surrender, they eyed one another for a few seconds
before the Japanese commandant unbuckled his sword and laid it on the desk. The
American major then requested that the Japanese forces (which numbered about
70) function as a security guard against the Communist forces, which they did
until a company of American Rangers was flown in several days later.
THE DAY OF OUR LIBERATION was August 17. We found out that Japan had
surrendered on August 14. The Allied Command had been worried that with the end
of the war, the Chinese communists might want to make hostages of the
Americans, British, Belgians, Canadians, Australians and Dutch inmates of the
camp, and so had wanted to take over the camp as quickly as possible. The navy
officer was a young man who had been born in China of American parents and had
studied at the Chefoo school. Boarders and teachers at the school had been
brought to the camp as a group.
We found out, also, that America had dropped two bombs on two Japanese
cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that those
bombs had destroyed those cities. We hadn't even known about the so-called
"block-busters," much less about bombs that could annihilate an
entire city and its people.
The atomic attacks brought an abrupt halt to World War II in the Pacific. How
many lives were spared by averting the need to invade Japan will continue to be
a matter of speculation. I choose to think that from their point of view
President Harry S. Truman and his advisors did what they thought best under the
circumstances, and that it took time for the world to come to an acute
realization of the horrendous potential of nuclear warfare.
Unfortunately, during the last 50 years, the world has amassed tens of
thousands of nuclear warheads, multiplying the potential for disaster and the
need for responsible action to abate the threat.
Meanwhile, we have perhaps come closer to a realization of the unacceptability
of all war as a means of settling disputes. We are reminded once again in the
situation in Bosnia that there can be no war without atrocities, and that
serial injustices accumulate into horrors of massive proportions just as surely
as nuclear attack.
In retrospect, the experiences of a boy in a Japanese internment camp during
World War II pale by comparison to the harsh injustices that rob life and hope
from children in so many poor countries today. That fact makes all the more
urgent the pleas of our popes and our bishops that we urgently apply ourselves
to the task of building peace through systems of economic and political
justice.
It was a commitment to fairness and justice that helped sustain life in the
prison camp despite worsening scarcity of food, fuel and clothing through two
bitterly cold winters. That commitment and a spirit of community which taught
us to laugh and sing about camp conditions and to help one another was largely
attributable to the 300 Catholic missionary priests who shared our fate for the
first six months. Most of them were then repatriated in a prisoner exchange,
but some 15 volunteered to stay with us for the duration.
There were impressive Protestant missionaries too. Among them was Eric Liddell
(pronounced LID-ul), the Olympic champion portrayed in the movie,
"Chariots of Fire," who died of a brain tumor in the camp. He coached
us kids and refereed our games and repaired field hockey sticks, among other
things.
I thank God for the priceless gift the example of those missionaries gave me.
For a boy in his 11th, 12th and 13th years it was a practical lesson in the
life-giving power of Christianity.
Nevertheless, the reality is that another winter of even more severe scarcity
would have spelled the end for many. The war ended none too soon for us.
I have considered myself free and blessed ever since that liberation day of
Aug. 17, 1945. But my own freedom is not enough. I thank God for America and
for the spirit of freedom and equality which continue to flow through it like a
strong undercurrent to the distortions of greed and self- indulgence that often
beset us. I believe we can and must take responsibility for one another both
within our borders and on a world-wide scale.
The End
China-Burma-India
Veterans Association
mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 19, 2000 19:17 PDT
Hello, Everyone,
This Friday, August 25, I'll be speaking in Houston,
Texas, to the evening banquet of the
China-Burma-India Veterans Association National Convention. It was this veterans' group that got me started on my
successful search for our six Americans
that liberated us.
Our liberator, Jim Moore, and his wife will also be
there at the banquet. So I shall
publicly honor Jim again. I'll tell them this miracle story of our rescue and of my tracking down these heroes.
In May 1997, when I was running for election to the New
Jersey state legislature, my two
running mates asked me to substitute for them at a banquet of an All-East Coast of the USA reunion of a group called
the China-Burma-India Veterans
Association. They wanted me to present a
proclamation from the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly to honor
these veterans for their World War II
service to America. This banquet was to be held in a hotel ten minutes from my home.
Imagine it! As soon as I heard the name
of the group, a lightbulb went on in my head. China-Burma-India -- our rescuers might be at that reunion! From
my treasures, I dug out their names and
carried the list to the banquet that Saturday night.
When my turn came on the program, I read the
proclamation from the Legislature. And
then I told them, "I know it was not an accident that I was invited to substitute tonight for Senator
Adler and Assemblyman Greenwald."
I briefly told the story from the eyes of a twelve-year-old -- of
Americans parachuting from the sky to
liberate the camp. "I've brought their names," I said. And I read the names to a very hushed room.
"Is any one of my heroes here tonight?"
I was greeted with
silence and with old-timers weeping.
But after the banquet they embraced
me. They told me I must write an article in the CBIVA "Sound-Off" Magazine to say that I
was searching for these heroes -- to
list their names, to list my own name, address, and phone number.
May 1997: That was the start. The
first break came in September. By
December I had found them all. Saying thank you by
telephone and letter didn't feel quite
enough, so I criss-crossed America to visit each one. I visited the last one this February in
California. Believe me, it's been as much a gift to me as a gift to them.
I'll tell this story to several hundred
China-Burma-India veterans on Friday in
Houston.
Arthur Kerridge, since you live in Houston, I hope
you'll come, too.
Mary Previte
China
Burma India Veterans Association magazine, SOUND OFF
mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 21, 2000 17:22 PDT
Hello, Everyone,
Dr. Stanley Nordmo asked me how to get in touch with
SOUND OFF, the magazine of the China
Burma India Veterans Association. Stanley's parents served hot meals to some downed American pilots during World War
II And veterans from the China Burma
India theater flew his parents out of China.
This group may be able to provide pieces of his family history.
They may be able to provide pieces of yours, too.
Here's the address:
Editor David
Dale Phone: 314-961-1113
Sound Off
P. O. Box 190374
St. Louis, MO 63119
The magazine is always looking for good material, so
your inquiries should be welcome. My
article in SOUND OFF in 1997, brought me my first break in tracking down the men who liberated Weihsien.
Mary Previte
The
Thompson Photograph
R.W. Bridge
Aug 29, 2000 12:58 PDT
The photo is definitely the drop of a number of
two 55gall drums welded together containing peaches, Navy pea soup or whatever.
They are being dropped from a B29 Super fortress, the relief team under Major
Steiger were dropped from a B24 Liberator.
The film was probably obtained from the photographers or film that was left by
them as major re-supply did not start until 27th August although there were
isolated drops before that date. The photographers were part of Col Bird's
group that diverted into Weihsien on 20th August three days after the Steiger
drop. They had been on a mission to Korea but failed and ran short of fuel and
diverted to the airfield near Weihsien. The party contained both a press
representative and a photographer. It is known that he took photos in the camp
( Record in a scrap of contemporary diary) They also took out their aircraft
the following day for a low fly past on the Tuesday 21st August.
The Col Bird group left on Wed 22nd August 1945, on departure they did a low
pass over the Camp. The same day that Lt Hannon gave a talk on prison camps of
Italy and Germany.
Has anyone any evidence re Hepatatis in Weihsien, I have read Stanley Nordmo's
report and I would be grateful for any information. Has anyone medical journal
authority published anything on this. The info is needed because the UK
Pensions Agency steadfastly refuse to believe that hygiene conditions in
Japanese Camps were bad enough to allow Hepatitis to have occurred. I am
fighting on behalf of a coupe that were not in Weihsien. Perhaps Stanley Nordmo
could communicate directly. IF it is R W Bridge Chillies Oast, Chillies Lane,
Crowborough, East Sussex TN6 3TB England.
I learnt of the Memory board from Norman Cliff. My Weihsen address was Block 13
Room 11/12 although when we first arrived in March 1943 it was Block 42 Room 6
Rgds
Ron Bridge
Humanitarian
Rescue Missions
mtpre-@aol.com
Aug 29, 2000 20:00 PDT
Welcome to our Weihsien bulletin board, Ron
Bridge,
Our Chefoo teachers said I had "yellow
jaundice" in Weihsien. I've never
had proof of that diagnosis. But for sure, here in the USA, because of
that diagnosis, I've never been allowed
to give blood.
I was also interested in your note that Lt. Jim Hannon
had lectured in Weihsien on POW camps
in Italy and Germany. Lt. Hannon had been captured in Italy in 1944 and was held in several POW
camps. He has described to me how he
escaped and walked across Europe until he bumped into US troops. After a de-briefing in Washington, he was sent to
China in a group called the Air Ground
Aid Service (AGAS) -- a group that specialized in rescuing downed pilots. The other members of our team were
all in the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) -- which was affectionately called Oh, So Secret or Oh, So Social -- because some of the OSS were from
Ivy League schools. On our rescue team,
Jim Moore was the only college graduate (Harden Simmons University in Texas). Major Staiger was
snatched out of University of Oregon
after his third year. He never finished college.
To this day, rivalry continues between Jim Hannon and
the OSS members of our rescue
team. Late in August, 1945, the OSS members were sent to Tsingtao to establish a Marine base there.
Jim Hannon remained to help evacuate
prisoners from Weihsien.
Have any of you read THE DEFEAT OF JAPAN? I got it from
our public library. Threaded through
this book is the fascinating story of the American humanitarian rescue teams that liberated Weihsien and the other
civilian internment camps dotted around
China and Manchuria. These were supposed to
have been do-or-die missions. One of these teams was, indeed,
almost executed by the Japanese.
Our own rescue team had a few tense moments when they
got inside the camp. One of our
liberators, Jim Moore, says the Japanese at Weihsien said that the Americans should have brought
official papers notifying the Japanese
of their assignment.
Our liberators tell a strange story about Colonel Byrd.
The Byrd team had been assigned to
liberate another civilian camp, but failed in its mission. Our liberators tell me that Colonel Byrd then came into
Weihsien and wanted to take over the
camp from Major Staiger. Sort of a save-face
move. Major Staiger would have none of it. Weihsien was his.
The winter 1999 issue of
Sound-Off, the quarterly magazine of the
China-Burma-India Veterans Asociation, included the following article by
Joe Shupe: Wedemeyer: "If You
Fail, It's a Court-Martial"
Here are exerpts:
The noteworthy accomplishment of MGen George H.
Olmstead, 92, West Point graduate,
"was the rescue of some 30,000 POWs. Shortly before the Japanese surrender, China Theater Headquarters got
the word that a Japanese collapse was
imminent and that the POWs had to be rescued immediately to save them from possible harm.
"With insufficient resources to rescue them,
Olmstead laid out a rescue plan to his
superior, Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer: the latter's response was: 'That's the craziest scheme I have ever heard
of in the U. S. Army. Try it. If it
fails, remember we are readying courts-martial charges against you.'
"Olmstead first ordered leaflets dropped. Then he
sent a single plane carrying six
unarmed men to parachute into each camp with a letter to the camp commander. It said the Allies knew the
number of POWs in each camp and would
hold the camp commander responsible if harm came to any POW.
" 'It worked,' he said later. 'But I had some
sleepless nights.' "
Mary Taylor Previte, New Jersey
Honoring
liberator Jim Moore
mtpre-@aol.com
Sep 03, 2000 18:51 PDT
Hello, Everyone,
The China-Burma-India Veterans Association (CBIVA)
national convention honored our
Weihsien liberator Jim Moore with the on-their-feet, clapping, weeping, flash-bulb-popping recognition Jim
deserves. More than 400 CBI veterans
attended the weeklong event held in Houston, Texas, last week.
What an extraordinary experience to honor Jim in this
way in front of his peers!
If I had had my wish, I would have arranged just
such a public honor for each one of the
heroes who liberated the camp. Yes, I've been successful in getting newspapers or Associated Press in
each one of their communities to
spotlight their heroism and to tell their astonishing story. But as
I've crosscrossed the USA, I've been
able to honor only three of the team (or
their widows) -- Jim Moore, Helen Hanchulak, Carol Orlich -- by having
them with me when I told the story
publicly to their peers.
A public display didn't work out or didn't seem
appropriate for the other three -- when I visited Major Stanley Staiger
(Nevada), Tad Nagaki (Nebraska), and Jim
Hannon (California). Major Staiger is very frail. What suited THEM was
the proper way to honor them -- not
what suited ME.
So the private reunions were lovely in their own way
Real heroes don't think of themselves as heroes. Our
rescuers don't. In fact, they get down
right embarrassed when I call them heroes. They usually say something like, "I only did what
any other American would have done."
I spoke to the Friday night banquet of the
China-Burma-India Veterans Association
-- a packed house of World War II veterans and their spouses in Houston. Men and women wept as I told the
story of Weihsien and America's
rescuing angels parachuting from the skies, the miracle of our family
reunion after not seeing our parents
for 5 1/2 years I told them the miracle of my
finding these heroes more than 50 years later -- one hero at a time.
"My silent weeping turned into sobs when you
introduced Jim Moore," the banquet
hostess told me later that night.
I didn't think the flash bulbs and the requests for
autographs and hand shakes and tears
would ever stop around Jim and his wife Pat on Friday night. It was absolutely beautiful.
The daughter and son-in-law of Emily Bryant (a Weihsien
internee and one of our Weihsien
bulletin board members) drove from Waco, Texas, to Houston to attend the banquet also.
Jim Moore's story is one not even a skilled novelist
could match. Jim is the son of Southern
Baptist missionaries to China who attended and graduated from our very own Chefoo school. He returned
to America in 1937, graduated from
Hardin-Simmons University and joined the FBI. Jim read about the capture of his/our school in the Chefoo School's
alumni magazine -- that his teachers
and little brothers and sisters of his classmates had been marched into concentration camp. He read of
classmates dying in the war. FBI
members were deferred from military service. But Jim resigned from the
FBI, joined the Navy and the Office of
Strategic Services -- which was looking for
people who could speak Chinese -- and was in Kunming, training 15-
and 16-year-old Chinese
paratroopers-in-training when the OSS started pulling together these hastily-constituted teams to liberate the civilian
internment camps. Jim volunteered to
join the team that liberated Weihsien.
What a story!
Nothing I have done in
the last three years -- not even being elected to the New Jersey state Legislature -- equals the joy of finding and
honoring these heroes and in
reconnecting with you who shared the Weihsien experience.
Mary Taylor Previte
Article
in Houston Chronicle, September 4
mtpre-@aol.com
Sep 03, 2000 19:01 PDT
A story and picture
about the Weihsien liberation is scheduled to appear on Monday, September 4, in the Houston Chronicle. The reporter is
Robert Tutt. You may be able to read it
on the Houston Chronicle Internet site on
http://www.chron.com
Mary Previte
Today's Houston Chronicle has a story entitled
Former Prisoner Recalls Liberation of
Concentration Camp. It is a follow up of the recent China-Burma-India Veterans Association convention in
Houston. This story
was to have appeared last Monday.
You can read the story on the internet via http://www.chronicle.com// or on HoustonChronicle.com
The reporter is Bob Tutt.
Mary Previte
Re: article
Beard
Sep
12, 2000 15:28 PDT
I think we are
mostly in the same boat when it comes to articles from the Houston Chronicle.
Maybe someone who can access them, could copy them and paste them into the main
body of an email message and send them to the List that way.
Margaret Beard (David's wife)
Pamela Masters wrote:
Ditto and likewise -- Pamela
Natasha Petersen wrote:
Help!
I am unable to access the article in the Houston Chronicle.
Natasha
Weihsien,
location...Re: Houston Chronicle
Frank Otto
Sep 13, 2000 08:01 PDT
Mary,
I've had people ask me for the exact location of the camp. Thanks.
Frank
Re:
article on: Former captive recalls U.S. liberation of camp
mtpre-@aol.com
Sep 15, 2000 17:12 PDT
Hello, Natasha, and everyone on the Weihsien
bulletin board,
Several have written that you couldn't find the article in the Houston Chronicle.
I was able to get the Houston Chronicle article on Monday, Sept 11. Look for
www.HoustonChronicle.com Then click on metro
section and it's there A friend also
sent me a print out from the Internet. At the bottom of the print out is:
http://www.chon.com/cs/CDA/strory.hts/metropolitan/662647
Good luck.
Mary Previte
Re:
article on: Former captive recalls U.S. liberation of camp
Beard
Sep 15, 2000 18:05 PDT
Mary,
www.HoustonChronicle.com didn't work. We can't get into the Houston Chronicle
Archives without being paid up subscribers.
There are two spelling errors in the URL you copied from the bottom of the
article your friend gave you and computers are VERY fussy about spelling! The
errors are: chon should be chron; strory should be story.
If these are corrected you get an accessible page at:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/662647
In case anyone still has problems, I will paste the story below.
Margaret Beard
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sept. 11, 2000, 11:00AM
Former captive recalls U.S.liberation of camp
By BOB TUTT
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle
By the morning of Aug. 17, 1945,
Mary Taylor Previte, the 12-year-old daughter of missionaries in China, had
been a Japanese prisoner more than 3 1/2 years.
When she awoke that day in a prison
camp near the city of Weihsien in a coastal area of northeast China, she was
still recovering from a bout with dysentery and diarrhea.
"I can remember lying there feeling horrible," Previte recalled, "and then I that was getting
closer."
She sprang from the top of a steamer
trunk serving as her bed, and through a
barrack window she glimpsed a low-flying four-engine aircraft.
Appropriately enough, it was an
American B-24 Liberator bomber, and she shortly spotted six parachutists
dropping from the aircraft's bomb bay.
"Believe me, that was an instant cure for diarrhea," Previte
recalled.
She shared the story of her camp's
liberation at a recent gathering here of veterans who had served in World War
II's China-Burma-India theater.
"I decided to run for the prison gate and be one of the first ones to
welcome whoever it was," she said, "but it seemed that everyone else
got there first."
The camp's prisoners had had no way
of learning that Japanese leaders had agreed to surrender unconditionally three
days earlier.
Similarly unarmed, six-man teams like the one coming to Previte's prison camp
were in the process of going to other Japanese camps.
Altogether about 30,000 prisoners, military and civilian, were being
successfully freed.
In her camp, she recalled, "Everyone went berserk, weeping, hugging each
other, pounding the ground.Men were taking off their shirts and waving them
because they wanted to be sure those in the plane had spotted the camp."
Ignoring the Japanese guards, she said, "people just pushed out the camp's
gate, something that previously could have got them shot."
Men who were "just skin and bones, who had lost 100 pounds" lifted
these "six beautiful, young Americans on their shoulders and carried them
into the camp."
There, Previte says, a Salvation Army Band welcomed them with a specially
prepared "victory medley" that it had been practicing for a
long-hoped-for day of liberation.
It was an amalgam of Happy Days Are Here Again, strains of the national anthems
of the Allied powers and excerpts of hymns.
She says that as the band played the part of the American anthem, Major Stanley
A. Staiger, leader of the rescue team, slid from the shoulders of the prisoners
to a standing salute.
And then, she added, "A young American trombonist in the band crumbled to
the ground and began to weep. He knew what we all knew. We were free.
"There were some brief, very nervous moments,"Previte said, "but
the Japanese must have known the war was over and turned over the camp.
"And did we love those American men. They were like the Pied Piper.
There was a trail of children wherever they went. Those guys went gaga over
older girls like my sister, Kathleen, who was 17. (The girls) got insignias as
souvenirs; younger children got pieces of parachutes."
Previte regards the camp's six rescuers as "guardian angels" who
saved her life and notes that the name given the B-24 that transported them
happened to be Armored Angel.
She stays in contact with all of them or their widows.
In addition to Stanley Staiger, who lives at Reno, Nev., they were the late
Raymond Hanchulak of Bear Creek Village, Pa.; James J. Hannon of Yucca Valley,
Calif.; James W. Moore of Dallas; Tad Nagaki of Alliance, Neb.; and the late
Peter Orlich of Whitesen, N.Y.
Previte notes the special significance of Moore's participation in the
operation. The son of Southern Baptist missionaries to China, he was born there
and learned to speak Chinese.
He had attended the same school in the city of Chefoo as had Previte, her
sister and two brothers and their classmates being held at the Weihsien prison
camp. It was set up for the children of missionaries and was called the Chefoo
School.
The Japanese had claimed ownership of that school the day after their Dec. 7,
1941, attack on Pearl Harbor and later moved the students and faculty to the
Weihsien camp.
Moore had gone to live in America, graduated from Hardin Simons College in
Texas, then became an FBI agent. That made him exempt from military service,
but he felt a duty to contribute directly to the war effort.
So, over the objections of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, he joined the Navy and
became an officer.
Because he spoke Chinese he was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services,
forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. He volunteered to participate in
the rescue of prisoners at the Weihsien camp because he knew people from the
Chefoo School were there.
When he arrived at the prison camp he immediately asked to see P.A. Bruce, the
school's superintendent.
Previte, 67, who resides at Haddonfield, N.J., is director of an agency that
assists juvenile delinquents in mending their ways. She also serves as an
assemblywoman in the state legislature.
She speaks with reverence of the teachers and other adults at the Weihsien
prison camp. They nurtured the children there and strived "to keep hope
alive" that ultimately the Allies would win the war.
Of some 1,300 prisoners, mostly British and Americans, held there, she estimates
that about a third were children.
Their teachers stressed that the Chefoo students continue their studies so as
not to fall behind children in the free world. Thus they provided these
youngsters a very structured life.
The prison camp was set up on what had been the campus of a Presbyterian
school. A wide variety of people were held there, including businessmen,
academics, physicians and entertainers.
The prisoners promoted cultural events ranging from plays to musical programs
to philosophical discussions.
As time went on, Previte said, doctors in the camp became alarmed about how the
camp's poor diet, especially insufficient in calcium, was affecting the health
of children.
Those able to get eggs on a black market were asked to save the shells so that
they could be roasted, ground into a powder and administered to children as
pure calcium.
Previte remembers how awful spoonfuls of that powder tasted.
About 15 years years ago Previte gained an insight into what a brave front so
many adults in the camp must have been putting up for the sake of the
children.
This came when she visited the headmistress of the school, who was then living
in England.
"I would pray every night," she confessed, "that when the
Japanese would line us up and make us dig death trenches before shooting us,
that God would let me be one of the first they would shoot."
Previte's parents, James Hudson Taylor II and Alice Taylor, Free Methodist
Church missionaries, had been working in the Yellow River basin in central China
before managing to escape advancing Japanese forces.
After liberation, Previte, her sister, and two brothers, James Hudson Taylor
III, 16, and John Taylor, 10, and their grandfather, Herbert Hudson Taylor, 80,
a retired missionary with them in the prison camp, were reunited with their
parents for the first time in 5 1/2 years.
First, fighting between Chinese and Japanese forces, then the internment of the
Chefoo School students and teachers had kept the family apart.
Re:
article on: Former captive recalls U.S. liberation of camp
Pamela Masters
Sep 18, 2000 06:59 PDT
Thanks Mary --
What a fabulous article! I've printed it out in its entirety and now is part of
my Weihsien file -- along with the other stories of all you neat
"survivors".
Best to you always -- Pamela "Bobby" Masters
people-dates-happenings
of 7 year old.
Dave Allen
Oct 16, 2000 22:29 PDT
NAME |
CATEGORY | DATE | OCCASION
============================================================Mrs
Fitzwilliam Teacher 02/24/41
Reading stories at supper
Paul
Grant Student 03/18/41
Compete in reading books
Byron
Kohfield Student 03/18/41
Compete in reading books
McLorn Student 03/18/41
Compete in reading books
John
Taylor Student 03/25/41
Leads drill
formation
Dr
Henri Doctor 03/25/41
Says I had whooping cough
David
Birch Student 04/06/41
Dresses with girls
hat
Miss Alicia Carr Teacher 04/06/41
Trick played on her by kids
Mr
Baehr Missionary
05/05/41 Spoke at school commencement
Paul Dunachie Missionary 05/05/41 Showed
moving pictures
Mr Oleson Missionary
05/05/41 Spoke at Sunday service
Mrs Fitzwiliam Teacher 06/02/41
Reading stories at supper
Miss
Carr Teacher 05/25/41
Took school to old prep
Mr
Houghton Teacher 06/23/41
Lead Foundation Day service
Granny Wright Missionary 06/30/41 Provides
Choc. sauce for party
Raymond
Moore Student 07/07/41
Played ball with me
John
Birch Student 07/07/41
New boy at school
Miss
Young Teacher 08/11/41
Takes me out on a boat ride
Miss
Lassen Teacher 08/11/41
Takes me out on a boat ride
Mrs Hanna Teacher 08/18/41
Take Yunnan children for picnic
Miss
Lassen Teacher 08/18/41
Picnic breakfast
Mr
Young Teacher 09/02/41
Leads new term opening service
Miss
Stark Teacher 09/08/41
My class teacher (Upper I)
Byron
Kohfield Student 09/02/41
Both of us sick with flu
Paul
Grant Student 09/15/41
Went to his birthday party (9/13)
Miss
Davey Teacher 09/15/41
Taught us Sunday School
Robert
Clow Student 11/03/41
He has scarlet fever
Letters
missing 11/03/41
- 04/13/42
Wally Desterhaft B.S.Student 04/13/42 Wins high jump 5'3 1/2
Mr
Bruce Headmaster
04/13/42 Leads new term opening service
Paul
Thompson Student 05/25/42
Broken arm - Temple Hill
Dr
Howie Doctor 05/25/42
Leads Sunday School meeting
Mr William Taylor Missionary 05/05/42 Spoke on God's deliverances
Dudley Woodberry Student 06/01/42
Leave Chefoo for America
Grace
Woodberry Student 06/01/42 Leave
Chefoo for America
Eddie
Lindberg Student 06/01/42
Leave Chefoo for America
Paul
Grant Student 06/01/42
Reading Aladdin's lamp
Eleanor
Glazier Student 06/08/42
Leaves for Tsingtao on bus
Murray
Davies Student 06/08/42
Are coming to be boarders
Paul
Davies Student 06/08/42
Are coming to be boarders
Miss
Carr Teacher 06/21/42
Took us to the beach
Miss
Hess Teacher 06/21/42
Played music on a saw
The
Japanese 06/29/42
Inoculated us for cholera
The
Japanese 08/25/42
Tell us: leave Chefoo by 9/22
Miss
Davey Teacher 08/25/42
Set up a treasure hunt
Mr
Rouse Missionary
08/25/42 Leader at CSSM
Mr
Martin Teacher 08/25/42
Lead 5 services of CSSM
Miss
Priestman Teacher 08/25/42
Gave me Morning Bells hymnbook
Stuart
Goodwin Student 08/25/42
His team won sand modelling
Miss
Young Teacher 09/01/42
My teacher for Lower II
Thoughts from 7 year old in letter to parents - extracted from letters.
Dave Allen dan-@fidalgo.net
people
-dates -happenings Pt 2 Dave Allen
Oct 16, 2000 22:29 PDT
NAME |
CATEGORY | DATE | OCCASION
======================================================================= Continuing
from 09/01/42
The
Japanese 09/01/42
Build wall through dining room --------------------------------------- to make
garage and stables for ---------------------------------------
horses.
John
Bell B.S.Student
10/05/42 Ride bicycles over 60 kilometers
John Hoyte B.S.Student
10/05/42 & get caught by
Japanese
Paul
Grant Student 10/05/42
Digs a 2 ft deep pit
Karl
Nafe Student 10/05/42
Digs a 2 ft deep pit
Philip
Paulson Student 10/05/42
His team has best spellers
Theodore
Welch Student 10/05/42
Had a party for Lower I's
All
Chefoo
schools students 11/XX/42
School moves to Temple Hill
Facts from letters written by David Allen in Weihsien Internment Camp 1943
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Hoyte and I S THill Nov ??
1942 Talk to Chinese
Students
All students S THill Nov ??
1942 Sleep on the
floor
Primary students S THill Nov ??
1942 Finding bamoo for making kites
Jack Graham S THill Nov ??
1942 play game of hiding the football
Valwynn Nichols S THill Nov ??
1942 play game of hiding the football
Dave Allen S THill
Nov ?? 1942 put footall to high for
Jack
Murray Sadler S THill Nov ??
1942 Got the football
down
Brothers & Sisters S THill Nov ?? 1942 Allowed to
meet.
School begins S THill Mar 9,
1943 We are going
barefooted
Dr Howie & Mrs D THill Mar 9,
1943 have baby girl Margaret
Ruth
Mr Martin T
CAC5 May 24, 1943 concert & shows funny
pictures
Metcalf (B.S) B
CAC5 May 24, 1943 workout on parallel
bars.
Students S
CAC5 May 24, 1943 use stoves made from
cans
Mr
Bruce H
CAC5 May 24, 1943 sings Irish
songs
Mrs
King M
CAC5 May 24, 1943 told us about
lepers
Elizbeth Hoyte S CAC5 Jun
27, 1943 to light campfire for girls
Japanese Censors J CAC5 Jun 27, 1943
bring old letters (12/22/43r)
Chefoo people S CAC24 Sep 12, 1943 Wed
arrive in Weihsien
Chefoo people S CAC24 Sep 12, 1943
ride on a bus to the steamer
Chefoo people S CAC24 Sep 12, 1943 eat
picnic meals on board*
Weihsien S
CAC24 Sep 12, 1943 is 21 acres in size (12/26/43r)
Teachers T
CAC24 Oct 8, 1943 make doughnuts on little stoves
Lessons learned S CAC24 Oct 8, 1943 in dorm room;
also in cubs now
Service held S CAC24 Oct 8, 1943
in church building (1/13/44r)
Collecting stamps S CAC24 Oct 24, 1943 from letters (1/29/44r)
Christmas presents S CAC24 Dec 29, 1943 described in letter (2/4/44r)
Treasure hunt S CAC24 Jan 24, 1944
fruit for prizes
Memorizing Bible S CAC24 Jan 24, 1944 verse (prize) 10
texts
Mrs Lawless T CAC24 Apr
21, 1944 teaching us French
Campfire songs S CAC24 Apr 21, 1944 Acting
& singing
Boys not wearing S CAC24 Jul 30, 1944 shirts
Robert Clow & I S CAC24 Jul 30, 1944 are
studying ants.
Footall matches S CAC24 Oct 24, 1944 on ball field
Philip Paulson S CAC24 Oct 24, 1944 birthday
today
Torge Torgeson S CAC24 Oct 24, 1944
celbrated his birthday also.
Requirememts S CAC24 Oct 24,
1944 passed for athlete's badge
Thoughts in letters of 10 year old in Weihsien Internment camp
Dave
Allen dan-@fidalgo.net
People
- dates - events Pg 3 Dave Allen
Oct 17, 2000 05:24 PDT
Facts from
letters written by Dave Allen in Weihsien Internment Camp
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Girls in next room S CAC24 Jan 25, 1945 Party in which boys acted.
Jr children S CAC24 Jan
25, 1945 Party for boys 9-13
Jr children S CAC24 Jan
25, 1945 Party Thursday after Xmas
Soccer Ball loaned S CAC24 Jan 25, 1945 Chefoo boys challenge
Soccer Ball loaned S CAC24 Jan 25, 1945 Weihsien boys
French lessons S CAC24 Jan 25, 1945 11th in
French:32/40 pts
Red Cross parcels - CAC24 Feb 25, 1945 Received red cross
parcels
*** Chocolate, chewing gum, butter, cheese, milk, raisins, prunes, ***
*** Sugar and
soap ***
Mr Huebener B CAC24 Feb
25, 1945 Helped make bamboo flute
Mr
Brown M
CAC24 Feb 25, 1945 Comes to tell evening stories
Eric Liddell A CAC24 Feb 25,
1945 Died 7th Feb night
Students S
CAC24 Feb 25, 1945 Have slept on floor 3 years
Dave Allen S CAC24
Mar 25, 1945 Weighs 78 lbs/ 4' 9" tall
Robert Clow & I S CAC24 Mar 25, 1945 We are
sharing gardens
John Birch S CAC24
Mar 25, 1945 Got parcels
Philip Paulson S CAC24 Mar 25, 1945 Got
parcels
Students S
CAC24 Mar 25, 1945 Holiday on Mar.30th
Douglas Findley S CAC24 Mar 25, 1945 Invited by us
out to tea.
Students S
CAC24 Mar 25, 1945 We have chocolate each Sunday
Dave Allen S CAC24
Apr 30, 1945 Sprained ankle in long run
Robert Clow & I S CAC24 Apr 30, 1945 Corn is
up ... our is biggest
Jr students S CAC24 Apr
30, 1945 Just starting to learn Latin
B.S. students S CAC24 Apr 30, 1945
Sports Day results:
*** Chefoo ...130 points | Weihsien ... 85 1/2 points ***
Mr Pryce & Miss Greenin Apr 30,
1945 Have married/have yellow roses
*** This letter received in Mitu (Dec 24, 1945) ***
Dave Allen S CAC24
May 27, 1945 Heart conversion experience.
Robert Clow & I S CAC24 May 27, 1945 Growing
cosmos, sunflower, corn
Jr
boys S
CAC24 May 27, 1945 Two waffles with tangshi (dinner)
Jr
boys S
CAC24 May 27, 1945 Half holiday Thursday)
*** Reason: we had earned 6 optimes ... know what that is? ***
Mr
Hayes T
CAC24 Jun 15, 1945 Leads Foundation Day service
Students S
CAC24 Jun 15, 1945 10 AM Softball game
Students S
CAC24 Jun 15, 1945 3 PM Tenniquoit?
Jr Boys & Girls S CAC24 Jun 15, 1945 Have a
treasure hunt
Jr Boys play acting S CAC24 Jun 15, 1945 The miller, his son & donkey
Jr
boys S
CAC24 Jun 23, 1945 Camped out on rollcall field.
WAR IS
OVER! S CAC24 AUG 25, 1945 YEA!
YOWEE!
Last Wed heard war was over Friday a plane came
over Friday men came down with stores.
Monday soldiers distributed sweets and candies
Tonight Jr boys & Senior boys have gymnastics display 25 Aug 1945
Selling tin cans for food: tomatoes, corn, apples, pears, crabapples.
We made stewed apples
First meal of split pea soup tasted really good but stomach couldn't keep it.
It came up again. (I couldn't eat real food for at least 2 weeks)
Some GI soldiers give boys penknives.
Now cooking lots of things on stove in bedroom, living room, classroom.
Making a small parachute 25 Aug 1945
This was the last letter written from Weihsien.(Received in Mitu, Yunnan
Oct 11, 1945) I flew out from Weihsien airport with Raymond Moore and
John Taylor on top of scores of parachutes being returned. We flew to Sian.
From there I flew on to Kunming on a B-17 called the "Homesick
Angel."
These are the experiences of a 10 years old boy, not a
grownup!
Dave
Allen dan-@fidalgo.net
I have experiences later at Shanghai on Sinza Road if any one is interested.
Memories of Aug 17th, 1945 V I Day
Dave
Allen
Oct
17, 2000 14:03 PDT
Memories of Aug 17th 1945: V I Day (Victory over
Internment.)
On Wednesday we heard that the war was over by
our underground canary.
News was also passed by coolies trading cigarettes with internees.
On Thursday we were showered with pamphlets
telling us the what to expect.
On Friday the Jr Boys were down on the playfield
not far from the main gate. We were
either playing soccer or watching a game, when we heard the sound of an airplane. Looking over the
barbed-wire fence which carried high
voltage electricity we expected to see a single engine Japanese
plane. Instead, to our surprise we saw
a four engine B-24 circle once, determine the
wind direction and then make an Immelman maneuver and come back over
the fields outside the camp. Slowly 7
men parachuted out of the plane. Before
any had touched the ground we were running full tilt for the front gate.
They were opening as we arrived and we
headed out in mass. There were about 1700
people in that camp.
Our feet were hardened to the ground but not the
puncture weeds and their barbs. As soon
as we left the motor road we found them. Some of the Chinese field workers, seeing us take the stickers
out of our feet, volunteered to take us
piggy back to the motor road. They were so glad to be free of Japanese oppression. We walked so proudly beside the
American GI's, so glad to be free at last.
Within 2 days we had B-29 bombers flying outside
the camp and dropping food and clothing
supplies. The sky was filled with parachutes, plane after plane coming and dumping food, clothing and pamphlets. It
was an exciting time.
On Monday the American GI's handed out sweets and
chocolates. The first meal of split pea
soup tasted awful good, but made an abrupt return. I could not retain rich food for up to 3 weeks after
that. They started giving us vitamins
etc from packages dropped from the B-29's. That evening the Jr boys and Senior Boys and Girls gave a gymnastic
display. The GI's gave some of the kids
penknives as gifts, or pieces of ripped parachutes.
We salvaged the tin cans from the food drops and
traded them for tomatoes, corn, apples,
pears and crabapples. Only the adult men and women were allowed to go outside the camp to make trades, but
the kids would trade over the wall.
The electric barbed-wire fence turned off. The apples we got in trade we made
into stewed apples.
The stoves we cooked on were made from KLIM cans
(milk spelled backwards. The cans were
mudded inside and wires placed through them and a door for proper ventilation.
Adults were selling old clothes and anything that
was salable for fresh fruit. Everyone
had a craving for fresh fruit.
Within 2 weeks John Taylor, Raymond Moore and I
were taken by bus out to the Weihsien
airport and climbed into a C-46 Cargo plane. We flew to Sian, and from there on I flew on to Kunming on a B-17
bomber called "The Homesick Angel."
*** The last letter was written from Weihsien Aug 25, 1945 and received in Mitu, Yunnan on Oct 11, 1945 *** Now you
know why missionary kids didn't go home
to see their folks at Christmas time. Transportation was too
slow and distances too far and a war
was on. I didn't see my folks from Sept 1940 - Sept 1945.
Dave
Allen
dan-@fidalgo.net
Living
quarters
Dave Allen
Oct 17, 2000 14:15 PDT
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS:
There were 10 of us boys crammed in a classroom 12 ft long X
10 ft wide.
All the mattresses had been rolled up against the wall where the bedbugs lived. This gave up 2 to 3 ft of walking
space because in the middle of the room
were steamer trunks (our seats). In the opposite corner from the door to our room were Red Cross boxes stacked over by
John Taylor's side.
Starting from the door and going around the room were:
Raymond Moore, David Allen, Robert
Clow, John Birch, ////////////, on the other side, Philip Paulson, Paul Grant, ////////, John Taylor,
Val Nichols. I will have to confer with
John Taylor, and Paul Grant, and maybe we can figure it out together. We were all about
10 - 11 years of age.
In the room next to us were the girls of approximately the
same age. I couldn't remember one of their names, but I think there were 8 of
them. I wasn't interested at that time.
We were housed in Building 24 which had the
bell tower.
There are other memories of roll call ... learning to number
off in Japanese ...learning the caws of
rooks in the trees and what they meant ...
making snowballs and snowballing the guards ... (this was a kids game,
no adults allowed)... making coal balls
for our little KLIM (Milk spelled
backwards) cans, which we mudded and made into stoves ... walking
through the tunnel underground by the
hospital, ... running long distance races through the camp ... reddened buttocks from mouthing off to teachers,
generously applied by Mr Martin with
hand, shoe, ... yellow jaundice and the utter
distaste for the smell or taste of food, that was when we were in Building
23 before getting moved into Building
24, ... roll call late in the evening after 2 men escaped from the camp and the
bell was rung. We were outside a long for
that one .... sneaking out the window of our classroom, and getting
caught by Miss Priestman on her prayer
rounds.
What are your memories? Are they a little different? Let's
compare.
Dave
Allen dan-@fidalgo.net
David
Allen's diary
mtpre-@aol.com
Oct 17, 2000 17:57 PDT
Hello, Everyone,
David Allen, welcome to our Weihsien Bulletin Board.
What amazingly detailed memories for a
10 year old! I bet everyone reading this wishes they had kept notes like yours.
Now listen to this. At this very minute I have a picture
of you -- David Allen -- on my
refrigerator! Imagine it. Douglas Finlay sent it to me last year -- a snapshot of you, Raymond Moore,
and four Taylor children -- Kathleen,
Jamie, John, and me (Mary) -- at Sian the night we flew out of Weihsien in early September 1945. We six
Chefoo children were the second
planeload flown out of Weihsien. Yes, yes, yes, remember our sitting
on heaps of used parachutes all the way
from Weihsien to Sian? I had carried on
board with me that day a small bundle of treasures which I intended to drop out of the airplane window to my Chefoo
dorm mates below. Wrong!
In the picture on my refrigerator, we six children are
feasting on cake with an O.S.S. officer
in Sian.
. I have no idea how Douglas got that snapshot. But I'm
thrilled that he sent it to me. My
sister Kathleen and Douglas Finlay were sweethearts.
You may not have heard that Douglas died a couple of months ago.
Tell us everything your saw and felt the day we were
liberated -- August 17, 1945. And tell
us where you are now and what became of you after Weihsien.
Mary Taylor Previte
China
Reunion in Arizona in October
mtpre-@aol.com
Oct 26, 2000 18:17 PDT
Hello, everyone,
China hands held a China Reunion in Scottsdale, Arizona,
October 19. Pamela Masters, I know you
planned to attend. I hope you and everyone else who was there will tell us all about it.
If any of you have not yet read Pamela's book, The
Mushroom Years, please give yourself a
gift. It's WONDDERFUL. Major Stanley Staiger, who lead the Weihsien rescue mission, told me Pamela's book should be
on the best seller list. He said he
read it non-stop and couldn't put it down.
e-mail Pamela for a copy at pam-@hendersonhouse.com
Pamela, is Joyce Cook Bradbury's memoirs in print yet?
Joyce and her husband planned to attend
the China Reunion in Arizona last week. Joyce is from Sydney, Australia. Originally from Tsingtao, she and her
family were among the first to be
interned in Weihsien. Her father worked in Kitchen #1. Joyce finished her schooling in the camp at
Peking American High School.
Mary Previte
short
bio
Natasha Petersen
Oct 27, 2000 09:31 PDT
Would each subscriber give his full name and a
very short bio. Please badd your e-mail
address to the bio. I know that you have mine and Mary Previte's. Desmond, please let me know
whether you received this message. If I
do not hear from you I will assume that you did not. I was told that messages to you were not going
through. Natasha
The reunion was great. I hope that those who were there will write a few lines highlighting your experiences.
All
Aboard!
Pamela Masters
Oct 27, 2000 12:08 PDT
Hi Mary, Natasha and all of you Weishien
Friends!
I had a ball at the OCH Reunion -- only I had to cut my visit short due to a
crisis at home. I left before I could make my little talk – that was scheduled
for Friday evening -- and as it is very important to all of you if you'd like
to receive reparations from Japan, I'm attaching it here. I cannot stress how
important it is for all of us to get aboard and help our fellow-ex-POWs. We in
Weihsien were lucky, tens of thousands were not. Let's not forget them like the
rest of the world has. Here is a physical address for you to write to to get
the necessary forms.
The Center for Internee Rights, Inc.
Gil Hair, Executive Director
6060 La Gorce Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33140-2117
Phone (305) 864-2558 Fax (305)
861-8550
E-mail:
exp-@bellsouth.net Website: www.netcom.com/~expows
A one-year membership costs $40, and to sign up for your deceased parents or
next-of-kin, it's only $10. The more members we have in CFIR, the more clout we
will have. All contributions are tax deductible.
At the present time we're trying to get on 60 Minutes, 20/20, and other major
network programs. There's a lot of sympathy out there for our cause right now,
and we must capitalize on it. I phoned a slew of Senators this morning to ask
them to support the "Hatch-Feinstein POW Resolution" that's to be
"hotlined" through the Senate today or tomorrow (before Recess is
called) and hopefully passed unanimously!
Incidentally, Peter Stein said I could not mention the Raffle when I gave my
talk, but I've included that paragraph here as we really need funds to pay for
all our ongoing expenses. Again, remember all contributions are tax deductible.
The current web pages for CFIR are very readable, but not too spectacular. The
old ones were fabulous but when we changed our ISP, the old server dumped
everything so that we are having to start all over again. The links are great
and well worth viewing. Haven't had any luck with the "baronage" link
for some reason. I used to pull it up easily, but it's got a quirk in it now.
Let me know if any of you are able to get it as the "Bamboo Shoots"
articles and victims stories are "must" reading.
no
subject)
Natasha Petersen
Oct 27, 2000 12:54 PDT
http://www.baronage.co.uk/bambshoo.html
Pam,
The above is the website that I believe you were looking for.
Natasha
OCH
Scottsdale Arizona
Stanley Nordmo
Oct 27, 2000 18:45 PDT
Hello all:
Here is the OCH program held in Scottsdale Arizona October 19 – October 22,
2000
and some comments.
THE RAMADA VALLEY HO RESORT
The Ramada Valley Ho Resort is located
within walking distance to numerous restaurants, Fifth Avenue Main Street
Galleries, Old Town Scottsdale and Fashion Square Mall. A shuttle service,
Ollie the Trolley will make the rounds of shopping centers, tourist attractions
and other hotels for $6 for the day.
The Resort is situated on 14 beautifully landscaped acres with 292
rooms/suites, 3 heated pools, 2 whirlpool spas and lighted tennis courts.
CONFERENCE CENTER PROGRAM October 19-October 22, 2000
Registration: Joshua Tree Room Functions: Palo Verde Room and Lobby
Thursday Afternoon:
Hospitality Room for registration and get together starting at Noon (new)- 5
pm.
Thursday evening:
Welcoming Reception Buffet and No-Host Bar:
Bar, 5:30 pm; Buffet, 6:30 pm. ($28)
Friday:
8:00 am - 9:00 am (No charge but you must register)
Find-Old-Friends Breakfast:
Welcoming Ceremonies
9:30 am.
Slide Lecture:
Indian Arts and Crafts - Baskets, Pottery,Jewelry, in preparation for the
Tours. Sandy Stein, Heard Museum Docent.
12:00 - 1.30 pm ($20)
Get-Together Lunch: Keynote Speaker: Dr. John G. Stoessinger, OCH,
PTH.,Internationally Renowned Prize Winning Author, Lecturer & Political
Analyst. China Odyssey: A Survivor's Journey
3 pm. No charge, but you must register.
Featured Speaker: Ms. Tess Johnston: Famous China documentary historian and
author. "Our Beloved Shanghai" a slide-illustrated lecture:
Afternoon:
Ollie the Trolley to shopping centers *
Evening: 7:30 - 10 pm
Karaoke Sing-A-Long and Reminiscing: Tell us Your Own Story. Bring your
favorite stories! (No charge but register)
Saturday:
8:00 am - 9:00 am (No charge but you must register)
Find-Old-Friends Breakfast: 9:15 am.
Featured Speaker Frederic "Jim" Silva, noted author and historian:
Our Colonial OCH Heritage . No charge but you must register.
Choice among four tours circulating continuously back to the Resort.
Schedule for Resort departures will be: 10:45 am, 12:15 pm, 1.45 & 3:15 pm.
Last one back at 4:45 ($6 for the day). *
No-Host Bar, 5:30 pm, dinner at 6: p.m.
Evening Banquet: ($42.50 meat, fish & vegetarian delight). Dancing only:
$20.00
7:30 pm
Entertainment: Surprise:
Dancing to DJ Tunes of the 40s and 50s.
Sunday:
8:00 am - 10.00 am ($15)
Joint Farewell Brunch: See separate brochure for all speaker biographies.
331 registrants attended the OCH reunion in Scottsdale, Arizona.
There were only 6 of us from the Weihsien camp. I had attended the Anaheim OCH
reunion in 1990 and noted a much greater emphasis on the many camps than in the
Scottsdale OCH reunion where school affiliations appeared to be more important.
The official photographer took pictures of school reunions but as far as I
could tell none of camp reunions.. This may just reflect the decreasing numbers
of camp survivors.
The Weihsien contingent
Joyce Dorothy (Cooke) Bradbury,
Pamela (Simmons) Masters
Stanley Nordmo
Natasha (Natalie Somova/Somoff) Petersen
Zart (Zartousha" Sanosiam) Portnell
Mary (Shaw) Kuck Wanamaker.
Mu wife who has no China connection, and I thoroughly enjoyed the talks by Dr.
Stoessinger and Frederic "Jim" Silva, and the slide presentation by
Tess Johnston.
Even though we have lived in the Phoenix area for 34 years we learned a lot
about Indian arts and crafts from the illustrated lecture by Sandy Stein. I did
meet everybody in the Weihsien group albeit briefly as we were assigned to 5
different tables. Joyce Dorothy Cooke Bradbury did mention that her memoirs are
not yet in print.
Since we skipped the Friday evening karaoke and story telling session, we do
not know if we missed any Weihsien tales.
On Saturday morning after the talk by Frederic "Jim" Silva, several
in the audience went to the podium and reminisced briefly. Mary Shaw Kuck
Wanamaker recounted how well organized the Weihsien camp was, and how we even
had a hospital on site. She remembered the concerts and plays such as Androcles
and the Lion which had been put on.With all the executive talent in camp, it
was no wonder that the place was so well managed by the internees.
The surprise after the banquet included two dragon dances. After the
professional dancers had demonstrated the movements of the dragon in the second
dance members of the audience who had been born in the year of the dragon were
conscripted to propel the sinuous creature.
We did not attend the Sunday farewell brunch as we were obligated to be
elsewhere.
Regards
Stanley Nordmo
bamboo shoots Natasha Petersen
Oct 28,
2000 05:59 PDT
Hi,
Type in bamboo shoots. You will get two or three chinese dishes and then "
Bamboo Shoots" - Japanese camps. See if this works.
Natasha
Once
More with Feeling...or All Aboard 2
Oct 28, 2000 07:37 PDT
Hi Everyone -- As Natsha said she couldn't open
the attachment on my last e-mail to you, I've saved it to HTML. Hope you
receive it. As I mentioned -- It IS important!
Best love -- Pamela
Dave Allen
Oct 28, 2000 12:45 PDT
Memories
of Kuling,
China 12/15/91 DMA
Raymond,
Paul, and Christopher too
Were
part of the rotating amigos crew
Known
respectfully as chick, piggy and crow to a few.
We
ran and we hiked down many a lane
Playing
capture the flag, finding a new cane
Building
small shacks with bamboo out of the rain.
We
hiked on trails, always going in threes
To
see the immense, renowned, aged three trees
And
to bring back home those exotic gingko leaves.
There
were various kids that came to fame
At
various times we shall remember to name.
To
inquire from Simo about twigs and leaves
To
admire Raymond working with cubs in upper III's
To
flee from Paul's ingenious electrical devices.
To
see Keith win those long distance races.
To
ponder Ridley's name at the top of the class
To
walk behind John Pearce up to Hun Yang pass
To
hear Jim Muir make the piano keys fly
To
watch John Martin splice rope with a flemish eye
To
wish I was as smart as these other guys.
12/15/91 MEMORIES.TXT DMA
The poem refers to Christopher Rowe, David Simpkin, Raymond Moore,
Paul Grant, Keith Butler, Ridley Smith, John Pearce, Jim
Muir, John Martin, and Dave Allen.
After
Internment
Dave Allen
Oct 29, 2000 00:42 PDT
Interlude
between last letter from Weihsien Internment Camp,
Aug. 25, 1945 and starting school again in Shanghai
Sept. 12, 1946
There were no letters written during this time
because I was living with my parents in
Mitu, Yunnan China. I was just 11 at the time and remember the courtyard which was on the wall of the city.
We lived on the left wing of the
courtyard and in the back behind our living quarters was the garden. The
water table was very close to the
surface and the garden could be irrigated by using a long ladle and throwing it over the garden. Human fertilizer
was used and the growth of vegetable
was abundant. We never could eat raw vegetables however. After arriving there a carpenter was called in to make a
bed for me.
The bed was made with twine strung on a wood frame. The bed was much more comfortable than the mattress on the floor
that I had slept for several years.
I remember the many meetings that went on for
hours, but I couldn't understand a word
of it. I listened to the Chinese believers sing "What can wash away my
sin, Nothing but the blood of Jesus." They sang it with such meaning, it affected me. Mitu, Menghwa,
Tali, Erhyuen, Fengi, Tengchuan,
Yunnani, Hongai, Hsiaguan, Bingchuan and Bingchwee were some of the
14 churches that my father visited each
year. We enjoyed 14 Christmas dinners
spread out over a month and a half.
I remember walking to the top of the hill outside
the city on which the goats would be
herded. It was here I learned to sled down the grassy slope on cactus with the
spines cut off of them.
I remember travelling on the horse road to
Menghwa and climbing up into a V in the
mountains and looking down on all those green rice fields. It was while I was in Menghwa that one of the
neighbor girls a little older than
myself decided to teach this foreign kid how to speak Chinese. She
started telling me names for eyes,
nose, teeth, hair, and I tried repeating them after her. My folks tried to teach me geometry and literature but I
think I had the best course of social
study anyone would want. This is when I truly came to love the Chinese people and understand their ways.
I went back to see the compound where I was born
in Tali, and travel down the Erhai Lake
to Tengchwan, Erhyuen and Fengyi. It was here I learned to pole a sampan through the marshes and watch
them butcher pigs in the boiling water
that bubbled out of the ground, and then clean and shave them.
While I was there I made a pop gun of bamboo. The
sections in a piece of bamboo were hollowed out and a rod made to fit down this
barrel. Paper was wadded up and put in
one end and then another placed in the other end and forced out with a loud bang. It was lots of fun to play with.
I remember the power of the medicine man. There was one
occasion when "Red" (the
horse I rode), came down with a lump in its throat. The medicine man gave it tobacco and oil. The next
morning the horse was much improved.
There was another occasion when "Tojo" (the horse my father rode),
came down with a cold and they gave it
some tobacco along with a dried frog ground up.
All I know is that the horses got better quickly and we were on our way.
I remember helping my father shoe the horses, holding
their hooves while he cut back the hoof
before nailing on the shoes. I remember racing the horses along the dike to see which was the fastest. I think Dad's
was fastest but the wind would blow all over the place while we goaded our
horses to a faster gallop.
Dave
Allen dan-@fidalgo.net 10/29/00
WWII,
kitchen #1...Re: China Reunion in Arizona in October
Frank Otto
Oct 30, 2000 11:54 PST
Mary,
Thanks for the WWII info.
Frank
Prison
camp statistics
Dave Allen
Oct 30, 2000 22:26 PST
Hi Weihsien Internees: I've been asked to share
some statistics
about Weihsien
THE
WORLD OF THE CAMP
PRISONER
"There is no training for
being a prisoner of
war!"
7. Stresses of internment:
(Continued)
m.
Poetry:
If you
lock a man up, he will eventually
write
something.
If he has no paper, he will
write
on the
walls of his cell or shirt or back
of
a food
can
label.
n. Humor: This is the pressure
release
valve.
Occupation
therapy for a doctor: Capture
bugs
and
lice, and slip them into Japanese soldier's
huts in
vast
quantities.
In camp
there was always an abundance of
ants,
fleas,
lice and bedbugs. No insect was
loathed
more
than the bedbug.
Stealing
by guards of apples in
camp:
One
inmate who was always having his apple
stolen
by
guards decided to fix them. He took the
urine
from a
sick patient and injected it in near
the
stem of
the apple and placed it under his
pillow
as
usual. When the guard ate the apple he
became
very
sick and was taken off that watch.
That
solved
that
problem.
o. Positive aspects of
internment:
1) I
learned the meaning of
comradeship.
This
is an indefinable bond among those
who
have
lived and suffered
together.
2) It
is not what happened to you
...
its
your
reaction.
3)
Other lessons: patience, thrift, self-sufficiency
the
essence of loyalty, duty, fairness, the mean-
ing
of commitment, solid covenant relationships,
the
value of
freedom.
4)
Courage and tenacity and indomitable
fortitude
are
more than a match for life's most
difficult
challenges.
5)
Their strength was in their ability to look
back
to
their survival during trying times and
gather
the
will to move
forward.
CIVIL INTERNMENT CENTERS:
CHINA
CIC39: Tsingtao Dec. 41-Mar43 --> POW41
Weihsien
CIC40: Chefoo Dec. 41-Mar43
--> POW41
Weihsien
POW41: 1,700 men, women & children from
Peiping, Tientsin
W CIC39 (Tsingtao),
and CIC40 (Chefoo), and
400
E Catholic
Fathers and Sisters in American
mission
I Hospital.
Rows of student rooms were used by
the
H Married
couples and children. Classrooms were
used
S for single
men. Food was prepared in large cauldrons
I in
a central kitchen; the food rations were
adequate.
E The
internees ran a children's school,
dramatic
N society. In
Sept 1943: 300 Americans were exchanged.
12/03/97 PRISON_4.118 DMA
Camp
prisoner Pg 1
Dave Allen
Oct 30, 2000 23:57 PST
THE
WORLD OF THE CAMP
PRISONER
"There is no training for
being a prisoner of
war!"
1. Stresses in being a prisoner of
war:
a. Obeying orders you don't
understand.
b. Living in an emotionally
charged environment
of
hate,
anger, fear,
frustration.
c. You are perceived by captors
as not worth saving.
d. Being riddled with disease;
dysentery,
malaria,
diarrhea,
jaundice.
e. Being ridiculed for your
unhealthy
condition
through
disease.
2. Traits indispensable for
survival:
a. Moral
integrity
b. Love of God and country
c. Aptitude for reading the
captor's
culture.
d. Ability to establish a
tactical
defense.
3. Effects of
hunger:
a. It strips away a false front
and exposes
the
hypocrite.
b. It removes medicate and
reveals the hidden
rock of
noble
character.
4. Two social controls in internment
camps:
a. Captors commands and
regulations
b. Internee
policies.
1)
Feeding of men, women and
children
2)
Growing your own
food.
3)
Collecting private funds for food
purchases.
4)
Individual riches vs. group
riches.
5)
Distribution of left-over
seconds.
(Never
throw out any food)
5. Areas of
cooperation:
a. Work and Health: Joint
responsibility.
1) Men:
carpentry, toilet sanitation,
garbage
disposal,
cooking over hot
cauldrons.
2)
Women: Domestic duties, washing
clothes,
care
of the
sick.
3)
Children: cleaning up dining areas,
making
coal
balls, swatting flies & insects. My record
was
22 at one swat over the garbage outside
kitchen
#1.
b. Recreation, Religion and
Communication:
1)
Recreation; baseball, horseshoe
pitching,
soccer,
dramatics, bridge, poker,
holiday
celebrations.
2)
Religion: Regular church services by
various
religious
groups.
.
3)
Communication: No mail or limited to
150
words
per month on special Red Cross
forms.
12/03/97 PRISON_1.118 DMA
Camp prisoner - Page 2
Dave Allen
Oct 30, 2000 23:57 PST
THE
WORLD OF THE CAMP
PRISONER
"There is no training for
being a prisoner of
war!"
6. Barbed-wire
mentality:
a. A time of mental stress
while being forced
into
a lower
plane of existence (breaking in
period)
b. Recovery of morale and
rearrangement of
shattered
values.
(convalescent
period)
c. Boredom (zombie survival
state)
d. Repatriation
period.
Recipe for barbed wire
mentality:
2 cups of forgiveness | Make it
in prayer to
God
2 spoons of
hope | Need daily
dose to survive
2 cups of
loyalty |
Hope dies without
loyalty
4 cups of
love |
"We're all in this
together"
1 barrel of
laughter | Removes the sting of
hatred
1 spoon of
friendship | Support system for the
weak
4 quarts of
faith |
Looks at possibilities
not
problems.
Take love and loyalty, mix
thoroughly with
faith.
Blend with tenderness, kindness
and
understanding.
Add friendship and hope.
Sprinkle abundantly
with
laughter. Bake it with sunshine
(gratefulness).
Serve daily in generous
helpings.
7. Stresses of
internment:
a. Threats to life and
health:
1)
Assaults by
guards
2)
Starvation
3)
Disease
4)
Threats
Dying
is easy. When desires are thwarted,
life
becomes
meaningless. Its easy to reject
life
and the
pain it brings than to live. One has
to
overcome
the philosophy of "I mean nothing,
there
is
nothing, nothing matters, I live only to
die"
Hope is
the strongest character trait for
survival.
b. Physical
discomforts: These
produce:
1)
Poorly prepared food |
Mental fatigue
2)
Overcrowding |
Irritability
3)
Absence of chairs and beds
|
4)
Exposure to sun and
rain. |
c. Lack of solitude and
privacy
1) Bare
and Naked; stripped of all
veneer.
2) No
place to call your
own.
d. Loss of the means of subsistence
for
families:
Husbands
unable to provide for wives in
foreign
lands.
e. Deprivation of Sexual
satisfaction.
Fear of
infidelity of
spouses.
12/03/97 PRISON_2.118 DMA
Camp
prisoner - Pg 3
Dave Allen
Oct 30, 2000 23:57 PST
THE WORLD OF THE CAMP PRISONER
"There is no training for being a prisoner of war!"
7. Stresses of internment: (Continued)
f. Forced Idleness: these bring about lack of
stimulation of thought and speech.
The past è is brought up in an effort to satisfy thwarted desires of new
experiences.
Thinking of the good times takes the mind off the present predicament.
g. Ridicule and Rejection by fellow prisoners.
The recalcitrant will break under ridicule.
The stubborn rebel will bow before ostracism.
The non-conformist bends to threat of expulsion.
h. Subjection to enemy propaganda:
1) Anecdotes about misdeeds of the captured
2) Misleading news reports - slanted cartoons.
i. Awareness of personal degradation:
1) The good people in camp get better and the bad ones get far, far worse.
2) The Pre-war cultural patterns to which internees had adhered were the most
influential in the adjustment to internment.
3) "Self-respect was one of the essentials to survival.
j. Existence of Rumors:
1) The situation can change for the better with "real news".
a) The "canary"
(secret radio reports)
b) Entrance of new
prisoners with news.
k. Children and Young People: There are very few toys or playthings:
1) Children's concepts are challenged:
Unselfishness
The recognition of Human rights
interdependence.
Fair
play
Strength is in the group rather than in the individual
Honesty
Possessions .
2) Toys are made from stones, sticks, string bottles, empty tin cans, pieces of
glass, acorns, grass.
l. Promotion of Art and Poetry:
1) Impromptu talks, recitals, and concerts.
2) Shakespearean plays.
3) Circus acts.
4) Painting in charcoal, pen and pencil, ink.
5) Weekly or monthly newsletter as paper is available
12/03/97 PRISON_3.118 DMA
Tsingtao, China, Mary Previte... Re:
your mail
Oct 31, 2000
09:36 PST
Jim,
Thanks for using the WW2 Net. We will help you get the info.
Frank
RE:
Tsingtao, China, Mary Previte... Re: your mail
R.W. Bridge
Oct 31, 2000 10:26 PST
Re Tsingtao. This is the City located at 3605N
12010E.
It has a very natural harbour and was originally a Treaty port awarded to
Germany it was captured by the Jpanese during World War 1 and became a Japanese
Naval base. IT has been variously spelt Tsntao Tsingdao, Ching tao and is now
generally known as Quingdao. IT was locate at the end of the Railyamn line that
ran from Tsinan (now Jinan) and Weihsein camp was a fromer US Presbeyterian
Mission Weihsien ids now called Weifang.
Rgds
Ron Bridge
Onetime Weihsien inmate Block 13Room 11
. Also one time Vice Chairman Royal Institute of Navigation London
RE:
short bio
R.W. Bridge
Oct 31, 2000 11:31 PST
Ronald William BRIDGE British Aged 10-12 in
Weihsien lived first in Block 42 Rm 6 then Block 13 Rm 11/12 when the departure
of the US citizens gave a bit more room.
Biogr. Born Tientsin (Tianjin) eldest son Leo and Margo Bridge after Weihisen
spent to 1951 in Tientsin (Tinjin) then to the UK where spent 20 years Flying
in the Royal Air Force then 20 years flying for British Airways charter then an
aviation consultant. Currently Vice President Association of British Internees
Far East regions fighting in parallel with CFIr and Gil hair See our Website
www.abcifer.com
Rgds
Ron Bridge
Re:
Tsingtao, China, Mary Previte... Re: your mail
mtpre-@aol.com
Oct 31, 2000 17:34 PST
Located in north east China, Tsingtao is a
thriving coastal city on the Shandong
penninsula, on the coast not far from Yantai (where I went to school). We called Yantai Chefoo.
I visited Tsingtao in the early 1990s. Visitors can
still see buildings in German
architecture, built when the city was a German business concession.
After Americans in the Office of Strategisc Services
(OSS) liberated the Weihsien (Weifang)
concentration camp in 1945, four members of the rescue team went to Tsingtao to start an American
miltary base there.
James W. Moore could tell you more about that. Moore
was a member of the OSS Weihsien rescue
team who also helped establish the base in Tsingtao. Unfortunately he does not use the computer or e-mail. You may
reach him at 9605 Robin Song Street,
Dallas, TX,
USA 75243 Phone: 214-341-8695
Mary T. Previte
Tsingtao
Birthday
of Weihsien rescuer coming, November 12
mtpre-@aol.com
Oct 31, 2000 18:19 PST
Hello, Weihsien friends:
James J. Hannon, one of the
team who liberated the Weihsien Concentration
Camp, will celebrate his 81st birthday on November 12. If you'd like
to send him a card or a note, you may
reach him at:
James J. Hannon
P. O. Box 1376
Yucca Valley, CA 92286
Phone:760-364-4580
Jim nowadays writes non-stop, drafting screen plays and
polishing manuscripts he has written in
long hand on yellow pads over the last few
years. At least two of his books are available on Amazon.com
Jim made writing his priority after he nearly died from
an injury in an auto accident. After
that accident, Jim and his wife, Gin, moved to
California's high desert to write. Jim writes. Gin types.
Jim Hannon suffered a fall and some health problems
this year.
Mary T. Previte
bio of
Stan Thompson
Natasha Petersen
Nov 02, 2000 09:49 PST
I was born in Chanxi in 1932. My parents were
missionaries (from Ireland) with the CIM, and I started at the Chefoo Schools
(in Yentai) in the autumn of 1938. My father was in West China for the
duration, but my mother was visiting Chefoo at the time of Pearl Harbor, so she
was packed off with a school full of children (including 4 of her own) too
Temple Hill in Chefoo; and from there we were all shipped to CAC Weishien in
1942, and were there until (?) September 1945
access
to archives
Natasha Petersen
Nov 02, 2000 09:52 PST
To read previous messages go to: www.topica.com/lists/weihsien/read
I hope that everyone is able to access the archives. In addition, please do not
forget a short bio sent to everyone.
Natasha
Eve
Goldsmith's books about Weihsien and China
mtpre-@aol.com
Nov 02, 2000 18:10 PST
It is very interesting hearing about
other people who have written about our
experiences in Chefoo and Weihsien. Perhaps I could mention the two
books I have written which tell a good
deal about my family's experiences.
I wrote GOD CAN BE TRUSTED some years ago but it is still selling well. It is my autobiography and starts with our
exciting liberation from Weihsien and
then has several chapters flash-back to say how we got there and what
camp life was like. It continues with
how God led my husband Martin and myself
into missionary work in Asia and highlights the theme of God's
faithfulness.
ROOTS AND WINGS is the saga of five generations of our family who were all called to be missionaries. It starts in 1846
with Greatgrandpapa and his wife
sailing from the States to India (it took them 4 months at sea!).
Through tracing each generation the
history of world mission in the last 150 years
comes over in a very readable form. The description of my parents' work
in China from 1913-1945 gives many
fascinating insights into life in China at
that period, the tremendous obstacles they were up against and
their forward-thinking plans for the
local church.
Both books are published by OM/Paternoster and are available from
OM PO Box 1047, Waynesboro, GA 30830 - 2047, USA
Paternoster PO Box 300 Kingstown
Broadway, Carlisle CA3 0QS England
Please would you send these details to everyone on your Chefoo email list? Thank you so much - I think many people
might be interested to get hold of
them.
Many thanks for all you do Elizabeth Goldsmith
news
from Topica
Natasha Petersen
Nov 03, 2000 09:51 PST
As many of you might have
realized from our list address, we use the free services of a company called
Topica to host this list. In addition to providing the email hosting services
that we use, Topica offers a broad range of newsletters, tips, and discussions,
as well as tools, such as searchable archives and "vacation hold,"
that help you manage your email list subscriptions. Over the next several weeks
Topica will be sending you a message directly, highlighting the tools and content
available on their site. I encourage you to explore Topica (at http://www.topica.com). Not only are you likely to find some great email content, but this will also help Topica
continue to offer the great free list
hosting service that we enjoy. Thanks!
Re:
Tsingtao, China, Mary Previte... Re: your mail
David Birch
Nov 06, 2000 20:41 PST
To Jim, Frank, Stanley and Mary et al,
On looking up the listing of the city in the World Book Atlas of the World (World
Book Inc Chicago 1990),
I see that it is shown in the alphabetical index under both spellings (Qingdao
and Tsingtao) and that the former is the current one. I remember that when when many of us stayed there after the war,
we pronounced the name 'Chingdow' with the second syllable rhyming with the
word 'now.' Or with the whole name rhyming with the Chinese expression for
'very good.' (I don't know how one would spell that in English but I suppose it
might be 'Dinghao.') Qingdao is shown as having the following geographical
coordinates: 36.05N 120.21 E.
Sincerely,
David Birch (George David Birch)
(Chefoo Yentai, Temple Hill, Weihsien - 1938 to 1945)
Oh, and I must not forget to wish you a happy birthday, Stan Nordmo. Am I right
in recalling from Temple Hill that your birthday occurs on November the
twenty-eighth. If I am right, I think it must be because of the fact that that
was also Miss B.M. Stark's birthday. She was one of my very favourite teachers.
As a little boy, I loved her dearly, and still revere her memory. I was always
in her 'holiday family' over those long two-month winter holidays, except for
my first Christmas holidays (winter of
1938-1939) when Ramsay Longdon and I were bunked in the same cabin with Miss
Foucarr (sp?) and sailed down the coast; I to Shanghai for Christmas with
family members and Ramsay I don't remember where.
--- Stanley Nordmo <snor-@sd.amug.org> wrote:
Dear Jim
The current name of Tsingtao is Qingdao.. Regards Stan Nordmo
Jim,
Thanks for using the WW2 Net. We will
help you get the info.
Frank
On Mon, 30 Oct 2000, DAVISSON,JIM (HP-Boise,ex1) wrote:
Frank
Hope you are having a fine Navy Day. I've read several of the emails on your
network which refer to Tsingtao in
China. I have been unable to locate
that city on the current maps of China.I was wondering if Mary
Previte would be able to shed any light on what the name of that city is today.
Thank You
Jim Davisson
Re: Tsingtao, China, Mary Previte... Re: your mail
Stanley Nordmo
Nov 07, 2000 00:18 PST
To David and all
Thanks for the birthday greetings and your memories of Miss B. M. Stark whose
birthday did indeed coincide with mine. She exhibited infinite patience while
tutoring me so I could catch up to the rest of my class in the Prep. School.
In 1939 our family celebrated Christmas in Tsingtao at the China Inland Mission
home which was managed by Rev. & Mrs. Glittenberg. My next stay in Tsingtao
was right after evacuation by train from Weihsien.in 1945. I had the misfortune
of being a typhoid casualty and spent some time in the local hospital where the
treatment consisted of the latest sulfa drugs, the wonder drugs of that day.
Christmas in Norway in 1946 was our first complete family reunion after the one
in Tsingtao in 1939..
The pin yin Qingdao transcription has the same pronunciation we used for
Tsingtao
and you transliterated as 'Chingdow' with 'dow' rhyming with the English 'now'
The pin yin for 'dinghao' is 'tinghao' with the first and second syllables
both in the third tone. The 't' in ting is pronounced as 't' and not 'd'
according to the instructor in "HyperChina" an interactive Chinese
language course. Pin yin is the official Mandarin transcription used in
mainland China. David Beard is the real sinologist in our midst.
Regards
Stanley Nordmo
Re:
Eve Goldsmith's books about Weihsien and China Joseph R Cooke
Nov
07, 2000 17:13 PST
Would you please take my name off your e-mail
list. I don't even begin to have the time to read it all, much les reply or
make my own comment.
Joe Cooke
HMG Statement
this day
R.W. Bridge
Nov 07, 2000
14:01 PST
Herewith text of a statement in the House of
Commons we are trying to really establish what they mean re Britons in Camps
but now living out of the UK. Get your old Congressman/woman or Senator to go
out with a question what is the US Govt going to do.
Japanese
POWs
Beard
Nov 07, 2000 22:32 PST
I copied the following from the BBC web site.
Margaret Beard
----------------------------------------------------
BBC NEWS Tuesday, 7 November, 2000, 18:19
GMT
Former servicemen imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II are to receive
compensation of £10,000 each.
A similar sum will go to the spouses of those who have died.
The announcement, made by defence minister Lewis Moonie was welcomed by PoW
groups and the opposition.
Prime Minister Tony Blair also paid tribute to former British PoWs.
Speaking to a group of veterans after the announcement, he said: "This and
future generations must never forget their suffering or their contribution to
our country.
"This is, for me and my generation and those younger, just one small but
significant way in which we can say to you `Thank you for your courage and
thank you for what you did'."
Mr Blair said the one-off ex-gratia payment would go to 16,700 former PoWs or
the spouses of those who have died.
Making an exception
Earlier, Dr Moonie told the Commons that it had been the policy of successive
governments not to make payments in such circumstances.
The government was making an exception for the groups held by the Japanese
"in recognition of the unique circumstances of their captivity".
He said in his brief statement: "We believe the country owes a debt of
honour to them."
"Those who will be entitled to receive this payment, are former members of
Her Majesty's Armed Forces, who were made prisoners of war, former members of
the merchant navy, who were captured and imprisoned, and British civilians, who
were interned."
Certain other former military personnel in the colonial forces would also be
eligible.
Unique experience
To further cheers, Dr Moonie said the payments will not be taxable and would
not be taken into account for benefits.
They will be paid "as quickly as possible," with all the appropriate
arrangements expected to be in place by February.
"The government recognises that many UK citizens, both those serving in
the armed forces and civilians, have had to endure great hardship at different
times and in different circumstances.
"But the experience of those who went into captivity in the Far East
during the Second World War was unique.
"We've said before that the country owes a debt of honour to them. I hope
I'm speaking for everyone here when I say that today, something concrete has
been done to recognise that debt," the minister said.
Of the 50,016 British military personnel taken captive by the Japanese 12,433
died or were killed in captivity.
The survivors have campaigned for years for extra compensation for the horrors
they endured.
Japan says the issue was settled when it made a token payment of £76 (the
equivalent of £1,200 today) to the servicemen in the early 1950s, and has
refused to meet their demands for further compensation and an apology.
The compensation payments announced today will cost £100m.
Better late than never
The chairman of the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors' Association, Arthur
Titherington, said the UK Government's action was a case of "better late
than never".
But he said the veterans would continue to seek an apology from Japan.
Mr Titherington said: "Today is a great day. The British Government has
shown that it has fully understood the importance of these issues to today's
society.
"My only disappointment is that the real culprits, that is the Japanese
Government, has got away scot-free.
"The least they can do is recognise the gross errors of its past which it
can do by providing a full, unequivocal apology," he said.
Dinghao
and Tinghao
Beard
Nov 08, 2000 02:03 PST
Hello, all you Weihsien list
sinophiles, nihao!
I've been quiet over the past month or two, owing to pressing
'business'. However, it's no doubt time to be heard again. I note that Stanley
has commented that I am "the real sinologist in our midst".
'Sinologist' being 'an expert in or student of sinology', I suppose that I
qualify for the latter, in that I have been a student of Chinese language-both
Cantonese and Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin)- for many years. But the one
really qualified to be called an expert is Jim Taylor.
Both ding3hao3 and ting3hao3, as they are written in the
current pinyin phonetic system used by the PRC today, mean 'very good'. Ding3
has numerous meanings, one of which is 'very, most, extremely'. Ting3 is listed
as meaning 'very, rather, quite'.
I lost all ability to speak Chinese quite early on at Chefoo,
largely because I never got back to Jiangsi province where my CIM parents were
stationed and probably also owing to the way we were discouraged from talking
to the servants. I recall that after liberation from Weihsien all I remembered
was - strangely enough - a very virulent Shandong swearword term referring to
someone's mother-in-law's private parts which I must have heard used a lot by
the coolies and a little ditty which went: 'Hai2you3 (or possibly it was
hai2yao4) man2tou, haiyou shui3, haiyou mantou, wei4, wei, wei.' Mantou is
steamed bread and shui of course is water. At least I can do a bit better than
that now!
Regards,
David Beard
Re:
Dinghao and Tinghao
Frank Otto
Nov 08, 2000 10:54 PST
David,
WW2 Net thanks you for the info.
Frank
RE:
HMG Statement
R.W. Bridge
Nov 08, 2000 13:29 PST
Wendy please pass on to Gil Hair I seem to have
the wrong address.
1. HMGs statement is on www.parliament.uk then click House of Commons and then
Publications. Statement by the Minister is on column 160 of 7th Nov beginning
at 03:30pm.
2. The UK War Pensions Agency is handling matters and are publishing the way
they are handling it on www.dss.gov.uk/wpa/index.htm This gives overseas
telephone line as +44 1253 866043. They propose publishing a claim form on
their web site shortly. Regarding civilians payment is Surviving civilians who
are UK nationals and who were interned by the Japanese in the Far East during
the Second world War and the surviving widow or widower of a deceased person
who would otherwise have been entitled
POW,
Jap, ...RE: HMG Statement
Frank Otto
Nov 09, 2000 12:50 PST
R.W.,
Thanks for the info.
Frank, WW2 Net
Re: Shandong delegation
mtpre-@aol.com
Nov 11, 2000 17:56 PST
November
11, 2000
Hello, Everyone,
What an amazing experience I had yesterday! At the
University of New Haven (Connecticut),
I spoke to a group that included a large delegation of municipal leaders from Shandong who are
studying there. Among them was a former
mayor of Weifang, an official from Yantai, and another from Qingdao.
The University of New Haven's Dean of Graduate studies
invited me to speak there after he
heard the National Public Radio broadcast in May about the liberation of Weihsien. He said he
thought that the Shandong students
would feel more connected to America if they met an American who had
lived in Shandong.
Some of those in the Shandong delegation told me they
know the exact location of the
concentration camp. The official from Yantai (Chefoo) confirmed that the former Chefoo School is now a military
base. By the way, he
told me that Yantai now has a population of 6 million!
I told this group the whole miracle story of Weihsien
and our liberation.
I wish you could have watched the ripple of delight
when I mentioned Weihsien, Yantai,
Qingdao. And you should have seen the smiles when I used words like
gao-liang, bao-bay, poo-gai.
You can guess it: Flash bulbs popping, cam
corders rolling, business cards
changing hands. What a hug-the-world
experience! As a thank you
gift they presented me a lovely box of Peking opera masks.
I told them everything I could about Eddie
"Cheng-Han" Wang, who was the
Chinese interpreter on the mission to liberate Weihsien. He's the only
one of the rescue team whom I have not
tracked down. I'm still looking. They
guessed that if Mr. Wang was fluent in English, he would most likely be
in the USA now.
They were fascinated at my piece of parachute silk,
embroidered with the rescue scene --
the B-24 bomber, the seven parachutes dropping from the plane, and the camp's church steeple below.
Each member of the rescue team
autographed the silk next to his parachute embroidered on the scene.
Yesterday, members of the audience passed the embroidered silk from hand
to hand. I had brought the embroidery
along as my "show-and-tell." The widow of Peter Orlich, the youngest of the rescue team, gave me this
treasure after I tracked her down in
1997. She and I are still trying to find out who embroidered this amazing memento. A woman in the camp gave it to
Peter
Orlich as a goodby gift when Peter left for Qingdao in late August 1945.
Pete Orlich's widow says she thinks Peter said a White Russian woman gave
it to him. Does anyone know anything
about this embroidery? In addition to the
embroidery, I have a pattern of the picture on the embroidery. That
makes me think that other women may
have embroidered this scene, using this same
pattern.
What a day! Believe me, I don't usually travel three
hours by train to tell this story and
then travel three hours back, but this was worth giving a day.
Mary Previte
Re:
Shandong delegation
David Birch
Nov 12, 2000 05:09 PST
Dear Mary Taylor Previte, et al,
What an utterly amazing story! May God richly bless you, and continue to
encourage you as he uses you to bring people together!
You have been and are a source of blessing and encouragement to the undersigned
Chefoo School alumnus and I truly thank God for you, Mary!
I have the privilege to have inherited a number of my father, missionary George
Alfred Birch's books, among them the Chinese Bible he used for years, and also
his copies of the two-volume biography of your great-grandfather, James Hudson
Taylor.
Just a few years ago, probably about four or five years, actually, I ploughed
through these massive tomes written by
Howard Taylor and his wife, Geraldine Guinness Taylor. What a thrilling
privilege to 'share' the adventure of such a life! What a mighty man of God!
What a truly inspired work of God!
(Jim H.Taylor, Herbert's grandson, if you get to read this note, though I've
not contacted you until now, I recall you from the camp at Weihsien where we
lived for a while in a most
impressionable time in our young lives. We did have a difficult time. I think
an awful lot was expected of you, as a great-grandchild of Hudson Taylor and
bearer of his name. But over the years, I believe, you have, by the grace of
God, met the challenge.)
Mary, keep up the good work - but don't overdue it. At the rate you seem to be
going - a 'mile a minute' I think the expression used to be (when sixty miles
an hour was considered 'high speed"), you could burn out. Please be
careful - we're going to need you for a long time yet - if we have a 'long
time' to look forward to (eschatologically speaking, of course). Well, I'm
rambling, so I'll quit for now!
Sincerely,
David Birch
(G. David Birch)
Re:
Shandong delegation
Pamela Masters
Nov 12, 2000 17:30 PST
Dear David Birch --
I echo your sentiments regarding Mary Previte -- she is a gem! And
Mary...listen to David, that's sound advice -- don't burn yourself out!
By the way, David, are you related to John Birch??? I have always admired him
and hated to see that ultra-conservative, right wing group use his name for for
their organization. I read an astounding bio of his, but loaned the book to
someone, and, as usual, forgot to write down the name. You do know, that he had
a covert radio relay station just miles south of Weihsien throughout most of
the war, and guided our downed pilots and crew to safety, and three days after
hostilities ceased he was stabbed or bayoneted to death by a group of
Communists, hence the Birch Society using his name as the first martyr to
communism.
Take care of yourselves -- both of you.
Best always -- Pamela
Re:
Shandong delegation
David Birch
Nov 16, 2000 07:49 PST
Dear Pamela,
Thank you for your welcome e-note! How pleasant to receive a response from you!
Especially as it was unexpected.
Pamela, although both John Birches lived in China, my brother, whom you will
find mentioned by Dave Allen in one of the remarkable indexes he has provided
for his Weihsien letters sent to his parents in 'free China,' my brother, that
is, was only eleven years old in 1945 at the end of hostilities. I, who was thirteen going on fourteen at
War's end, was really bless'd to have John with me in the camp! I can recall
walking with him of an evening around the promenade in the park behind Block 23
or was it 24, the building with the bell tower. John and the other
Prepschoolers lived downstairs there in a couple of large rooms. Miss Carr and,
I think, Miss Stark, had rooms adjacent to those of the children.
May God bless you, Pamela! And it was so good of you to drop me a line.
Very sincerely,
David Birch
G. David Birch
Re:
Shandong delegation
Stanley Nordmo
Nov 16, 2000 20:52 PST
Dear Pamela
Add my plaudits to the chorus for Mary Taylor Previte, as well as the wise
caution regarding burn out.
The book you read about John Birch may have been The Secret File on John Birch,
by James and Marti Hefley, Hannibal, MO: Hannibal Books, 1995, 203 pages,
paperback. (The authors had access to recently declasssified files)
Birch's daring exploits in China are gratefully summarized in Claire Lee
Chennault, Way of a Fighter: The Memoirs of Claire Lee Chennault, ed. Robert
Hotz (1949), and in James H. Doolittle, with Carroll V. Glines, I Could Never
Be So Lucky Again (1991).
Regards
Stanley Nordmo
B-24, rescue team, Aug 1945, Mary
Previte...Re: Shandong delegation
Frank
Otto
Nov
16, 2000 22:40 PST
Mary,
WW2 Net thanks you for the information.
Frank
Nepal
encounter
Beard
Nov 16, 2000 23:20 PST
Our son who is in Nepal at the moment, met an
American called Christiana Cooke while he was trekking. She said that her uncle
was interned in Chefoo (I assume that means Weihsien) and her father was born
in China. Can anyone identify the
family?
David Beard
Re: Camp prisoner - Pg 3
David Birch
Nov 16, 2000 23:54 PST
Dear Dave,
Clear and concise. Excellent work. In your original, would you have footnotes
to this material?
Some of the training for being an internee, for me at any rate at ages ten to
thirteen (nearly fourteen) years of age, was contained in long (and helpful)
series of meditations or presentations on the Israelites in Egypt and their
situation both before and following that l o n g captivity.
Mrs. Dunachie, the mother of several boys who were with us at the Chefoo School
shortly before we were interned by the Japanese, was our guest speaker at
morning 'Prayers' in the Prep School. She spoke on this subject I have recalled
(the memory is now just an impression, but a good one). Then in 1942, Alfie
Binks, and I and our classmates who were moving from Upper One to Second Form
(thus from the Prep to the Boys' School), received more of the same topic as
our saintly old headmaster, Mr. P. A.
Bruce, led us day after day in worship, first at the Boys's School and then in
the big Center House at the Temple Hill Camp (formerly home to medical doctors
and their families in the old Presbyterian Mission days).
Also, when a cluster of us boys in the attic, where we lived, gathered around
another wonderful man who had a lasting impact for good and for God upon our
lives, we asked this much-respected schoolmaster of ours, "What would
happen if the Japanese won the war?"
I clearly recall today Mr. Houghton's confident reply, "The Japanese won't
win the war." "But what would happen IF they won the war?" we
persisted. "The Japanese WON'T win the war," repeated Mr. Houghton.
"But JUST SUPPOSE they DID win the war!" (We weren't ready to give
up.) "Mr. Houghton's quiet reply to this third query was a simple repeat
of his first two replies:
Quietly but firmly, 'THE JAPENESE WILL NOT WIN THE WAR!'
I believe that all of us went to bed
that night in that two-large-room attic apartment in the comfy old house on the
hill comfortably convinced that the Allies were going to win the war!
Do you recall singing with Mr. Houghton leading us, "God is our Refuge,
Our Refuge and our Strength!"?
And "God is Still on the Throne, And He will take care of His Own!"
And "The Lord is My Strength and Song, And He is Become my
Salvation!"
And "The Lord hath need of me."
And "Only an armour bearer."
And "Dare to be a Daniel."
And so many other faith-building choruses and hymns!!!
Our Christian culture, and training and the example of parents, teachers and
one another even was such a help to us.
Two of the older boys whose example helped me particularly were: JIMMY BRUCE
and ROLAND STEDEFORD.
Also John Andrews and his brother. Jimmy Harrison was another boy who really
encouraged me. He was three or four years older than I, I think. Alfie Binks's
brother, Tommy, took me for a long walk one day at Temple Hill, and cheerfully
encouraged me to be a truly
"committed" Christian. I have always remembered that walk and
that talk with gratitude. Miss Monica Priestman, while a tad strict, was
another good influence on my young life just prior to internment. I've had to
learn to 'forgive' her for some strictness that may not have been entirely
necessary, but the discipline I learned to accept under her tutelage probably
helped me a lot to bear the discipline of camp life cheerfully.
Some of my happiest boyhood memories are of those days in internment.
To any of you who have watched Bob Crane, the American actor in the TV series,
Hogan's Heroes, some of our experiences at Temple Hill and Weihsien may
bear a similarity. Remember Sgt Bu
Shing! Remember King Kong! Not complimentary nicknames - but certainly
nicknames that helped us to see our imprisonment with some humour.
Must run
now, gotta get to work in Point Grey tonight!
Warmest regards
David Birch
(G.David Birch)
China,
POW,...Re: Shandong delegation
Frank Otto
Nov 17, 2000 02:53 PST
David,
Thanks for the info.
Frank
Re: Nepal
encounter
Stanley Nordmo
Nov 17, 2000 11:33 PST
Dear David
That would have to be Joseph R. Cooke, who was only in Weihsien a short while
before being repatriated to America... So the reference to his having been
interned in Chefoo would be corrrect, since Weihsien was but a week long
stopover . His older brother is David B. Cooke had already graduated from
school in Chefoo, so was not interned.
Regards
Stanley Nordmo
Re: Nepal
encounter
Nov 17, 2000 11:37 PST
David:
Joyce and Eddie Cooke were the daughter and son of Ed and Vera Cooke. They
lived in Block 2 or 3, the same block where our family lived in the camp.
Joyce and Eddie live in Australia now. I can't figure out how Eddie could be
Christina's uncle, however, as Eddie and his sister were the only offspring.
Perhaps the Cookes will see this exchange and clear the matter up. They were
from Tsingtao.
Albert de Zutter
Re:
Nepal encounter
Nov 17, 2000 19:17 PST
Thanks Stanley, this fits in with the data I
was given.
David
Re:
Nepal encounter
Nov 17, 2000 19:20 PST
Thanks for the suggestion Albert. I think it's
more likely to be the Cookes that Stanley Nordmo mentioned as his Cookes fit my
data.
David
RE:
Nepal encounter
Nov 17, 2000 19:21 PST
Here is a picture from Chefoo (probably 1941)
of a bunch of lads hoisting Jack Bell
in celebration of his victory (in a foot race). In trying to name the five faces below, the best I can do is:
L>R, Hayman, Cooke, (? ) , Robin
Hoyte, (?) .
Speaking of Cookes, was this Joseph R. Cooke ? and if so, was Athene Cooke his kid sister ?
-
Stan Thompson –
RE:
Nepal encounter
Nov 17, 2000 23:06 PST
Dear Stan Thompson
Athene Cook had two brothers, Calvin and Luther Cook. They were the Cooks minus
the e.
Joseph R. Cooke had an older brother David B. Cooke..
In November 1938 Joseph was in class !VA when I was in class
11A. His brother David was in class V!A.
Luther Cook was in my class while his brother Calvin Cook was in the same class
as David Cooke..
I am not sure who is in the picture besides Hayman and Robin Hoyte.. If it
isn't Joseph Cooke, it might be David Harris who was in the same class as Bell.
. Regards
Stan Nordmo.
RE:
Nepal encounter
R.W. Bridge
Nov 17, 2000 13:35 PST
Re the Cooke family from what I have read from
exchanges there is a danger of two or more families being muddled. From the
list of inmates of Weihsien The following emerge with the surname COOKE
Cooke E J British <1898> M Company Employee Tientsin
Cooke V Mrs British <1909> F Housewife Tientsin
Cooke Joyce D Miss British <1928> F Student TientsinGrammarSch
Cooke Edward J C British <1932> M Child TientsinGrammarSch
Cooke Robert (Bob) J British <1902> M Office Employee Tientsin
Cooke F V Mrs British <1908> F Housewife Tientsin
Cooke Margaret V Miss British <1936> F Child TientsinGrammarSch
Cooke Joseph R American M Student Chefoo School
Cooke E J British <1876> M Company Employee
The American Joseph R Cooke was in Chefoo School moved to Weihsien and almost
immediately evacuated, in Sep 1943. He is listed as arriving in New York on the
SS Gripsholm and in the NY Times of October 14 1944 shown as landing and that
his home town was San Jose California. His age is unknown but was probably 12 +
or - 3 years. In printing the names above I have cut off relationships but they
tend to list down as families. E J and RJ were well known Ice Hockey players
for Tientsin (Tianjin for those with modern maps) in their spare time I believe
they went to Australia with their families post war. I am building up a data of
all British Civilians in the Far East Camps and also everybody that ever went
near Weihsien of what nationality. If anyone would like to let me have anything
to add to the data base either publish it on this Weihsien chat line or send to
rwbr-@freeuk.com if you want to mail let me know and I will send postal
address. I may not get back to you straight away as I am very busy re the
British Governments decision to pay those that were in Japanese Camps published
last week.
Rgds
Ron Bridge
For
those in Kuling
Nov 18, 2000 14:21 PST
Events
at Chefoo School in Kuling Sep 1948
08/31/48...Allen family arrives in Kuling to go back to school.
08/31/48...Gordon Allen & Dave sleeping in Martin House until resettled.
08/31/48...Peter Gray and Glen Nelson are my roommates in Martin House.
09/04/48...Raymond, Paul, Christopher and I go for hike up Monkey Ridge.
09/04/48...Martin house boarders had an indoor picnic.
09/06/48...Students receive class schedule for next term. My schedule...
............Mon........Tue..........Wed.............Thu........Fri............Sat
0910...Script.....Eng Lit ...Eng Lang...Script....Math........Math
0955...Math.......Science...History.... ..Math......Science...Eng Lit
1100...Latin.......Latin.........Science.....Latin......Latin.........Science
1145...French...French.....Math...........French...French....Geography
1230...to...1330 Dinner
1400...Eng Lan...Singing.....Off........Chinese..Singing....Off
1445...Eng His....Geog.........Off........Craft.........Art.............Off
1530...Chinese...Math..........Off........Craft..........Art............Off
1615...Sports......Sports.......Off........Sports......Sports.....Off
1700...to...1800 Supper
1800...to...1900 Play time
........................Homework Schedule....................
.............Mon.........Tue.........Wed.........Thu..............Fri.............Sat
1900...Science...Math.......Englit.......Hist..............Latin........Off
1930...Latin.........Scrip......Science...Geog...........French.....Off
2000...Math.........French...Math.........EngLang...Science....Off
2100...Off to bed.
Saturday evenings are for student concerts, special events.
09/02/48...Glen loaned me book "Austin Boys Adrift" to read.
10/02/48...Upper School boys hike to Paradise Pools and swim.
10/05/48...Mr Hayes, Old Chefooite (1905) shows pictures of USA.
10/06/48...Students given initial shots of tetanus.2 More before Nov.
10/07/48...Jeffrey family arrives in Kuling to start school.
10/07/48...Austin family arrives in Kuling to start school.
10/07/48...Boys get new soccer boots and play first game.
10/08/48...Students have 1/2 term tests.
10/08/48...Their team wins first game.
10/09/48...Our team beats them this time.
10/09/48...Mr Welch, school teacher from Weihsien show pictures.
10/09/48...Those pictures are of Bob Mathias in the Olympiad.
10/09/48...Boys find swimming pool filled with leaves and green scum.
10/11/48...Ruth Allen ends up in sickbay.
Weihsien
- Kuling -3
Nov 18, 2000 21:01 PST
...........November 1948 at Chefoo Schools in Kuling.
11/07/48...Seven table boys and two women sent away ...
...................$4 and œ12 = 1 Gold Yuen
11/07/48...My job is to wash up dishes after supper.
11/09/48...Kuling Chefoo school played Chinese Kuling school soccer,
...................Score 2 - 0 our favor but they did not have soccer boots.
11/13/48...Ruth Allen has just received her glasses she was waiting for.
11/13/48...Mr Carlburg showed pictures of N.E. USA
11/14/48...Christopher, Paul and I go to Nanking Pass on a hike.
11/14/48...Mr Martin spoke on "Slavery and Freedom"
11/18/48...Took our final exams
11/20/48...Desks piled up and space made for home room for holidays
..................We played spin the platter, Charades
11/22/48...Upper IV boys presented concert
11/22/48...I acted in play "The Miller, his sons and their donkey."
11/23/48...On Thanksgiving we had turkey...arrived 11:40 ...gone 1:40
11/26/48...We had our first snowfall.
11/27/48...John Pearce and I go up Monkey Ridge...Snow .75 to 1.5 "
11/28/48...Telephone wires are covered with ice
11/28/48...Upper Boys and Girls go to Monument past the Gap; 30 or
...................more telephone poles are down
11/28/48...Listened to the "Messiah" played on the gramophone.
11/29/48...Girls from Bruce House move into McCarthy to conserve heat.
12/01/48...We started playing field hockey. My Houghton and Mr Brailey
...................play on different sides.
12/02/48...Those not going home for the holidays go on hike to Lion's
Leap. It is very steep at the top and there is a precipice there. Mr
Houghton, Mr Brailey, Mr Conway, Miss Elliott and Miss Dixon were the
teachers that went along. On the side of the precipice were some
characters carved in stone telling of the person who was the first to go
there. He had endured great ilness because of rain, so he erected a
pavilion and a kiosk so that others coming up might have the pleasure of
these things. There were caves there but we were not allowed to go into
them because it was too dangerous. On the way home we yodeled and listened
to our echoes.
12/04/48...It was Ruth Allen's birthday. The cake was delicious.
12/04/48...We had our last shots for tetanus.
12/05/48...Mr Houghton gave us three verses to memorize. Ps.119:67,71,75.
12/05/48...I've read about 4 - 5 books since holidays started.
12/05/48...Lowest temp last week: 23 Fahrenheit; This week: 57 degrees.
12/06/48...Holiday time we are exploring downstream from Kuling and hiking
all over the mountains. We have been singing Christmas Carols, wrapping
Christmas presents, listening to readings by the teachers. LIstened to
"39 Steps" by John Buchan; I've been reading "Greenmantle";
now its "The
Three Hostages"
Weihsien
- Kuling 2
Nov 18, 2000 21:01 PST
...........October 1948 at Chefoo schools in Kuling..............
10/02/48...Upper School boys hike to Paradise Pools and swim.
10/05/48...Mr Hayes, Old Chefooite (1905) shows pictures of USA.
10/06/48...Students given initial shots of tetanus.2 More before Nov.
10/07/48...Jeffrey family arrives in Kuling to start school.
10/07/48...Austin family arrives in Kuling to start school.
10/07/48...Boys get new soccer boots and play first game.
10/08/48...Students have 1/2 tern tests.
10/08/48...Their team wins first game.
10/09/48...Our team beats them this time.
10/09/48...Mr Welch, school teacher from Weihsien show pictures.
10/09/48...Those pictures are of Bob Mathias in the Olympiad.
10/09/48...Boys find swimming pool filled with leaves and green scum.
10/10/48...Paul and David take observations at MOP: max, min,
10/11/48...Ruth ends up in sickbay.
10/17/48...Observations + wet bulb and rain for 1 week.
...................6.30..W.B. 6.30..W.B....Rain...Rain
OCT......Min..Max..a.m...a.m..p.m...p.m....a.m....p.m
Sun 10...51...76...61....52...59....50.....0
Mon 11...59...79...60....55...60....53.....0
Tue 12...56...66...58....56...52....50.....0
Wed 13...46...50...49....47...49....48.... .75... .25
Thu 14...47...55...50....49...50....50.... 0..... .05
Fri 15...44...65...49....47...56......52.......0
Sat 16...47...64...52....48...52............
Sun 17...51........50.......................
10/17/48...Boys & servants dig up potato patch to make basketball court.
10/19/48...Table servants get into hubbub, strike and leave.
10/19/48...Upper school boys and girls, serve tables,
...........wash and dry dishes.
10/21/48...I'm reading a book "Twelve Famous Evangelists".
10/23/48...Mr Joyce showed us pictures of Palestine.
10/24/48...Mr Joyce spoke about the Moslems and their religion.
10/24/48...Children wake up with spots on faces...chickenpox
10/24/48...Dorothy Allen is one of them.
11/02/48...We celebrate our monthly holiday
The
Upper Boys were divided into two teams. The team I was in set a trail with chalk marks, sticks,
stones and using our symbol an arrow with an "R" at the side. We did
this so we would know if the Chinese had set a false trail and were monkeying
with our trail. After a prearranged time the second team followed. We watched
them with field glasses. When they
found us we split up into four groups. Mr Brailey was our chef. Mr Martin, Mr Brailey and Dr Pearce were the adult
supervisors.
We had boiling hot soup, some sandwiches, two or three squirt (tiny) oranges, and 2-3 candies. We had to clean up
our fireplaces, so we buried it and
covered it with a large clod of grass. After lunch we played attackers and defenders. It was our job to take their flag
and get back to our fireplace before
they swiped our tails. In our little
group was Paul Grant, Freddy Wilhelm, Alan Moore and myself. We
were the attackers first. When the time
was up and it was their turn to be
attackers they said it was our small regiment that had turned their
hairs gray. We had disappeared and they lost track of us. We were only 100 yards from the flag when the whistle blew
for us to change.
Weihsien
- Kuling 3
Nov 18, 2000 21:02 PST
...........November 1948 at Chefoo Schools in Kuling.
11/07/48...Seven table boys and two women sent away ... ...........$4 and œ12 =
1 Gold Yuen
11/07/48...My job is to wash up dishes after supper.
11/09/48...Kuling Chefoo school played Chinese Kuling school soccer,
...........Score 2 - 0 our favor but they did not have soccer boots.
11/13/48...Ruth Allen has just received her glasses she was waiting for.
11/13/48...Mr Carlburg showed pictures of N.E. USA
11/14/48...Christopher, Paul and I go to Nanking Pass on a hike.
11/14/48...Mr Martin spoke on "Slavery and Freedom"
11/18/48...Took our final exams
11/20/48...Desks piled up and space made for home room for holidays
..........We played spin the platter, Charades
11/22/48...Upper IV boys presented concert
11/22/48...I acted in play "The Miller, his sons and their donkey."
11/23/48...On Thanksgiving we had turkey...arrived 11:40 ...gone 1:40
11/26/48...We had our first snowfall.
11/27/48...John Pearce and I go up Monkey Ridge...Snow .75 to 1.5 "
11/28/48...Telephone wires are covered with ice
11/28/48...Upper Boys and Girls go to Monument past the Gap; 30 or
...........more telephone poles are down
11/28/48...Listened to the "Messiah" played on the gramophone.
11/29/48...Girls from Bruce House move into McCarthy to conserve heat.
12/01/48...We started playing field hockey. My Houghton and Mr Brailey
...........play on different sides.
12/02/48...Those not going home for the holidays go on
hike to Lion's Leap. It is very steep
at the top and there is a precipice there. Mr
Houghton, Mr Brailey, Mr Conway, Miss Elliott and Miss Dixon were
the teachers that went along. On the
side of the precipice were some
characters carved in stone telling of the person who was the first to
go there. He had endured great ilness
because of rain, so he erected a pavilion and a kiosk so that others coming up
might have the pleasure of these things. There were caves there but we were not
allowed to go into them because it was
too dangerous. On the way home we yodeled and listened to our echoes.
12/04/48...It was Ruth Allen's birthday. The cake was delicious.
12/04/48...We had our last shots for tetanus.
12/05/48...Mr Houghton gave us three verses to memorize. Ps.119:67,71,75.
12/05/48...I've read about 4 - 5 books since holidays started.
12/05/48...Lowest temp last week: 23 Fahrenheit; This week: 57 degrees.
12/06/48...Holiday time we are exploring
downstream from Kuling and hiking all over the mountains. We have been singing
Christmas Carols, wrapping Christmas presents, listening to readings by the
teachers. LIstened to "39 Steps" by John Buchan; I've been reading
"Greenmantle"; now its "The Three Hostages"
Weihsien
-Kuling 4
Nov 18, 2000 21:02 PST
...........December 1948 at Chefoo Schools in Kuling.
12/11/48...Miss Elliott invited the older boys and girls to a house warming. We
played games and had a thoroughly good time.
12/06/48...Writing letters to relatives and friends in Johnsondale, CA; People
I had worked for in Greenhorn, CA, and Glennville, CA.
12/15/48...Mr Brailey took the Older Boys and Girls down the bottom of the.
thousand steps. There we cooked our meal.
12/15/48...I went to Gordon Allen's birthday party. I sawed wood for the .
campfire that evening and we sang camp fire song and negro spirituals.
12/16/48...We hiked to Hun Yuang
Peak, the highest peak in the Lushan
.Range...10 miles there and 10 miles back. We ran and walked it. in 2
1/2 hours. We baked our potatoes, ate sandwiches, one orange, made a pig in a blanket, some cocoa and ate some candies.
One third of the way is Temple in the Clouds which as kind of dilapidated now.
Returned in 2 hours.
12/18/48...I hiked to the cave of the Immortals and saw the Buddha in.a glass
case.
12/22/48...Presents given to our servants for appreciation of their work.
12/23/48...Teachers created a commissary. I bought scissors for Gordon,. Wool
cap for Ruth, purse for Dorothy, pencil for Raymond.
12/24/48...Middle and Upper School boys go caroling. We sang to the Chinese
school across the valley and resident foreigners.
12/25/48...Mr. Carlburg came dressed as a Chinese Coolie carrying Christmas.
for students. After breakfast and our jobs we went to the .................Assembly Hall to open our
presents. For Christmas dinner the Chinese helpers bought us some oranges and
candies, and lit off some firecrackers. Father Christmas came along about 5 pm
on a sled with reindeer. I was given a game of Bible riddles.
12/29/48..We awoke to the ground covered with snow. The older boys assisted Mr
Conway to pile up snow on the ramp and runway.
.................The road slopes downhill from Tyng's to the playing field.
12/30/48...We went up to the cemetery to find pine cones. We played capture the
flag without being tagged with a pine cone.
.................If tagged three times you had to go to home base and count to
100 before going out to battle again.
British internees in Chefoo/Weihsien
camps
Beard
Nov 19, 2000 01:08 PST
The subject 'Nepal Encounter'
spawned some interesting data which I'm here following up. Many thanks to Ron
Bridge for his very useful contribution.
Ron, as I should come into the category of British national
held prisoner by the Japanese during WW2, I'm interested in your build up of
data of British civilians in Chefoo/Weihsien camps. I need factual verification
of my being an internee at both camps for attachment to my British ex-gratia
payment application form. Would be most grateful if you could e-mail me
anything relevant.
In addition, I need the date when the Chefoo School left
Yantai in Sept 1943, and the date when our party arrived in Weihsien. Can
anyone assist?
"R.W. Bridge" wrote:
I am building up a data of all British Civilians in
the Far East Camps and also everybody that ever went near Weihsien of what
nationality. If anyone would like to let me have anything to add to the data
base either publish it on this Weihsien chat line or send to rwbr-@freeuk.com
if you want to mail let me know and I will send postal address. I may not get
back to you straight away as
I am very busy re the British Governments decision to pay those that were in
Japanese Camps published last week.
Re: British internees in Chefoo/Weihsien
camps
Stanley Nordmo
Nov 19, 2000 15:12 PST
Dear
David
In "A Boy's War" David Michell gives the date of departure from
Yantai as September 7, 1943. The arrival in Weihsien was two days later. In
"Chefoo School 1881-1951" S. G. Martin wrote about arriving in
Weihsien on the second day at about 5:00 p.m. From other sources all agreed
that the trip took about two days. One stated 48 hours, while another mentioned
two days and two nights. It would seem that September 9th would be the date of
arrival of our contingent from Chefoo to Weihsien.
An advance group made up of American and Canadian students and teachers had
left Chefoo for Weihsien before the rest of us. These were among the ones who
left the camp on September 14, 1943 as part of a prisoner exchange.
According to Martha Philips in her book "Behind Stone Walls and Barbed
Wire" the route home was convoluted. From Shanghai to Hong Kong, across to
San Fernando in the Philippine islands, up through the Mekong river to Saigon,
back and through the Straits of Java, over to Mormugoa, a Portuguese port on
the west coast of India. They arrived there on October 15th.. July 22, 2004, message from Norman Cliff: This
was published by: Bible Memory Association
This is where the prisoner exchange was made, and they transferred from the
Teia Maru to the Gripsholm. The next stop was Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Then around the Cape of Good Hope on to Rio de Janeiro before finally docking
in New York City on Dec. 1st 1943. The headline that date Gripsholm Brings
Freedom to 1500.
Regards
Stanley Nordmo
MSN Chat
Beard
Nov 20, 2000 15:01 PST
Hi Frank
The 'help' you got from MSN Customer Support sounds like the usual useless
information provided by customer support groups!!
I have never tried to access MSN Chat and don't know much about it, but I do
know there is a plugin called ichat that some people need to participate in
online chats. You may wish to explore if you have that or need it. If you are
using Netscape, it could be that Microsoft have made it difficult for Netscape
users to connect, so you could try using IE and see if you get any joy.
Margaret Beard (David's wife)
Re: MSN Chat
David Birch
Nov 21, 2000 13:14 PST
Hello David and Margaret,
I quite clearly remember David Beard at Chefoo. Not many details - but a
definite memory. I'll send you a private e-letter right away. I've already
prepared it in draft form. It's a bit rambling, but I'm sure that with a little
e-dialogue we'll be able to solve the insoluable (is that a word?) problems. As
Winston Churchill is supposed to have said, "The difficult can be done at
once. The impossible will take a little longer."
David Birch
George David Birch (b. 1931)
(Interned with the Boys School at Temple Hill from November the fifth, nineteen
forty-two . . . then taken with my fellow students (plus staff and other adults) by Japanese ship (the Kyodo Maru
Twenty-eight) down the China coast, then by land to the Presbyterian Mission
Compound near the town of Weihsien. I recall our liberation by the US
servicemen in August of ineteen forty-five.)
--- Beard <bea-@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
claim
Natasha Petersen
Nov 23, 2000 05:19 PST
Hello all,
Is anyone filing a claim for Ex-Gratia payment for Ex-Far East risoners...... or Civilian Internees? www.dss.gov.uk/wpa/htmldocs/exgratia.htm
The above will give you the information.
What proof would be acceptable? I am asking for advice.
Thanks
Natasha
Re: Claim for ex-gratia payment
Beard
Nov 24, 2000 04:00 PST
Hi, Natasha,
I'm in the early stages of preparing a claim. Your birth
certificate will help show that you are you, and the daughter of your father.
Have you got his former British passport? Make contact with someone who has a
list of Weihsien internees. If you go back to the subject 'Nepal
Encounter' of 17.11.2000, you'll see a reply from Ron Bridge, who is a Vice
Chairman of ABCIFER, the Assn of British Civilian Internees Far East Region,
saying that he is building up a data base of all British civilians in the Far
East Camps. <rwbr-@freeuk.com>
Good luck! Regards, David Beard
RE: POW, Jap, WWII....Re: British internees
in Chefoo/Weihsien camps
R.W. Bridge
Nov 27, 2000 09:10 PST
Complete the claim form with copies of what you
have got, those that are not in the UK the need is proof of British citizenship
at the time. AS was said a couple of days ago once British always British, you
can sin and go astray to the US or wherever but you can always comes home to
UK. The War Pensions Agency has UK Govt lists from which they can verify. If
there is a problem they will come back to you the word from Prime Minister is
pay if you can and they know that I will give them a very hard time with
ABCIFER contacts of half House of Commns if they try to prevent Parliamnets
will.
RE:
POW, Jap, WWII....Re: British internees in Chefoo/Weihsien camps
R.W. Bridge
Nov 27, 2000 13:30 PST
Complete the claim form that was the attachment
with copies of what you have got, those that are not in the UK the need is
proof of British citizenship at the time. Remember you had to be British at the
time of internment either have or be on your parents British Passport. Payment
is only to those that were in a camp or those that are the widows or
widowers(who can be of any nationality) of someone that was British in a camp.
As was said a couple of days ago once British always British, you can sin and
go astray to the US or wherever but you can always comes home to UK. The War Pensions
Agency has its website www.dss.gov.uk/wpa/index.htm which has the claim form to
down load, complete and send to Norcorss. The WPA UK Govt lists from which they
can verify. If there is a problem they will come back to you. However, I have
or have access to the lists of those in camps and the WPA will pass the name to
me for help in verification if necessary. The sources of names is endless, for
instance I am in the War Museum tomorrow deciphering a shirt which was
embroidered by inmates of one camp with their names and signatures. There are
quite comprehensive British Government lists and there is always the
International Red Cross in Geneva. the word from Prime Minister is pay if you
can and they know that I will give them a very hard time with ABCIFER contacts
of half House of Commons if they try to prevent Parliaments will. The key is
get the claim in even if you plan to send additional evidence at later date.
* Ron
Let's
all send holiday greetings to the team that liberated Weihsien
mtpre-@aol.com
Dec 03, 2000 08:56 PST
Hello, Everyone,
The holidays are approaching, bringing another lovely
opportunity to
remember the team of heroes who risked their lives to rescue us in 1945.
Let's greet them with holiday cards or letters from around
the world.
Major Stanley Staiger will celebrate his 82 birthday on
December 30. I hope you'll also send
birthday cards. Major Staiger is in extremely frail health and suffers failing vision at a time when he is very much
alone.
Remember the dizzy euphoria you felt on August 17, 1945, when these angels dropped out of the sky into the fields
beyond those barrier walls? Now please,
please, please send Major Staiger a birthday card or letter. I can't think of a nicer way to say "Thank you;
we remember."
Here's the list of addresses:
WEIHSIEN RESCUE TEAM (DUCK MISSION) -- current addresses
Mrs. Raymond Hanchulak (Helen) widow of Raymond Hanchulak
Birthday
of Helen Hanchulak: April 18
Phone: 717-472-3520
P.O. Box 4
243 Laurie Lane
Bear Creek Village, PA 18602
James J. Hannon Birthday: November 12, 1919
Phone: 760-364-4580
P. O Box 1376
Yucca Valley, CA 92286
James W. Moore Birthday: October 5, 1919
Phone: 214-341-8695
9605 Robin Song Street
Dallas, Texas 75243
Tad
Nagaki Birthday:
January 25, 1920
Phone: 308-762-2968
RR 2, Alliance NE 69301
Mrs. Peter Orlich (Carol) widow of Peter Orlich
Phone: 718-746-8122 Birthday of
Carol Orlich: June 13, 1921
15727 20th Road
Whiteston, N.Y. 11357
Stanley A. Staiger Birthday: December 30, 1918
Phone: 702-825-3766
Village of the Pines
700 E. Peckam Lane, Apartment 259
Reno, NV 89502
Mary Previte
Re:
Let's all send holiday greetings to the team that liberated Weihsien
David Birch
Dec 03, 2000 10:43 PST
21321 122nd Avenue
Maple Ridge BC
V2X 3W4
The Lord's Day
December 3, 2000
Dear Mary, et al
Thank you for the timely reminder. I, for one, will follow your suggestion. I'm
sure many others will as well.
Respectfully
David Birch
(G. David Birch, b. Nov 1931)
PS I feel certain that God's blessing is resting on you, Mary. I pray that you
will experience a refreshing like gentle showers in Alpine meadows full of
many-hued flowers. "God is watching over you, today."
GDB
New
address for Weihsien rescuer
mtpre-@aol.com
Dec 04, 2000 15:16 PST
Hello, Everybody:
Weihsien rescuer, Tad Nagaki, tells me the Post Office has changed his address. I have corrected the address list
as noted below. Please discard the address I mailed you yesterday.
Mrs. Helen Hanchulak, widow of our rescuer/medic, Raymond Hanchulak, recently
suffered a heart attack.
Send your cards to the addresses listed here.
Mary Previte
WEIHSIEN RESCUE TEAM (DUCK MISSION) -- current addresses
Mrs. Raymond Hanchulak (Helen) widow of Raymond Hanchulak
Birthday
of Helen Hanchulak: April 18
Phone: 717-472-3520
P.O. Box 4
243 Laurie Lane
Bear Creek Village, PA 18602
James J. Hannon Birthday: November 12, 1919
Phone: 760-364-4580
P. O Box 1376
Yucca Valley, CA 92286
James W. Moore Birthday: October 5, 1919
Phone: 214-341-8695
9605 Robin Song Street
Dallas, Texas 75243
Tad
Nagaki Birthday:
January 25, 1920
Phone: 308-762-2968
5851 Logan Rd., Alliance, NE 69301
Mrs. Peter Orlich (Carol) widow of Peter Orlich
Phone: 718-746-8122 Birthday of
Carol Orlich: June 13, 1921
15727 20th Road
Whiteston, N.Y. 11357
Stanley A. Staiger Birthday: December 30, 1918
Phone: 702-825-3766
Village of the Pines
700 E. Peckam Lane, Apartment 259
Reno, NV 89502
Chinese
searching for Weihsien rescuer Eddie Wang
mtpre-@aol.com
Dec 07, 2000 17:18 PST
Hello, Everyone:
A Chinese official who was in my audience recently at
University of New Haven is pursuing my
search for Eddie (Cheng-Han) Wang, the Chinese
interpreter on the Weihsien rescue mission. He wanted to translate
my Weihien story and post it on the
internet. I sent him a small article I
recently wrote for the China Burma India Round-Up. Here
is Mr. Ma's most recent letter to me.
Mary Previte
Dear Madam Mary T. Previte,
Thank you for giving me this article and the authority to post it on the internet. i am sorry i could not reply you
earlier.
I have posted the story to
webking.online.jn.sd.cn , the biggest news group in China, whose server is in Jinan, Shandong.
I hope we can find something about Eddie Wong.
thank you for the article again.
best wishes
Merry
Xmas to all & a healthy NY!
Joyce Bradbury (nee Cooke)
Dec 13, 2000 03:38 PST
Hello. My name is Joyce Bradbury (nee Cooke). I
live in Sydney, Australia. I have just
published a softback book (103pp)re: Weihsien (my biography). It tells of my experiences in Tsingtao before, during
and after WWII. It contains some
photographs, and names of people and places
are authentic and may bring back memories to ex-Weihsien camp-ers.
Name of the book is "Forgiven But
Not Forgotten", and is available through my email address which is:
bobj-@tpg.com.au
Cost is $22 Australian. This includes postage. My address is:
100 Coxs Road
NORTH RYDE NSW 2113
AUSTRALIA
It should answer a lot of questions I have read on this Email List re: Weihsien (incl. the escape of Hummel and
Tipton). I have not had time to
advertise it as yet, as I have been touring the USA (incl. China
reunion in Scottsdale) and have only
recently returned to Sydney.
Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous Christmas and New Year!
Joyce
New
Book on Young Woman Interned by Japanese
Joyce Bradbury (nee Cooke)
Dec 15, 2000 01:49 PST
Hello all. Concerning the previous message
about my book which tells of my
experiences in China and as a prisoner of the Japanese, I wish to make a correction to the email address
given. It should read: bobj-@tpg.com.au or glb-@gos.comcen.com.au
Anyone who is interested can email me for more information, and I would be only too happy to assist.
Regards
Joyce
Re:
British internees in Chefoo/Weihsien camps
David Birch
Dec 16, 2000 20:40 PST
To: Stanley Nordmo
From: David Birch (b.25Nov1931)
21321 122nd Avenue
Maple Ridge
British Columbia
CANADA
V2X 3W4
December 16, Y2K
Dear Nordmo,
Just a few friendly lines in order to try to establish contact with an 'older
boy' than myself from those far away days when we lived 'on the shores of an
Eastern Sea;' I do hope that you will take a few minutes to acknowledge receipt
of this message. I too, with the providential help of chaps like Ron Bridge and
others, am doing my own research to establish the precise history of the
'Chefoo Community' back in the nineteen-thirties and nineteen-forties.
As probably many of the rest of us did, over the years, I often told true
stories to my children at bedtime. Of course, they enjoyed hearing the tales
that 'Daddy' (I), had to relate about his (my) adventures when he (I) was a boy
growing up in far-away China.
For a number of years, one of my two daughters, now an elementary school
teacher in Richmond, BC, a suburban city in Greater Vancouver, this young
woman, I say, persisted until I actually wrote several stories, which now form
chapters in my autobiography, tentatively entitled, A Bedtime Storybook, by
George David Birch.
Since I am a bit of a stickler for precision and accuracy, not perfect at it
mind you, but since I am concerned with
being "bang on" when it comes to reporting history, especially where
I am personally involved, I may be able to assist you at some time.
Of course, I sailed from Qingdao (then Tsingtao) on the U.S.S. Lavaca. I plan
to write to the Department of National Defense, in Washington, D.C. to verify
the precise dates. However, this I do recall, among many other facts concerning
that (to me) historic voyage.
On leaving Qingdao, our first port of call was
Shanghai, where we were permitted shore leave. The next immediate destination
was Okinawa, where some eight hundred United States Marines (USMC) boarded the
Lavaca clambering up the port side (if my recollection is correct) on nets from
landing craft; then we headed out to sea again: this time to Pearl Harbor on
the Hawaian island of Oahu. From Pearl Harbor, we steamed on to San Francisco
(still accompanied by a destroyer escort-there were two (2) destroyers, and I
recall my marine friends (Fritz, Ivan, Krug, and Jim (Hynes) spending a lot of
time with us, also "Mr" because he was already thirty-five years old,
Mr. Fisher. Anyway, one or more of these 'heroes' of my boyhood (I was thirteen
going on fourteen), pointing out the destroyers as they prepared to shoot some
mines that were floating in the water somewhere between Okinawa and Pearl
Harbor. I was quite impressive to watch the plume of water shoot up into the
air, though the destroyers were quite a distance from the U.S.S. Lavaca, and
the sound of the guns was only a muffled boom. The San Fransisco newspaper
reporters boarded our vessel when we docked there on November the fifth,
nineteen forty-five, three years to the day since I had walked across the city
of Yentai (Chefoo as I thought it was called) with a little blue packsack on my
back containing my Bible and my treasured 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe,
with a cardboard panorama in the center that depicted Crusoe on his island. (My
packsack likely contained a few other 'necessities' such as a handkerchief,
tooth brush, soap, maybe some toothpaste. I don't really recall anything except
the important things: my British & Foreign Bible Society Bible, and my
Robinson Crusoe book). On the journey, by foot, I clearly recall stopping in
front of the Japanese military base, and being led by our teachers (including,
I feel sure, Mr. Stanley Houghton) in the singing of two choruses. "God is
Still on the Throne, and He will remember His own;" and "God is our
Refuge, our Refuge and Our Strength, in Trouble, In Trouble, A VERY PRESENT
HELP . . ."
All the dates that you and I are concerned about, are very readily
documentable. Your destination may have been different from mine (I left San
Francisco, where John (my younger brother, b. 1934), and I continued on by
Great Northern Railway (now Burlington Northern), through mountain passes and
fertile valleys, from California, through Oregon, and Washington State. We even
passed through (I am almost certain) Vancouver, Washington (also named for
Captain George Vancouver) until we reached Seattle, WA. Then we were almost
home. Within another couple of hours or so, my brother and I, along with Miss
Pearl Young our Upper One teacher, left the train at the Great Northern Station
at Main Street and Terminal Avenue, in Vancouver. There, after several years of
absence from one another, we were met by my dear mother, Mrs. Grace Lilian
Birch (Dad could not get away from the farm at Agassiz, BC because of course
cows have to be milked twice a day, and it was a long drive (about seventy-five
miles) over snowy roads, including a winding mountain highway (only two lanes
in those days) and we didn't even have a car in those days. The 'historic date'
documented by the Vancouver newspapers, of our arrival that dark, snowy
evening, was November the eighth, nineteen forty-five.
Anyway, Stan, I hope you had a great day for your recent birthday. May God's
rich blessings, and encouragement be yours now and always.
Sincerely, (and with Christian love and respect)
Dave
(gdavid-@yahoo.com)
Saturday, December 16, 2000
memories
Thompson
Dec 17, 2000 10:24 PST
David
Birch,
David, old buddy !
It is good to hear your stories. My memories part company with yours at Qingdao - apparently because I was being
sent back to Ireland and you were
returning to Canada. In retrospect I had no idea at the time that you
were of Canadian origin. We were just missionaries' kids. We must have been
together in Quingdao. Until you reminded me, I had almost forgotten about the
escapade on the pebbled roof of Edgewater Mansions, where I disappeared and
left you and your little brother John to face Mr. Chalkley's wrath.I left
Quingdao, bound for Shanghai, on a Liberty ship whose name I can't remember. I
do remember with great clarity the mess hall where we had delicious food
slopped on to steel trays, and I had never seen such soft, sweet and delicate
white bread ( I thought it was cake). I wolfed it down with great gobs of peach
jam from my steel tray. In the evenings they showed movies on deck ! The first
movie I ever saw was on that deck (it was I believe called Hanover Square, a
thriller in which George Sanders turned into a murderous fiend whenever he
heard a shrill noise !). The weather was horrible (later we were told that it
was the tail end of the famous Okinawa Typhoon " that sank more American
ships than the Japanese did during the entire war"). I remember that the
ship was fitted out as a troop transport, with bunks about 18 inches apart and
stacked 5 high. I can remember feeling so sick that I wanted to go on deck, and
as I emerged from the second bunk, someone in the 5th bunk vomited down beside
me ! Does this sound like the ship that you were on on the way to Shanghai ?
I don't remember being allowed to go ashore at Shanghai. I suspect the same or
similar ship took us on to Hong Kong, because it left no mark on my memory. We
arrived at Kowloon, and housing was found for us near the KaiTak aerodrome. My
brother Paul (b. 1931) and I started collecting coins. We discovered that the
money changers - all along the same street in downtown Kowloon - each had a
drawer filled with useless change, rupees and this and that. We made friends
with American sailors docked in Kowloon and explained that we needed cigarettes
to exchange for coins for our collection. After that, the destroyer was our
first stop, and when each of us had packs of Lucky Strikes stuffed in all our
pockets, we headed for the money changers street. When we were out of Luckies
we took the bus "home" to gloat over our loot.
It
was six weeks before we got places on a ship headed via the Suez Canal for
Liverpool , where our Dad was waiting for us on the dock.
Stan Thompson
1.Repatriation
2.. ex gratia payments
Stanley Nordmo
Dec 18, 2000 00:10 PST
Dear David Birch
1. Repatriation
Your homeward itinerary was very different from mine.
As Norwegians, my two sisters Kathleen and Audrey and I left Qingdao on the USS
Geneva for Hong Kong the staging port for passage to Europe. We sailed out of
Hong Kong on the SS Tamaroa in late November and disembarked in Colombo, Ceylon
(Srl Lanka) on December 5th, 1945 . On December 11, we flew to Calcutta to meet
my mother and younger brother Rowland who had been evacuated the first week of
January 1945 with the CIM school from Kiating, Szechwan (Sichuan) to Kalimpong,
India.
With Calcutta in the throes of the independence movement, a curfew was in
effect for all foreign nationals. In the midst of the turbulence, the Indian
Red Cross and RAPWI (Repatriation of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees) put
on a fantastic spread on Christmas Day 1945. From Calcutta the family, minus
our father who was still in Shanghsien (Shangzhou), Shensi (Shaanxi) waiting
for missionaries from Norway to relieve him, flew to Karachi on January 8,
1946. We had fueling stops in Bahrein, Cairo Egypt, Augusta Sicily, and
Marignane France before reaching Poole, U.K. on January 12, 1946. We spent 10
days in London before taking a train to Newcastle and then sailing for
Stavanger, Norway.in very rough North Sea weather . Our father joined us a year
later for Christmas 1946. I left to go to college in the States in early 1947.
As you can see, aside from both of us being in Qingdao after leaving Weihsien
(Weixian), our paths have not crossed. I do have a Canadian connection now that
my younger sister Audrey Nordmo Horton lives in Kamloops, B.C., where her
husband is a Baptist minister. They have dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship.
2. Ex gratia
payments.
With the current discussion about the ex gratia
payments for British citizens, it might be of interest to mention a parallel
move by the Norwegian government which is considering paying a lump sum to
every surviving Norwegian who was either a prisoner of war or a civilian
internee during the second World War. The War Pension Office would handle the
details of distributing the money if the government approves the plan. We are
eligible for this program since we were Norwegian citizens at the time.
For many years the War Pension Office in Norway has been processing and
accepting disability claims based on the post-traumatic stress syndrome, and
various medical conditions attributed to camp conditions. This one time
potential grant in Norway is unrelated to the current monthly War
Pension disability payments.
Best Regards
Stanley Nordmo
Re:
memories
David Birch
Dec 18, 2000 00:59 PST
Stan (or should I call you Thompson Three?):
No, of course not! We share several years of rip-roaring memories! Boy, if I'd
only known about the earlier 'plot' by Jack G. which somehow you were inveigled
into, I'd have probably had it out with the 'rotter' instead of heading off for
the hills, all alone, except for little David Allen, to find that "buried
treasure chest" up at "Eve's Knob." My hat!!! Wow!!! And to
think that I actually 'fell' for all that baloney!
Well, Stan, here's wishing you, and Jack, and David, et al, a Very Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year!
May blessings abound!
Dave
GDB
--- Thompson <boo-@ginniff.com> wrote:
(no
subject)
alison holmes
Dec 19, 2000 12:05 PST
What an extraordinary couple of days...first to
hear about the exgratia payment and then to read all these memories of
Weihsien. This is the first time I have written to a bulletin board and I was
wary about how to identify myself (hence the abbreviated signature!). I was
Alison Martin, daughter of Gordon and Heather Martin,teachers at Chefoo School,
sister to Elisabeth, John, and Richard. It's amazing to see how very vivid
everybody's memories are...as are mine. I well remember that boat trip to
Weihsien as I put my foot out through the railings of the boat and one of my
shoes dropped off, good leather shoes, imagine!, and mum had to make me a cloth
shoe in blue and white cloth for me to limp into Weihsien where we went through
a moongate and had a welcoming tea. So many pictures, the Japanese dentist,
that gritty eggshell on a spoon, making coal balls, planting our castor oil
beans and morning glory seeds, listening to the nuns singing downstairs in
Block 23 and having my parents horrified to find me lying in bed playing with a
'necklace' the nuns had given me and crooning songs to the Virgin Mary...oh
rags of Popery! They made great donuts or at least donut holes. And then I had
to return the rosary and kept away from the nuns though some bad boy and I
stood under their window and sang rude songs just to show that we weren't going
to get caught by theit wicked religion.. Of course the night of the escape
stands clear in mind with the midnight roll call, and those horrid great
Alsatians with their permangante streaks on them prowling around us. How did ma
do it? She managed to give us all a square of chocolate to eat as we waited on
the field under search lights with trucks bustling in with guards bristling
with guns.Do you remember the funeral of the lad who jumped to touch the
electric wire? I was not meant to go, but crept in behind others, climbing a
tree to see what was going on. I remembering picking alfalfa with some girl and
as we were laughing facing the setting sun, a Japanese guard went by and was so
angry with us for laughing, rattled his sword and came to slap us on our faces.
Real terror. Was there an underground tunnel on the east side of the
camp...there are pictures in my mind but no clear
context. It's amazing to think we spent two years, six of us
in two tiny rooms, Block 15, opposite Block 23. Elisabeth and I went back there
in 89 and saw how tiny they were. Pa made it habitable for us by giving each of
us a painting on the wall above our bunk beds that just belonged to us. Richard
had a tiger and I had a copy of a picture by Ma Yuan of some venerable sage
rocking quietly in his boat, paddle just touching the water, surrounded by
bamboos. I have a copy of it in my bedroom now and it has always felt like an
icon of place. Do you remember the smell of bedbugs sizzling in candle flames?
And the wonderful taste of corn after liberation? And that very first Hershey
bar? Pa always used to "Et haec olim meminisse iuvabit" (Some day we
shall be glad to remember even this) How true! There is not a single August 17th
that comes without my rejoicing at the memory of being in the church having a
singing lesson and hearing someone say It's not a jap plane and then all of us
taking off out of the church past a weakly protesting teacher, dashing on to
the field, picking up those pamphlets and then seeing the seven men and the
rainbow of parachutes, running out, bare feet ignoring mighty prickles and
running, running to greet those heroes. I think my love of colour, the fact
that I am now living and working in the States, all go back to that vivid
moment of seeing a larger context around our grey world. Thank you all for
bringing back memories.
Re: Alison Holmes recollections
Albert de Zutter
Dec 19, 2000 12:28 PST
Alison:
Of course, I never knew you in Weihsien camp, as I was not a Chefoo student
and, as I recall, all of you stayed mostly to yourselves. Your mention of your
parents' horror at finding you with a rosary brought to mind the fact that, as
a Catholic growing up in Tsingtao, I never experienced religious prejudice
until our family was interned, first in Tsingtao in October 1942, and then in
Weihsien in March 1943. My Tsingtao camp experience was that a 10-year-old girl
who was the daughter of American missionaries was forbidden to play with me
because I was a Catholic boy (also 10). And, of course, in Weihsien, there were
many Evangelical missionaries who looked down on Catholics or considered them
(us) outright evil. However, there were many positive spiritual experiences at
Weihsien, and those outweighed the negative ones.
I'm sure, and I hope, you've gotten over your horror of Catholics.
Anyway, I enjoyed your memories.
Albert de Zutter
Re:
Natasha Petersen
Dec 20, 2000 05:25 PST
Dear
Alison,
Welcome to our site. Your e-mail goes on and on to the right. Would it be
possible for you to re-write it, but within the margins of a page?
I do not remember you, but there is much that I do not remember about Weihsien.
I am from Tientsin, and my father and I were in block 9, room 10. I was known
as Natalie Somoff, now I am Natasha (my Russian name) Petersen. I am keeping
all the "memories" in one folder.
Natasha
Re:
alison holmes
Dec 20, 2000 06:48 PST
Help! I get a message telling me to download a
Pan European Text Display support which I have no idea how or where to do. I
have had a couple of replies from Albert and Stanley and they did not say I was
going off the page and it didn't look lke it to my eyes..I apologize that .I am
not computer savvy, so if you start
making URL noises at me I won't know how to respond!
Message wrapping
Beard
Dec 20, 2000 11:16 PST
Alison, I use Windows and Netscape Navigator.
In the Preferences Section it gives me the option of instructing the computer
to 'wrap' outgoing messages. What are you using?
Margaret Beard
Christmas
Stanley Nordmo
Dec 25, 2000 02:12 PST
Norwegian Christmas Greetings to all
Gledelig Jul og Godt Nyttår
For Natasha, we did celebrate Christmas in Weihsien. Norman Cliff describes
buying small presents at the White Elephant, besides creating gifts out of
wood, cloth and paper. He remembers games and parties as well as joint
Christmas services in the camp church.
He was part of a group which went from block to block on Christmas Eve singing
carols. They would conclude with "We wish you a merry Christmas, a merry
Christmas, a merry Christmas ; We wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year, And hope it won't be here.!" From my own notes the highlight of the
culinary year was Christmas Dinner when the menu skipped such staples as beet
and turnip tops and eggplant in exchange for pork, peas and other vegetables,
finishing with Christmas pudding and Christmas cake or stollen incorporating
walnuts, Chinese dates and grated orange peel.
Best regards
Stanley Nordmo
Christmas
gifts in Weihsien
mtpre-@aol.com
Dec 26, 2000 15:04 PST
Hello, Everybody,
A special thank you to Natasha Petersen for filling our
lives with joyful memories this year by
starting this Weihsien memory board.
Do you remember the year our Chefoo teachers presented
us with small lap slates and chalk for
Christmas? I have no idea where they got the money or the slates. But that gift of lap slates rescued us from having to
use and erase and re-use and erase and
re-use the cheap notebooks we used to write
all of our lessons. As I recall, we each got only one notebook a month
and used and re-used until we erased
holes in the pages.
I have never stopped counting my blessings for those
remarkable teachers who saved our
spirits. Like many of you, we Taylor children did not see our parents for 5 1/2 years. I still speak
with awe and admiration the names of
those teachers .
Major Stanley A. Staiger, who led the team that
liberated Weihsien, is terribly frail
and increasingly ill -- rarely able to be out of bed now. I had difficulty hearing him yesterday during
my holiday phone call to him. He will
celebrate his 83rd birthday, December 30. If you haven't yet sent a birthday card, the address is
Village of the Pines, Apartment 259, 700 E. Peckam
Lane, Reno, NV 89502
In California, the Hi-Desert Star filled most of a page
in its Living Section, December 2,
2000, with a story about Lt. James Hannon, one of our rescuers. In the story headlined, STRANGER THAN FICTION, Lt.
Hannon "claims to have spent over
five weeks with Amelia Earlart after she was reported missing."
Let me quote from this article in the Hi-Desert Star:
In Weihsien, Lt. Hannon says he was "asked to look after
a semi-conscious woman who was being
kept in her own room and being given high doses of morphine. 'She was so drugged she couldn't speak.' Hannon
determined this woman was Amelia
Earhart."
The article pictures the rescuing B-24 bomber dropping
relief supplies after the American team
parachuted to the fields beyond the barrier walls of the camp.
I wish you all a Happy New Year.
Mary Taylor Previte
RE:
Christmas gifts in Weihsien
Joyce Bradbury (nee Cooke)
Dec 29, 2000 02:54 PST
Hello Mary
Just read your interesting story. So sorry to hear of Major Staiger's
increasing illness. Do you know if Amelia Earhart was really in our camp? And
did Lt. Hannon actually look after her? This has been a rumour for a long time,
and I would love to have it confirmed or denied. I read it years ago in an
aviation magazine printed in the USA. Does James Hannon confirm this?
Please do ask him, to satisfy my curiosity!
Regards
Joyce Bradbury
PS: Btw, I hope you received my long letter.
POW
Matt Sarah-Jane Yates
Dec 29, 2000 15:49 PST
HI there,
I'm
having troubles trying to get anything off your site. My name is Sarah-Jane and
I am the daughter of a POW from Weihsien, we have been told that there is some
information to be gained from your site, if this is correct could you please
e-mail me exact instructions how to get it (help I can't drive the internet
very well!)
Thanks SJ
Amelia
Earhart in Weihsien
Pamela Masters
Dec 30, 2000 13:24 PST
Hi Joyce --
Thought you had a copy of The Mushroom Years, where dear old Lt. Jim Hannon's
story was completely debunked by dear old Maj. Stan Staiger. No, AE was never
in Weihsien. The lady Jim refers to was a personal family friend of ours (the
American wife of a Brit whom we all lovingly called The Yank) and who suffered
a traumatic breakdown in camp. She was flown out of Weihsien along with Lloyd
Francke the day after our liberation. Anything else Hannon wants to dream up is
just that – a dream. Good news about her: she completely recovered from her
ordeal, has a family (both children and grandchildren) and they don't need this
tragic episode in her life warmed up and rehashed after 55 years.
By the way, if you don't have a copy of the book and
want one, I'll be happy to send it to you with an invoice, and you can pay for
it by credit card. Right now our web page, hendersonhouse.com, is being
updated, and allthough you can pull it up, the secure ordering page doesn't
respond. Should be back on line early in January.
Happy New Year. It sure was great seeing you again at
the OCH Reunion -- only wish I could have stayed longer, but my love had a
heart attack and I had to hurry home on Friday.
Fond regards -- Pamela Masters (nee Bobby Simmons)
Weihsien
memories from Franciscan nuns
mtpre-@aol.com
Dec 30, 2000 20:19 PST
Weihsien memories from Franciscan nuns
Most of us who post memories on our Weihsien bulletin board were children
or teenagers in the camp. We little
kids were so sheltered from terror, I often
find my self thinking of Weihsien with the fond memories like those of
a pyjama party.
Grown ups had a very different view. Here are a handful of memories collected by Franciscan nuns who were
interned in Weihsien. I have culled a
few paragraphs from more than 300 pages of unpublished recollections entitled: FRANCISCANS: Shantung, China 1929
- 1949
After America entered the war in 1941, there had been many rumors that American and British nationals were to be
moved from their homes and put in
prison. Finally the day came when the Sisters of Our
Lady of the Angels’ Community was to be
sent to a Civil Assembly Center in Weihsien. Weihsien was a small city 70 - 80 miles east of Tsinanfu.
Japanese authorities told the Sisters that each could take along a
mattress, a trunk and two suitcases. In
fact, the Sisters took one trunk between two,
a suitcase each, sheets sewn into bags, later to be stuffed with straw
for mattresses, wooden planks and
wooden horses for beds.
They arrived on March 21, 1943, about 4 p.m. They were “packed like sardines” into buses and taken to a large
Presbyterian Mission which had been a
middle school and University. They were assembled on the Athletic Field, read the camp rules and given a camp number.
The first two months, all the Sisters were billeted in large classrooms.
The Sisters from Our Lady of the Angels
were in a room with 52 other sisters.
There was absolutely no privacy. Mr. Tu., the Sisters’ business man, had traveled to Weihsien and managed to buy
straw to fill the Sisters’ mattress bags
and pillows.
Nourishment was the great problem. Large iron receptacles were built over brick stoves in several areas designated as
kitchens. Meals, so called,
were served three times daily and usually consisted of vegetable soup
with small infrequent chunks of dubious
meat floating around. At first there was
no bread but some millet thickened the soup. Later the men built ovens
from scrap iron and, procuring yeast
through the Japanese, they were able to bake
bread and allow two slices of bread with each
meal. People lot weight very quickly and easily and were always hungry. The men suffered the
most as they had much heavy work to do.
Many developed sores and ulcers of skin and mouth from lack of vitamins. Children of all ages perhaps suffered
least as everyone saved any scraps they
could spare for them.
Black Market: Somehow the internees discovered that
they could contact Chinese from the
countryside and nearby towns, procuring food “under the wire and over the wall” at some risk to both
parties. The most successful
“blackmarketer” was a Trappist monk. There were four Trappist monks in
the camp. They had not spoken freely
for many years, but certainly made up for
it in their captivity. The Trappist became famous for his procuring food “over the wall.” He was caught sometimes and
put in solitary confinement in a little
one room brick hut on the grounds. The Sisters would put his food outside his door and sing camp news to him
as though they were singing hymns.
The Father would always sleep during the day and sing his office in a loud voice all through the night, thus keeping
awake the Japanese officers who lived
in a house nearby. The officers soon got tired of this and his “solitary” did not last for long.
Everyone had to give three hours daily to general camp work. The teachers, mostly the Sisters of St. Francis, taught
the children who had regular school
schedule.
The Japanese had installed a whole row of “squat” toilets but had not
piped in any water! The Sisters from Our
Lady of the Angels were the first
contingent brave enough to undertake the necessary sanitary work. Later
the men were able to build showers with
hot water used certain times a week.
Many people had not been able to bring eating utensils with them, and tin cans became a very precious commodity.
Prisoners also made stove pipes from
tin cans. Some ingenious people salvaged broken bricks and flattened tin cans and made little stoves. Fuel for these
stoves was “stolen” coal dust, stolen
at night from the Japanese quarters or from the amount allowed for the
kitchens.
(Note: Several pages detail the repatriation of 500 Americans on September 13- via train to Shanghai, via a Japanese
ship named the Teia Maru to Goa, then
on the Swedish Red Cross ship, the Gripsholm, to Port Elizabeth in South Africa, to Rio de Janiero, to New York
on December 2, 1943.)
Sister Reginald died in the camp hospital. By the time the war ended and internees were released, there had been
twenty-five deaths and about thirty births
in the camp.
Sisters Bede, Ludmilla, and Servatia were having a very difficult time as
the war dragged on into 1945. Food was
poor and clothing was wearing out. People were getting despondent and
finding it hard to face another cold
winter under such conditions. The Sisters were able to build a small
brick stove in their rooms. The stove
pipe was made from 14 tin cans. By this
time they were getting bread and water for breakfast and not much more
for dinner and supper.
On August 15, 1945, it was rumored that the war was over; but not even the Japanese seemed to know for certain.
Finally, on August 17, about 10 a.m.,
the first American airplane hovered over Weihsien. The plane circled lower and lower and eventually men
parachuted to the ground.
Sister Ludmilla writes, “ The shouts and cheers of the internees were deafening. After the airplane waved a last
farewell, there was no holding anybody
-- the internees rushed out of the gate into the open fields to find the men they had seen dangling from the
parachutes, who were not sure of their
surroundings and had hidden themselves in the high grain, preparing for an attack. From the shouts and cheers of
the people, however, they knew that
they were safe. The Japanese were also taken by surprise and at first tried to keep us within the walls of the
compound, but no one bothered about
them; and all they could do was to remain in the guardhouse just looking
on.”
“The guardhouse ceased to be a place of terror, and our meals were better. We now received tomatoes, eggs, and apples
as our portion. Chewing gum,
cigarettes, and chocolate bars were the first things given to us by
the Marines.”
First, the sick and older people were flown out. On September 25, 1945,
the Sisters had a fairly comfortable
train journey to Tsingtao with boxes of food
provided by American soldiers. “The trains were all decorated with
Chinese andAmerican flags. There were
many billboards with Chinese and American
writing bidding us a hearty welcome and a safe journey.” At every
station they passed, were cheering
crowds of Chinese people bowing and waving. At
one station a band was playing for them. On arrival in Tsingtao, the
whole station, the rooftops, and all
vantage points were crowded with cheering
people waving Chinese and American flags. From the station at Tsingtao,
the Sisters were taken to the Edgeware
Hotel by bus. But the bus developed engine
trouble and some Americans who were passing, offered the Sisters a ride
in a jeep. This was the first time they
had ever seen a jeep, let alone ride in
one.
Mary Taylor Previte, Haddonfield, NJ, USA
RE: Amelia Earhart in Weihsien
Joyce
Bradbury (nee Cooke)
Dec 30, 2000 21:26 PST
Dear Bobby. Thanks for the message about A.E. I
have written in my book which is now out that I was quite satisfied she was
never in Weishien simply because the inmates would certainly have known about
it but nobody ever mentioned it. Her face was so well known to everybody at the
time she could not have been In the camp without being identified.. You have
put the matter to rest as far as I am concerned. I have a copy of your book and
found it most interesting. I have correctly named all inmates to whom I refer
in my book - Even Fr Scanlan who recently died at the age of 101 years. We,
too, enjoyed the re-union. Sorry you had to leave early. I can post my book to
USA by Air mail for (Australian) $22. Bank draft or money order. My home
address is 100 Coxs Road, North Ryde 2113 Australia. Best regards, Joyce
Bradbury.
Re: Weihsien memories from Franciscan nuns
Pamela Masters
Dec
31, 2000 09:27 PST
Thank you Mary for sending on this material.
From your notes I gather that the Sisters of Our Lady of the Angels were an
order from Tsingtao, but I'm not certain they were Franciscans. By far the
biggest Franciscan order, known throughout China as the White Sisters, had the
designation FMM after their names and were the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary,
the gentle souls who ran the convent of St. Joseph which I attended. They had
missions, schools, and orphanages all over China; one, in Chefoo, became
internationally famous for the "Chefoo Lace" made by the blind
orphans they took care of.
Sister Servatia, OSF (Order of St. Francis) who was
also in camp, wrote a book, A Cross in China (ISBN 0-9614659-4-8), and I read
it with mixed emotions. I believe her order was known as the Grey Sisters --
this, of course, due to the color of the habits they wore. Her convent, or
mission, was in Tsinan, not far from Weihsien, so her journey to the camp was
not that distant.
In locating a copy of her book, I went through Cuchullian Publications in Fort
Wayne, IN, and had the pleasure of corresponding with her brother-in-law (who
edited the book), Robert Emmet Connolly, an attorney. In fact, if I recall, we
exchanged books, He said he got a totally different slant on prison camp life
from my "civilian" perspective, and after reading Sister's book, I
had to admit I had no knowledge of the different missionary factions in the
camp, Protestant and Catholic -- especially the lifestyle of the Sisters and
Fathers at Weihsien. They were confined within a confinement.
Mary, is there any chance I could get a full copy of
those Franciscan papers?
If so, let me know the cost, and I'll send a check to cover.
Thanks again for opening another door on our past.
Happy New Year to you all -- and a Happy New Milllennium of Peace and Hope.
As always -- Pamela
RE:
Weihsien memories from Franciscan nuns
Joyce Bradbury (nee Cooke)
Dec 31, 2000 22:04 PST
Dear Pamela. Your message re the Sisters of Our Lady
of the Angels from Tsingtao has prompted me to add some information which may
be interesting particularly to ex-Weishien and Tsingtao people. I attended both
Holy Ghost Convent and St. Josephs middle school from the age of about 5 years
until the Japanese came when I was thirteen and a half years old. Quite a lot
of the nuns from Tsingtao, were taken into Weishien and in fact travelled with
us by train to the camp from Tsington. They consisted of British, American,
Dutch, Portuguese and one from France. They did wonderful work in Weishien. I
have the signatures of quite a few of these nuns and I list their names and any
comments they made in my autograph book. I also have the autographs of many
priests and brothers which I shall put into the net if there is anybody
interested in their names The nuns I have are;
(The following are all from St Josephs) - Sr Verna OSF who wrote "Dear
Joyce. If as you grow older you come closer to God your life will have been
successful. Lovingly, SR. Verna" - :Sr.Hiltrudia, who wrote, "May God
bless you and guide your footsteps to our Heavenly Goal, lovingly Sr.
Hiltrudia; - Sr. Mary Elaine OCM(?) "May mother Mary ever keep you the
sweet girl you are now is the sincere prayer of Sister Mary
Elaine":
RE:
Weihsien memories from Franciscan nuns
R.W. Bridge
Jan 01, 2001 07:48 PST
For Joyce Bradbury and Pamela Masters,
I have read your remarks re nuns. I have a copy of a Cross in China, there are
some minor errors of fact in it regarding Weihsien not that they detract from
the book in any way. IT is a very good description of the dedicated people that
went out to help the Chinese. Pamela perhaps you can let me have R E Connoly's
address either mail or web and I will straighten them out.
Re the nuns I have a complete list of all that were in and I am compiling a
complete list of all that were in Weihsein for anytime. The areas I am having
trouble with are:
The Catholic Priests and brothers that were shipped to Peking.
The Americans that were shipped out in Sept 1943.
I have a copy of the NY Times giving the names of all that were expected in the
States but it does not give the camp that they came from.
Also the 30Jun44 Weihsien nominal roll has all those with names beginning S
after Stevens missing and all those after Margerite Wulfson I have managed to
put some names in but suspect that I am still missing some.
This exercise started when I realised a year ago how poor records were and that
I f the ABCIFER legal case in Tokyo succeeded names would be needed. That case
continues but of course the lists are useful for the UK War pensions Agency to
verify claimants bonafides. At this stage I either have on disc or access on
paper to about 90% of the British civilians that were interned by the Japanese.
The main trouble areas other than above being Shanghai and Borneo.
Happy New Year to all my readers
Photos
of heroes, 1945 and now
mtpre-@aol.com
Jan 01, 2001 15:49 PST
Hello, everybody:
Happy New Year.
Natalie Peterson, who started our Weihsien bulletin board, has suggested
that we nudge our recollections by
posting "then" and "now" photos of ourselves and some information to bring everyone up to
date. What a great idea! I think only a
couple of people have posted the snapshots.
Here are some of mine, in several e-mails, for ease of downloading.
I thought you'd enjoy some of the "then" and "now" photos I
included in a photo scrapbook I created
a couple of years ago as a Christmas gift for each of the heroes who liberated Weihsien. I tracked them all down in
1997 and then criss-crossed America to
visit each one -- survivors and widows.
In Weihsien, I was Mary Taylor, a student in the Chefoo School's Lower
School Dormitory (we called it LSD). My
sister Kathleen, Jamie, and John and
grandpa Herbert Hudson Taylor were also interned in Weihsien. We LSD
girls lived first in Block 23 and then,
after the escape of Hummel and Tipton, on
the second floor of the hospital. I was 12 years old when the
Americans parachuted from the B-24 to
liberate the camp, August 17, 1945.
I started my career as a high school
teacher --English and journalism --
until our daughter, Alice, was born. Alice is an attorney who also helps
me take very elementary steps on the
Internet. For nearly 27 years I've
directed a youth detention center that serves the
toughest-of-the-tough delinquent
teenagers -- about 1,600 a year. My book, HUNGRY GHOSTS, tells
about Weihsien as well as the astonishing story of how a suburban
housewife (me) took over an exploding
juvenile lock-up and turned it around. I'm now
also serving my second term in the New Jersey state legislature and
continue to speak to audiences around
the country.
I hope all of you will also bring us up to date with your own stories and snapshots.
Mary Taylor Previte