De: "leopold
pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: block-22
Date: jeudi 8 janvier 2004 9:11
About block 22, (that's where we lived
for 873 days).
Zandy and his Mother were in room 22/9
which was next to ours. Ron will make the rectification for the next edition of
the "two-thousand-name-list". That will be in four or six months time
if it is OK for you?
The deJongh family must have been in
three "rooms" but we still have to check that out. I still remember
that sometime in the years 1950', two teenagers came to see us at our apartment
building. They immediately recognised us. It was Antoon and Frans deJongh who
cycled all the way from Holland to Brussels to see us. That was a surprise! A
few weeks later, the whole Pander-family went to Holland for a long week-end
invited by the whole of the deJongh-family.
They made room for us and we all stayed in their home. Mr. and Mrs.
deJongh and the six children (Ann, Louise, Henrietta, Antoon, Frans and Paul)
showed us the whereabouts of Rotterdam and we had a wonderful time together. Of
course, the parents told stories about Weihsien. I still remember Paul, the
youngest of the family (he was born in Weihsien), playing the piano. A real
artist.
Oh! Yes. My friend "Billy"
lived in Block-15-room-4. His name, according to Ron's listing is E.J. Waldman,
born in 1942. We were two mischievous pranks (if I must believe all that my
parents told me ---- and I bet they didn't say everything !!).
All the best,
Leopold
De: "Gay Talbot Stratford" <stillbrk@eagle.ca>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: block-22
Date: jeudi 8 janvier 2004 22:33
Every good wish for the New year to you
and yours.
Are you still in touch with the de
Jonghs? I was for a number of years, but sadly, no longer. I attended Annie's
wedding in Rotterdam , and saw Anton once in Toronto. If you have an address, I
would love to have it.
Gay Talbot- Stratford
De: "Pamela Masters"
<pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: block-22
Date: vendredi 9 janvier 2004 19:15
Hello Gay -- It's a long way back to
our childhood in Chinwangtao...I was known as Bobby Simmons then, and you,
Ursula and I would play together, either by your home down on the beach, or up
at ours. I told Margo about that lovely
picture you sent (or was it Leopold?) of your Mom in Weihsien, and I will be
seeing her, hopefully later this month, and I will take it to her. She, like Ursula, has not gotten connected up
to a computer yet. I tell them they sure
miss out on a lot of fun and news, but they're hard to convince. If you send me your physical address, I'd be
happy to send you a copy of "The Mushroom Years," my book on
Chinwangtao and Weihsien -- think you might enjoy it.
Incidentally, we were in cells 1 and 2
in Block 21. I live in Northern
California now, midway between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe, in the Sierra
foothills...it's absolutely beautiful here.
On a clear day I can see all the way across the valley to the Bay Area,
and if it wasn't for the coastal range, I could see the Golden Gate and the
nostalgic Pacific that always connects me back up to the Orient.
I'm looking forward to hearing from
you.
All the best to you and yours -- Pamela Masters (nee Bobby
Simmons)
De: "Gay Talbot Stratford" <stillbrk@eagle.ca>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: block-22
Date: vendredi 9 janvier 2004 22:18
Dear Pamela, So good of you to write at
once. Also good of you to offer me a copy of your book. As a matter of fact ,I
ordered it through Amazon and read it with great interest, as it filled in many
gaps in my own memories. Thank you for making the great effort to research and
make your record of life as it was then. My children found it enlightening as
well.
I certainly remember you as being like
Jo in Little women - full of fun and vivacity. I can see you running down the
beach with your curly brown hair bobbing . You did seem so grown up. As for
Ursula, I remember her as so glamorous. Do give my regards to Marjorie. I think
my sister, Christine writes to her sometimes, and Peter, our brother, did drop
in to see her a year or two ago.
We live east of Toronto, close to Lake
Ontario, in an old(1846) house outside a small village. The house is too large
for just the two of us, but when everyone comes home, it is much too small. The
weather is much like Chinwangtao. At the moment we are in a deep freeze which
we enjoy. It give a respite from gardening. Many days are bright and sunny, so
we ski or snowshoe in the woods. Curling up by the fire can be very pleasant
too.
We have a Chinese daughter in law who
always hopes that I will go back to China, but I never have. There were unhappy
times there, and my father died so soon after the war at the age of 42. I was
in Britain at school, and mother with the two others remained in China until
just before the communists took over. She then came home to the uk but money
was in very short supply. Anyway, for whatever reason, I never made a return
trip.
Life has been good. A wonderful husband
and big family, health and great adopted country.
I am interested in writing though only
developed this in the last few years.
May you all have a safe and happy 2004,
with warm memories, Gay
De: "Kay Allan Canning" <kay_m_allan@hotmail.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: new item for one of the
websites?
Date: jeudi 15 janvier
2004 17:40
this is aimed mainly at Leopold pander
and don Menzi, our two big website
creators
prompted by ron bridge i went recently
to look at Weihsien-related things
held by the imperial war museum in
London. the main thing i had not seen
before is an unpublished account by a
mrs. potter. I now have permission
from her daughter-in-law for the text
to go on a Weihsien website. the only
condition is that her agreement would
have to be obtained before anyone
quoted from it in something they
themselves were publishing.
i should be getting a photocopy of the
text from the museum soon. please to
whom should i send it for incorporation
in a website?
kay allan
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: jeudi 15 janvier
2004 18:22
This is great.
Keep me informed,
All the best,
Leopold
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Weihsien rescuer -- Tad
Nagaki's 84th birthday
Date: jeudi 15 janvier
2004 19:53
Tad Nagaki, youngest remaining member of the DUCK MISSION rescue team that
liberated Weihsien, will celebrate his 84th birthday on January 25.
If you'd like to drop him a card or a
note, here's contact information:
Tad Nagaki, 5851 Logan Road, Alliance, NE
69301 Phone: 308-762-2968
Tad lives alone. He continues to
farm in Alliance, Nebraska.
Mary Previte
De: "Ron Bridge" <rwbridge@freeuk.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: jeudi 15 janvier
2004 21:58
It will need to go to Leopold Pander.
Rgds
Ron Bridge
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: jeudi 15 janvier
2004 22:02
What a great find!
All of my text documents are
family-related, so if it's ok with Leopold, it
might be more appropriate there. However, depending on how long it is,
maybe it should be transcribed into a
word processing format for viewing
and downloading. Is it hand-written or typed? If
typed, it would be easy
to scan it with a character-recognition
program. Otherwise it will have to
be transcribed via keyboard.
How about it, Leopold?
De: "Kay Allan Canning" <kay_m_allan@hotmail.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: samedi 17 janvier
2004 7:02
Donald
it is not yet to hand here, but as i
recall, it is about 30-40 pages. the
museum's copy is itself a photocopy of
a typescript, and the first few lines
of each page had been written in by
hand for some reason
i should like to send what i get by
snail mail if you can bear to take
delivery that way, so that you can
decide if a scanning program can do most
of the work. as you may have detected i
am technically in the bottom
quartile of the class, if not the
bottom 10%
kay
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: samedi 17 janvier
2004 8:57
hello Kay,
If it is OK with Donald, I think I'll be able to handle this problem.
Are there any photos or documents,
paintings or sketches? to add to the
"picture gallery" ---
All the best,
Léopold.
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: samedi 17 janvier
2004 15:58
Leopold,
You bless us all with your efforts.
A thousand thank yous from this very
grateful heart.
Mary Previte
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: samedi 17 janvier
2004 22:50
Kay,
I agree that Leopold's site is the best
place to put it. If he has a
problem transcribing it, I'd be glad to
help, however.
Donald.
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: dimanche 18
janvier 2004 12:52
Dear Mary,
All this is team work really.
You found our liberators. Natasha
started the chat on Topica. Many have
written books. The paintings, the
drawings, the sketches. The recent
pictures of Weihsien thanks to David
and Ray. John's personal documents. The
existing web sites. Ron's fantastic
research and listings. Father Hanquet's
stories. Kay's recent findings. ---
Donald gave me the idea and the younger
generation helped me for the
technique (my nephew) and all I do is
just put things together.
Much has already been written on Topica
which has now become a splendid
source of information, but --- ! If you could ALL write down YOUR personal
story, "à la première personne du
singulier" and add a picture or two (or
even more) --- it would be a
contribution to the very little piece of
history we experienced sixty years ago.
All the best,
Leopold
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: dimanche 18
janvier 2004 20:25
Hello, Leopold:
I'm not sure what personal story you're requesting -- Our stories since
we left Weihsien?
Mary
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: lundi 19 janvier
2004 1:09
A wonderful idea -- as usual -- from
Leopold.
Since I wasn't there, I look forward
eagerly to reading your stories.
Donald.
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: lundi 19 janvier
2004 9:58
Hello Mary,
In fact, what I (we) would very much
like to read is your personal Weihsien
story. How it was, before Weihsien ---
after the day of infamy --- How it
was during our captivity. What were your
thoughts, joys and fears? What did
they make you do? The food? Written by the person of your age, as you
were
at that time, in 1943-45. What happened
after camp? How did you "re-connect"
to the civilised world? What remains?
So many questions!
---
I would like it as a message to the younger
generation.
---
Leopold.
De: "Kay Allan Canning" <kay_m_allan@hotmail.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of the websites?
Date: lundi 19 janvier
2004 9:58
donald and leopold
fine - i shall send the text to leopold
with gratitude
kay
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: lundi 19 janvier
2004 18:11
Hello, Leopold,
What a lovely idea!
My story is available. I wrote it
in detail for the cover story of The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine in 1985
(circulation about 1 million) to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the ending
of World War II. This gives a child's
eye view of this amazing story. The
magazine enlarged and had an artist colorize several snapshots to illustrate
the magazine cover and the story.
A local school recently copied
that story for its 5th grade students to read and study. Then they invited me to come to the school to
tell the story in person. Each student had me autograph their copy of the
story. I told them the sequel -- of my tracking down these heroes. And, as I always do, I asked them to write
personal letters to each hero. The
teacher sent me copies of their letters -- absolutely delightful. I'm now getting the joyful reaction from our
heroes. Carol Orlich phoned me today.
With Valentine's Day coming in the next few weeks, I'll be speaking to
school children in other schools and asking them to make and send Valentine's
Day cards to our heroes.
While I have not written the more recent story about my tracking down
our heroes, it has been documented in quite a few newspapers and magazines here
in the States. I tell it often, and one
religious organization sells tapes of the speech.
Mary Previte
De: "alison
holmes" <aholmes@prescott.edu>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: lundi 19 janvier 2004 19:10
Do you have any back issues of this,
Mary? Do
you know how we could get
hold of them? Thanks, A
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: lundi 19 janvier
2004 21:19
Hello, Allison,
I think you may have this Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine article. Xeroxing is the best I can do. Your father wrote very kindly of it in his
book.
Most of the article -- sans photos -- is included in my book, HUNGRY
GHOSTS.
Mary Previte
De: "alison holmes" <aholmes@prescott.edu>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: lundi 19 janvier 2004 23:34
Thanks for the reply, Mary.
I don't have the article. If Pa had it, nearly twenty years ago and in
another country, it certainly hasn't come on down to me! Do you think the newspaper would still have a
way of getting back copies?
Alison
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: mardi 20 janvier
2004 2:04
Hello, Allison,
I had a vague recollection that I had mailed you a Xeroxed copy at your
request some time ago. I'll inquire
whether The Inquirer still has copies.
Mary Previte
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: mardi 20 janvier
2004 10:54
Dear Mary,
May I have your permission to reproduce
your story for all of us on the "picture gallery web site". There
will be a new chapter entitled "From Mary Previte". I shall be
needing (for the front page) the first picture of you taken just after camp,
and a recent one ---- or more. You can, of course, send all that (the 1985
article and the photos) to me by snail post @ sentier du Berger, 15 ---
BE-1325-Corroy-le-Grand --- Belgium.
All the best,
Leopold
De: "alison
holmes" <aholmes@prescott.edu>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: mardi 20 janvier
2004 16:54
Thanks, Mary. If the Inquirer is out of articles, please
send me a photocopy. I just ordered
Hungry Ghosts yesterday and will look forward to reading that! Alison
De: <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Lilla Casey and her
recipe book
Date: mardi 20 janvier
2004 22:56
Dear All, Help - URGENT
I have just finished writing a book
about my great-grandmother, Lilla Casey, who wrote a recipe book whilst she was
in Temple Hill in Chefoo and then Weihsien Camp. However I have only just
discovered your site and my book is in
the last stages of editing and will go to press in a couple of weeks!
So, do any of you have any
recollections (or know anyone who might) of my great-grandmother and/or the
recipe book she wrote. She was in
cellblock 20, room 3, and around sixty years of age. She was born in Chefoo and
her maiden name was Lilla Eckford. Her second husband (my great-grandfather had
been killed in the First World War) was with her.
His name was Ernest Casey, and he had a
business in Chefoo called Casey & co. Although, curiously, in the camp
census he is put in block 8, room 5, where there was a 28 year old woman, Mrs
Wallace, and her three year old daughter - I have guessed this is an error!
Ernest had been interrogated by the Japanese before being imprisoned and I'm
not sure ever really recovered, he may have been confused.
Also in the camp were Lilla's brother
and sister-in-law, Vivvy and Mabel Eckford, Mabel's mother, Josephine Lavers
(late 80's then) and Reggie Eckford, another brother, who worked in Tsingtao.
If ANYONE has any recollections of
Lilla (maybe Lily)and her recipe book, or her husband, or any of the Eckfords,
I really need them soon, as the book (Lilla's Feast, to be published by
Doubleday, London, in the first week of September this year and by Ballantine
in the US shortly afterwards, and other publishers around the world) is in the
final stages of editing before the proofs are printed.
I hope to hear from any of you soon,
please, either on this address, or frances@francesosborne.com
Frances Osborne
tel London +44 (0) 20 7221 4184.
De: <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Lilla Casey's recipe
book - further
Date: mardi 20 janvier 2004 23:20
Dear All,
to jog your memories... Lilla Casey said that
she wrote the recipe book "for my fellow prisoners." I guess that
might mean the pages were lent out to read, or just that it was keeping the old
life alive. The recipe was typed on small notepaper scraps. Did anyone see any
of these. Were other people writing recipe books too?
Lilla's is now in the Imperial War
Museum in London.
Thank you,
Frances Osborne
De: "alison holmes" <aholmes@prescott.edu>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Cc: "Frances Osborne" <frances@fhowell.freeserve.co.uk>
Objet: Fw: Your father's
drawing of Temple Hill internment camp in Chefoo
Date: mardi 20 janvier 2004 23:24
I am putting this message in for Frances
Osborne. I am sure there will come a
whole flood of useful reminiscences...and she needs them relatively quickly as
there are only these two weeks for additions/revisions. Thanks!
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 2:21
Leopold,
You are most welcome to reproduce my story on your web site. Be warned:
it is a full, magazine length
story. Mary Previte
De: "Zandy Strangman" <zandy.jen@bigpond.com.au>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Lilla Casey and her
recipe book
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 3:29
Dear Frances,
I read your email with interest and
it's nice to see another new recruit joining the Weihsien 'chat' group.
However, even though I was in interned in the same camp as the Chefoo group,
unfortunately I can't help you with your
immediate 'cry' for "Help', regarding Lilla Eckford or her cook book.
Seeing you refer to the dear lady as
your great grand mother, suddenly made me feel a whole lot older than I thought
I was! But regardless of how old I might
be, I'm not that old that I can't remember how it was for us, who had the
'privilege' of being INTERNED by the Japanese.
Obviously, each internee is entitled to
their own opinion and interpretation on 'how it was'! My verdict is, given the fact that we were
'prisoners' of a cruel nation in a terrible war, we were treated remarkably
well, even in the camp.
Once we were there, a large number of
us were 'housed' in rows of rooms (up to a dozen) constituting a 'block'. And
to the best of my knowledge they were always referred to as, "Rooms"!
Whenever I see those rooms referred to
as 'CELLS', (and there have been 'one or two' occasions) it strikes me as a case of, over dramatising the
situation. And to see it now referred to
as a "Cellblock", makes me automatically think of stories about Al
Capone and Alcatraz and Sing Sing and the likes. Those were really lock up 'affairs' with
plenty of bars to keep those convicted criminals 'contained'!
Granted we may have been prisoners in
that compound, but we could come and go within it, as we pleased.
We were internees, not convicted criminals behind bars. We were not locked in our rooms at night, by
the Japs, nor were there any bars on each of the 2 windows in our rooms.
I dare say, some people were even able
to make their rooms look quite comfortable and 'homely', given the limited
resources at our disposal. A few of us,
and I was one of those, was able to
round up the necessary materials to build a brick stove (with an oven) in our
rooms, to replace the cast iron 'heater' that was issued to us.
Believe me, we came out of our 21/2
year internment looking pretty good!
Good luck Frances, with what you are
looking for! From an 'ol'
internee.........Zandy
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Lilla Casey and her
recipe book
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 5:45
Very well put, Zandy! When the war ended and the paratroopers
dropped down to us out of the clear blue sky in 1945, I was 13-1/2 years old.
Although camp was not a resort area, our morale was high - at least among the
Chefoo and Weihsien kids I associated with! I recall those years of internment
as some of the best years of my boyhood!
Sincerely,
David Birch
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Lilla Casey and her
recipe book
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 9:10
Dear Frances,
Welcome to Topica.
I was just 4 years old in 1945 and,
honestly, I don't remember much about Weihsien. With the "Internet"
miracle and with everybody's help, I built up a "picture gallery"
with photos and documents. You can go to
http://users.skynet.be/bk217033/Weihsien/index.htm ---
Once you are there, click on
"Topica-archives", then click on the second half of the year 2002. If
your computer reacts to "Ctrl-F", make a research for "Weihsien
recipes". It is a message from Christine Talbot Sancton dated December 16,
2002 with a few pages of cooking ideas.
Best regards,
Leopold
De: <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: It was different for
the old people
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 16:18
Dear Zandy and David,
I'm sorry to have upset you by using the
term cellblock for the blocks in
Weihsien. I understand that they were originally built for bible students and
were known as cells for that purpose (as in monasteries). I am pleased that you
both have such fond memories of Weihsien and am fully aware that for many
children, internment was an exciting adventure.
However, for the older people there, I am told, it was quite different.
They were at the end of their working lives and they had just lost everything
they had. They didn't know how they would survive when they left the camp. Or
where they would go. And the novelty of camp life was for them, physical
hardship. My great-grandmother's husband was so old and ill that he needed
nursing care which, in the community spirit of the camp, somebody was kind
enough to give. But, even though she mumbled that the Japanese had not treated
them too badly, my great-grandmother's memories of Weihsien were far from
sweet. When a BBC television crew came to interview her - when her recipe book was first displayed in
the Imperial War Museum in London, where it still is - she couldn't bring
herself to talk about it. She was a vivacious and loquacious woman to the end
of her 101 years, but on this, she simply couldn't talk. She even hid her
recipe book away from everyone until 1977.
Frances Osborne
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: new item for one of
the websites?
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 17:54
It's OK for me!
So far, I always got help to find the
best way out of my "web" problems.
I'll keep a watchful eye on my letter
box from now on -----
Best regards,
Leopold
De: "Theresa Granger(Myrtle Sharp)" <ttmg@juno.com>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: It was different
for the old people
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 18:11
Frances,
I enjoyed very much what you
wrote. My grandfather, aunt, and mother
were all internees at Weihsien. My
mother was 13 at the time of liberation, and my aunt about four years younger. However, a couple years back when I first
joined this group, my aunt wanted nothing to do with it. My mother has never mentioned bad memories,
and enjoys some of the stories I pass on to her from the chat group.
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: It was different
for the old people
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 18:56
Dear Frances,
I'm so sorry that your great
grandparents suffered such losses. What a pity that they felt so deprived and
hurt! War is not an easy time, and there are many who are deeply hurt! I'm just
so thankful that our missionary teachers were able to give us kids the ability
to look on the positive side of things at Chefoo and Weihsien.
I think, in a way, we were all hurt by
the war. I was separated from my parents and most of my family for about five
years altogether! It wasn't ideal at all. Fortunately most of my friends went
through much the same experience. Perhaps with the adaptability of childhood,
we sort of naturally adjusted to the environment in which we found ourselves!
Zandy was very athletic and had the
encouragement of some truly amazing Roman Catholic priests who coached him in
sports - baseball and so on! A couple of my teachers, a certain Mr. Gordon
Martin known as "Goopy" to us kids, did much the same for the boys
and girls in their care.
I don't think either Zandy or I were
offended by your reference to the rooms we occupied as "cells". We
just pointed out that from our perspective the camp was not a penal
institution! In fact, it was "home" for us during that time. A home
that still holds many warm memories.
Sincerely
David
De: "Theresa Granger(Myrtle Sharp)" <ttmg@juno.com>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: It was different
for the old people
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 19:32
David,
As with you (and many other, I'm sure),
my mother's family was separated as well.
Being Japanese, my grandmother and two uncles literally went underground
to escape from the Japanese Army, while my grandfather, aunt, and mother went
to Weihsien. As the (later) three were
ready to board a ship to come to the States, my grandfather overheard a nun
talking of a Japanese woman with two American-looking sons they found sick in
the jungle. Instincts told my
grandfather to stay back and find them, while sending my mother (then 13) and
aunt to the States by themselves.
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: It was different
for the old people
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 20:33
Theresa,
Your family obviously suffered very
greatly! War really is horrible and family separation due to war can be a great
hardship! How wonderful, though, to have memories of the love and faithfulness
of family members who sacrificed so much in order to try to be there for those
they loved!
You have a wonderful heritage! As have
I!
I'm just thankful that at the end of
the war our family (Dad and Mother and my brothers and sisters and I) were
finally reunited in Canada. In fact, my dear mother, Grace Lillian Birch, only
just died (at the age of ninety-eight years and eight months) two and a half
weeks ago on January 4, 2004!
My brother John who was 11 years old in
1945 was with me in the camps at Chefoo and Weihsien. He died in a tragic motor
vehicle accident after the war, in 1954. But John and I had each other during
those war years. After the war, we met a little sister, Miriam, who was born in
1943 far away in inland China!
But China is basically a country that
holds happy memories for me! Both my parents, and most of my teachers, as well
as other adults I knew as a child, set me a wonderful example of looking on the
bright side of things - even when we had very little! I'm so thankful for that!
Perhaps that is why I respond so readily to Zandy Strangman's positive attitude
about those days! It wasn't heaven but it was home, and lots of good things
happened there!
One memory that means a lot to me even
today concerns a blazing hot day in the summer of 1944. Some of us children had
been moved to Block 61 from Block 23 to take the place of some young men in
their twenties who were moved from their dorms in the attic of the hospital
(Block 61) where they had been able to command a clear view of the countryside
surrounding the camp. I had lost my little garden patch over by Block 23, so I
was trying to dig another patch by the wall over near the hospital, my new
home. It was tough going! The ground was baked hard by the blazing sun, and I
was hacking away at it with a big ungainly mattock and making very little
headway. When all of a sudden I noticed a uniformed Japanese guard looking down
at me. He had a kindly smile on his face, and he motioned to let me know he
wanted to help me. I handed him my heavy mattock and he readily went to work.
He was bigger and much stronger than I, and soon had my little patch of hard
dirt all broken and cultivated.
Then he smiled and gave me back the mattock
and left. I continued to work with my garden patch and was able to plant
flowers and vegetables in it. I was 12-l/2 years old at the time. That was
sixty years ago now, but I've never forgotten the friendliness and helpfulness
of that Japanese guard. He was not the only one of our captors who showed us
kindness in those days of internment!
Sincerely
David
De: "Natasha Petersen" <np57@cox.net>
À: "weihsien" <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Weihsien
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 21:28
Fellow internees and others,
I was just eighteen at the end of the
war and our stay in Weihsien. I do not
believe that those my age and younger, had any idea of the seriousness of our
plight. I do not remember hearing the
adults voicing their fears etc. We went
to school, joined the many and various clubs and classes, tried to keep up with
the difficult task of washing with little soap and in cold water, making coal
balls for the winter, working at various tasks given to us, etc. I am sure that the older ones knew what was
happening, and what terrible things could occur.
We were very lucky that we had doctors,
teachers, and dedicated leaders. I
recall Al Voyce, a few months after we got back to Tientsin, telling Athalie
(his wife) and me, that those of us in Weihsien, should thank God for being in
Weihsien rather than any other camp in eastern Asia.
When I first came to the States, I
tried to talk about Weihsien, but soon realised that people reacted to me very
strangely, they seemed to want me to break down, to tell horror stories
etc. I stopped talking about the war
years and camp. I am now very glad to be
able to read about your experiences, and
do not feel odd talking about mine. The
years in camp helped me understand that new clothes, furniture etc. are not
really important - they are nice, good to look at, but it is not the end of the
world to be without new and expensive material goods.
Let us hope and pray for peaceful years
to come.
Natasha (Natalie)
De: "Theresa Granger(Myrtle Sharp)" <ttmg@juno.com>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: It was different
for the old people
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 21:44
David,
As you mentioned, although the times
were rough, the memories were good. My
mother will be 72 later this year, and has filled us with many good
memories.
Although 100% Japanese, my grandmother
moved from Nagasaki Japan to China, after disowning her family; she met my
grandfather there. My mother was born
and raised in China, I believe Tinsen, where the family owned a nice piece of
land. From what I've been told, my
mother and her siblings are owed quite a bit of money, I believe from the
Japanese (maybe it was the Chinese, I'm not sure), who took the property during
the war. My mother is the only sibling
to express interest in gaining this back, as the others prefer to leave it
behind. A cousin attempted to find a
lawyer to help, I don't think this was followed up with. With my grandmother disowning her immediate
family, I am trying to find a way I can look up some type of family history
from Japan. I would absolutely love to
find lost relatives! Having been through
all of so much loss, my mother has taught us that most items are a luxury, and
family is family, no matter who they are, or where they are.
I am sorry to hear about your
mother. It is nice to know that she
provided you with such a rich history.
De: "Ron Bridge" <rwbridge@freeuk.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: It was different
for the old people
Date: mercredi 21
janvier 2004 22:54
Not sure if you are right about only
Bible students as when we arrived in
March 1943 outside of the blocks 23 and
24 which had been classrooms their
were pile of laboratory equipment and
all the trappings of a normal
secondary school/university which had
been trashed and burnt.
Rgds
Ron bridge
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: What wonderful
memories! Thank you, Natasha
Date: jeudi 22 janvier
2004 2:07
What fascinating memories this Topica
memory board pulls from our souls!
Bless you, Natasha, for this gift to
all of us!
Grown ups surely experienced
Weihsien from a very different
perspective than we children did. To this day, I can't begin to imagine the burden
for our Chefoo School teachers to have responsibility for a whole school full
of young children and teenagers in an internment camp -- all separated from
their parents. It boggles my mind. In
1985, when I was researching and writing my magazine story for The
Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, I
travelled to England to visit several of these Chefoo School teachers -- Miss
Stark, Miss Carr, Mrs. Jeannie Hills
Cotterill.
"I was not afraid of our Japanese
guards or of being interned ," Miss
Carr wrote to me later. "There was
no sense taking thought for the future, for there was nothing we could do about
it anyway. Occasionally, I faced the end
-- whichever way it went -- as being forced to dig a trench and then being
lined up and machine-gunned into it, and prayed that my turn might come near
the beginning." Grown ups knew
about war -- they all knew about the Japanese and the Rape of Nanking. We children did not.
Every page of my story is a tribute to these remarkable grown ups who
shielded us from the horror they felt.
They cushioned us with structure, predictability, and hope. I use those same lessons with the delinquent
teens I've worked with for the last 30 years.
These teachers taught us to trust in God -- to memorise -- anchor us
with -- whole chapters of the promises of God.
They created comfortingly predictable routines -- the same every day --
so a little voice inside comforted us,
"Oh, I know what's going to happen next." Children need that.
When I tell this story in schools
-- I love 10- and 11-year-olds the best -- I whisper secretly to the children, " Can you imagine what it would be like
to have to live with your teachers, day and night, for 5 1/2 years?" The children gasp and retch and shriek
"eeeeewww!!!!" Then I turn to
their teachers and ask, "And can
you imagine having to live day and night with all your students for 5 1/2
years?" You can only imagine the
response. (Our family was among the
Chefoo students who did not see our parents for 5 1/2 years.)
Thank you for all these wonderful
memories. May I ask that each one add
your name after everything you write? I
love knowing who is telling the story, but I have not memorized nor matched
names to each e-mail address.
This week I'm having children in three
different schools make and mail Valentine's cards for our heroes and other
veterans. The widow of our hero, Peter
Orlich, phoned me with pure delight this week after getting adoring hero
letters from children I had recently spoken to.
Carol Orlich, age 83, lives alone.
She says her stack of these letters and mementos now stretches at least
a foot high. She shows them to her
children, to her grandchildren, and to "girlfriends" with whom she
has lunch. These letters and cards have
changed her life, she says. She only wishes her Pete could have seen them.
Mary (Taylor) Previte
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: It was different
for the old people
Date: jeudi 22 janvier
2004 3:56
Weihsien had been a Presbyterian
mission compound and the Presbyterian missionaries strongly believed in
encouraging and enabling the people to gain a well-rounded general education,
including but not confined to, the study of the Bible.
Dr. Luce, the father of Henry R. Luce
who founded TIME magazine, was the "elder statesman" missionary at
Weihsien for a number of years around the turn of the last century. Dr. Luce
was well known as having had a lot to do with universities in North China in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His son lived at Weihsien and had his early
schooling there before being sent to Chefoo in 1912 at the age of fourteen.
Later he was educated in the United States where he graduated from Yale
University before working in journalism in Chicago. Henry R. Luce and Briton
Hadden founded TIME in 1923 when they were both 25 years old.
It's interesting to realize that our
old compound was a school for Chinese young people for many years before we
lived there during the war, and that it is still to this day a school where
Chinese youth receive their education!
David Birch
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien
Date: jeudi 22 janvier
2004 4:08
Thank you, Natasha! Your memories of those long-ago days are
great! We do have SO MUCH to be thankful
for! Yes World War II was an extremely serious conflict, and we could easily
have suffered far more seriously than we did. Had the tide of war turned
against the Allies instead of the other way round, we might very likely have
either died or suffered dreadful indignities under a harsh and repressive
regime. But things did NOT go that way. We were delivered, set free, brought
home to be reunited with our families! By the grace of God!
And yes, we have many GOOD memories of
those Weihsien Camp days!
Our elders really were wise and steady
people, and we were greatly privileged to have them (and a loving, caring God)
watching over us!!!
Love
David
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: What wonderful
memories! Thank you, Natasha
Date: jeudi 22 janvier
2004 4:26
Mary,
What a beautiful and fitting tribute
you have paid to our teachers at Chefoo and Weihsien! I heartily endorse
everything you said about them! I know that we think of those wonderful
paratroopers as heroes, but really their contribution to our lives was
comparatively small when measured against the enormous contribution our
selfless teachers made over many, many years both before and during the war
years! I truly thank God to this day for their hallowed memory!
Miss Stark, Miss Carr and Miss Hills
(later Mrs. Cotterill) did so much for me. I never had the privilege to see
them again after leaving China in 1945.
However I did have the privilege to visit Miss Pearl Young in 1961 or
1962 when she was on furlough from Taiwan. I was living in Halifax, Nova Scotia
at that time. A friend whose home was in Pictou, NS, invited me to stay for a
few days with his family so that I could visit Miss Young at her family home in
Pictou. We spent several hours a day
together for that New Year's weekend. It was a very special time for me, and
for Miss Young. She had been my fourth-grade teacher at Chefoo, and had
accompanied my brother John and me home to Canada, along with a group of other
Canadian youngsters after the war.
Warmest regards
David Birch
De: "Frances Osborne" <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: What wonderful
memories! Thank you, Natasha
Date: jeudi 22 janvier 2004 15:09
Dear Mary,
I have only just joined the group. Would it be
possible, please to receive an email copy of your story too?
Frances Osborne
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: What wonderful
memories! Thank you, Natasha
Date: vendredi 23
janvier 2004 4:08
E-mail copies of my story are not
available. I am asking The
Philadelphia Inquirer if copies of this
1985 magazine are still available. If
not, I'll have to Xerox a copy.
Mary Previte
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Cellblocks! And
False Impressions.
Date: lundi 26 janvier
2004 18:24
Thank you, Zandy! I really appreciate
your memories of those days! We certainly were remarkably well off at Weihsien.
I honestly don't blame our Japanese guards for anything! I think they were a
homesick bunch of friendly civilian police, and I felt and still feel a real
affection for them!
We were bound together in a difficult
experience at a difficult time in history. And in my books at any rate, they
come up with a pretty good score! If you
can get a copy of Norman Cliff's little book, The Courtyard of the Happy Way,
you'll enjoy reading about these Japanese men who used to guard the foreign
embassies in North China. At least one of them, a certain Mr. Kosaka, was
educated at a university in the United States and felt a real bond with us
westerners. He even believed that he was specially honoured by God to be in a
responsible position over us when war broke out, so that he could care for us!
At the Temple Hill camp, where Mr. Kosaka was our chief of police (or
commandant), I recall him and his deputy actually having dinner with us in the
building where many of us boys were housed. And I also recall a tennis match
between some of our teachers and older boys where a couple of Japanese guards
actually took part and played along with us. Real friendships developed, as
with your friend Cole and his Japanese guard friend! So there was another side
to this whole experience. Both Temple Hill and Weihsien were truly remarkable
camps, and for that I am profoundly thankful!
David
De: "Dwight W. Whipple" <thewhipples@comcast.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Cellblocks! And False Impressions.
Date: lundi 26 janvier
2004 18:48
Hello Everybody
The talk about the Japanese guards
rings a lot of memory bells for me. When
we were first interned in our own home in Tsingtao on December 8, 1941, guards
were put at our gate. It was cold but my
cousin Tom and I would go down to the gate and "play" with the
guard(s). After we were acquainted he
would take the bayonet off the end of his rifle, take out the shells, and give
us his rifle and we would play "war."
We would "shoot" him and he would fall down
"dead." And he would laugh and
laugh. We would go up to the house and
get him some hot tea. We became good
friends. And then in Weihsien we would
play similarly with the guards. I
remember Tom and would "sneak" up on them, knock off their caps and
run as fast as we could to get away.
They would chase us and laugh about the whole thing. On one occasion my little sister Julie, age
three, walked out the main gate at Weihsien with her little Norwegian friend (I
think her name was Astrid), and they were a ways down the road before they were
noticed and a guard ran after them bringing them back into camp, one girl on
each side all of them holding hands.
Another memory of our "captors" was the baseball games where
sometimes the camp played against the guards.
My childhood memories of all of this (I was seven years old) are happy
and adventurous. We were fortunate to be
all together as a family; in fact, two families together in Block 1 next to the
wall. We have adventurous tales of the
black market over the wall, one time getting "caught" by one of the
guards but nothing ever came of it. It's
a story my father loves to tell! By the
way, Dad will be 99 in May of this year, still in good mind, getting a little
frail but with good humor and we still talk about the "old days" in
China. We indeed were a part of history
and it is fun to share these memories with so many. I wonder how many of us are left?
~Dwight W. Whipple
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Cellblocks! And
False Impressions.
Date: lundi 26 janvier
2004 20:33
Dwight,
Thank you for sharing your memories of
friendly guards at both Tsingtao and Weihsien. Your recollections, going back
to when you were a little seven-year-old boy, are truly refreshing and confirm
the pleasant memories of Zandy, myself, Natasha, and I'm sure many others! We
can choose to recall the truly kindly, humane side of all that happened if we
decide to do so. It's true that the war had a lot of horror stories, but it
also had a good lot of wonderfully reassuring instances of good folk on both
sides of the conflict who were brought together by forces beyond their control
and who rose above stupid differences and behaved in a genuinely civilised way
toward each other!
Weihsien wasn't really bad at all. Even
the elderly, like old Mr. Herbert Taylor, Jim Taylor's and Mary Taylor
Previte's grandfather, had a great sense of joy and peace, and the providence
of God, throughout those days of internment. I well remember him and his warm
smile, dear old man! Mr. John Hayes, a middle-aged Presbyterian missionary and
Rhodes scholar, had his own mother there with him at Weihsien. She had been a
missionary in China all her life. I remember her proudly asking some of us
young boys, "How old do you suppose I am?," then smilingly informing
us that she was "Eighty-eight!" She was a happy woman who took life,
and all that came her way, cheerfully!
Old Herbert Taylor was eighty-five at the end of the war in 1945. Life
had never been a "bed of roses" for him. He had served as a
missionary in China all his life! But he also had learned to be thankful to God
in all circumstances!
The spirit of community was strong in
Weihsien Camp, and people were only too pleased to reach out and help those
with special needs such as the elderly. There must have been fear and
uncertainty, but there were morale-building activities organized by
community-minded intelligent adults who well knew what they were doing. Also,
we had literally dozens of highly qualified medical doctors, and scores of
well-educated missionaries and some outstanding teachers in the camp. I'm sorry
if there were some elderly people who felt they were "forgotten" but
I really don't think there was really any need to feel that way. Lots of help
was available to those who reached out for it!
David
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica>; <com@gee.skynet.be>
Objet: A child's-eye view
of Japanese guards at Weihsien
Date: mardi 27 janvier
2004 1:39
Hello, Everyone,
If there were 1,400 prisoners interned
in Weihsien, there are 1,400 perceptions of the Weihsien experience. I was marched off to internment camp in Chefoo
when I was 9 years old. As a child, I
knew nothing of the rape of Nanking and Japanese atrocities in China. The grown ups knew. And that knowledge must have shaped their
fears.
For grown ups, the lack of privacy in
Weihsien's adult dormitories must have been the worst hell. For me, dormitory life was an endless pajama
party with 13 girls.
I wrote about this contrast several
years ago: "For some of the adults in Weihsien, the prospect of Allied
victory was tinged with terror. If the
Japanese knew they faced defeat, what would they do to us? Does a defeated army rape and kill its
prisoners? Would it hold us hostage to
prevent more bombings of Japan? Those
were some of the unvoiced agonies of the adults.
We children ached, instead, for the Japanese
guards who had become our friends.
Hara-kiri, someone told us, was the honorable way for a Japanese soldier
to face defeat. Ceremonial suicide. The Chefoo boys who knew about these things
demonstrated on their bellies where the cuts of the samurai sword would be made
-- a triangle of self-inflicted wounds, followed by a final thrust to the
heart. I shuddered. The Japanese guard who gently lifted us girls
up so
gently into his guard tower and dropped us for delicious moments of
freedom into the field beyond the wall -- would he commit hara-kiri?"
One of our Chefoo teachers, Miss
Beatrice Stark, expressed amazement to me when she read my account about girls
in our dormitory throwing balls over the wall by the hospital guard tower and
cajoling the Japanese guards to pull us up and over the wall for a few minutes
of freedom to search for our errant balls.
I think most of us who write on this
memory web site experienced Weihsien as children. Would that we could also see
Weihsien from the memories of adults.
Behind barbed wire and electrified walls, they created school, athletic
competition, lectures, dances, dramas, and concerts to keep hope
alive. No wonder we, the children of
Weihsien, remember Weihsien with nostalgia.
That was the gift the grown ups gave us. They thought us to make games
out of hardship. They preserved our
childhoods. I hope all of you have read Langdon Gilkey's SHANTUNG
COMPOUND, Harper and Row, 1966, still in
print after almost 40 years.
Mary T. Previte
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: A child's-eye view
of Japanese guards at Weihsien
Date: mardi 27 janvier
2004 7:21
Hi All:
Perhaps a major factor which worked to
alleviate the situation for all of us internees, both at Temple Hill and at
Weihsien, was the fact that we were all civilians! Another very important
factor was that our guards were civilian police: NOT MILITARY! Our guards had
been embassy guards, trained to provide security for the foreign embassies in
Shandong province!
And let's face it, we were in a country
in the midst of enormous upheaval because of a dreadful world war. Whether
adult or child, we could hardly expect to be able to continue life in a
"normal" way! Of course it was embarrassing initially for the single
women to be housed in big dormitories with scores of other single women, and to
have to dress and undress without the privacy they had been accustomed to enjoy
in their pre-war situation. But human beings are amazingly able to adapt to new
situations when the need arises, and I think that most did. I've read Langdon
Gilkey's Shantung Compound and really enjoyed it. Gilkey was in his early
twenties when he was interned. I clearly recall him as one of the cooks in
Kitchen One - and he was a good cook. As I remember now, his
"fellow-chef" was a lady named Miss Hinkley. Gilkey makes it quite
clear in the book that many adults were able to adapt to conditions at
Weihsien, and that there were a number of remarkable adults, some single, some
married, who made up there minds to win over the whole situation by serving
others. He cites some very fine men who happened to be Roman Catholic priest
who did all sorts of selfless acts of community service such as repairing
broken down sewage systems and helping people with renovations to their living
quarters, including installing stoves and make-shift stove pipes, etc. Also
Catholic sisters "went about doing good" and, incidentally, making
converts along the way! Also there were many fine Protestant missionaries, both
single and married, who helped to comfort and encourage others at Weihsien. And
there were people there who probably never darkened a Church door but who also
"rose to the occasion" and helped others to cope with their fears and
uncertainties.
My own "suffering" if it
could be called that, mainly consisted of a feeling of homesickness that had
begun years before I was interned at Temple Hill. My father had taken me to the
Chefoo School when I was six and a half years old, and I never got to live at home
with my family again, other than for brief visits they made to Chefoo, and one
visit I made to Shanghai. All that ended for me well before the bombing of
Pearl Harbor when I was ten. Boarding school, even at such a fine institution
such as the Chefoo School, was definitely no substitute for normal family life
with my own dad and mom and brothers and sisters! I felt a constant underlying
anxiety, and a longing to "go home!" In fact I used to wet the bed at
Chefoo and Temple Hill. Weihsien for me was a wonderful place where my anxiety
seemed to clear up and almost from when I arrived there in September 1943 my
embarrassing habit of bedwetting cleared up spontaneously. At the Boys School
at Chefoo, and Temple Hill, our kindly headmaster, Mr. P. A. Bruce, had punished
me with a caning every morning I woke up with a wet bed. It did absolutely no
good. I was so embarrassed and discouraged, but I could not help myself. He
quit "getting on my case" after we got to Weihsien, and the problem,
as I say, cleared up by itself. Thank God!
I still say emphatically that in the
peaceful, orderly life at Weihsien, there needn't have been terror or grim fear
for anyone. Our guards were decent men, I think without exception. And we had a
wonderful "Liaison Committee" of very responsible and mature
internees who met, regularly to discuss our situation and to bring our concerns
to the attention of the Japanese authorities.
I know there had been terrible
atrocities committed by the Japanese military in China, ghastly events like the
"rape of Nanking" and so on. Many westerners had foreseen serious
difficulties looming, even before Pearl Harbor, and had had the good sense to
return to their homelands.
My own parents were naive when it came
to international political situations in those days, and so they carried on
with their missionary work in inland China and left my younger brother John and
me in the boarding school in Japanese-occupied China. After the war, they told
me personally that they deeply regretted having not realized what was coming.
Had they known, they told me, they would have taken the family including John
and me, and would have returned to Canada.
However, they did not know, and had to
make the most of the situation. They carried on bravely in Anhui province and
did an immense amount of good there. Many other missionaries acted in much the
same way, and much good came to their Chinese Christian constituencies because
of their selfless labors.
Yes, if the Japanese had reacted in a
certain way, we might have all died!
IF is a little word but it has a big
meaning. The fact is, THAT JUST DID NOT HAPPEN.
A lot of prayers went up to heaven from
all around the world for the internees at Weihsien, and God heard those prayers
and chose to answer them in a thrilling way. And I know that many of us, even
sixty years later still thank God for His deliverance!
De: "Stan Thompson" <thompson@ginniff.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: A child's-eye view
of Weihsien
Date: mercredi 28 janvier 2004 22:24
David, you continue to amaze me ! We
are friends of the same age and were in the same class in Chefoo and Weihsien,
and yet your memories of Weihsien are so much more vivid and detailed than
mine. You must have been more gregarious and talked to more people. When I read
Shantung Compound, Gilkey's camp seemed to be quite different from what I
remembered, and I certainly didn't remember Gilkey !
Perhaps you were more social than
I, and have retained more Paul, my mother, my sister Joan and I lived in a
second floor room in the hospital. It was a corner room looking out over the
fields. There were people out there; they came from the village visible some
distance away, and walked towards us to work in the fields, flipping the
sweet-potato vines from one side to the other.
We went to Kitchen No
1, but seldom as a family. I helped my brother to build a stove in our room
(home-made bricks?- with an air path around a big biscuit-tin for an oven). We
sometimes had meals in our room as a family, sometimes bringing food back from
Kitchen no.1. My mother worked there on
a food preparation crew. I swept the
hospital steps every day for a while, and took a turn at pumping water for a
while.
After my 16 year old brother
Brian's tragic accidental death in Aug '44, our family clung together a little
more tightly. Mother wasn't quite ready to go out and talk to her sympathetic
friends without breaking down, and we felt that she needed our support and
comfort, so we were able to provide company for each other in our room. For a few weeks this shielded us
even more from contact with others
In those days if you were sick, you
were put to bed and kept there for a week or two. I remember a time, at about
age 12, when I was kept in bed in our room even though I remember feeling
OK. Someone got me something to read;
it was a fat book called "The Family Mark Twain" published by Harper
& Brothers in 1935, with ochre cloth-covered boards, a brown spine and about
1500 pages of a smooth crisp paper. (you can tell that I found a replacement
copy ! It is a substantial volume that
weighs almost 4 lbs. I wonder who brought it to Weihsien in their luggage
!) How I loved that book ! I read more than half of it that week
including Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Connecticut Yankee.
My mother's friend Lillian Jenness was a senior American missionary
whose accent fascinated me. (When she quoted Shakespeare, I was transfixed:
"Neetherr a lenderr nahrr a bahrrowerr be" she would say !) I bring up "Auntie Lillian" because
she expressed the opinion that my moral fibre might well be undermined by
reading too much Mark Twain, and suggested "Ben Hur" as an
alternative; but my mother, seeing the
pleasure I was taking from the book (and perhaps reassured by the word 'family'
in the volume's title) brushed this risk aside ! Whether this was a wise decision is perhaps
not for me to judge !
Stan
Thompson
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien memories
Date: jeudi 29 janvier 2004 9:49
Dear Weihsien Club,
Perhaps you can help me. Perhaps
by way of introduction, I was the
senior Chefoo boy in Weihsien. I had matriculated in Chefoo in July
1941. My
parents had asked me to remain in
Chefoo until Dec. when they would come to the coast to see me before I went to
Britain. But, as you know, the curtain
came
down at Pearl Harbor, and I was caught
for four years.
My question concerns a school in Weihsien little mentioned. About a
year before the end of internment Mr.
Pryor of Education approached three
Chefoo people - Reg. Bazire and Gordon
Welch (both teachers) and myself to
resurrect the Tientsin Grammar School
which had closed down. We used the
church building and taught many young people, and it ran smoothly for the
remaining period.
This has seldom if ever been referred to in reminiscences. It is mentioned in Sister Servatia's book A
CROSS IN CHINA (Copies of this can be obtained free from Sister Mary Lea
Schneider, Cardinal Stith University, 6801 Yates Road, Milwaukee, Wisc. 53217 -
3986, if there are any left over).
My question is: Did any of you attend this school? Norman Cliff
De: "Frances Osborne" <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Photograph
Date: jeudi 29 janvier 2004 13:05
I received it this morning! Thank you
very much. Talk soon, Frances
De: "Pamela Masters" <pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Photograph
Date: jeudi 29 janvier 2004 19:56
I sure did. It started up
in #2 Kitchen, where we tried to study with our eyes running from the
fumes of the leeks the prep cooks were working on. When it got just about impossible for us to
go on, we were moved to the Assembly Hall.
I think you'll find a slew of us, Natasha Peterson among the crowd, who
graduated from Weihsien's Tientsin Grammar School! A year or so after we got out of camp I got
my grades from Cambridge University, but as I was already in the States, I
never got to attend those hallowed halls.
I'd love to learn the saga of how all our exam papers got to England and
got graded. Does anyone out there know
this story?
Pamela Masters (nee Simmons)
De: "Natasha Petersen" <np57@cox.net>
À: "weihsien" <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: the other school
Date: jeudi 29 janvier
2004 21:37
I remember our school days in the
church/assembly hall. How difficult it
must have been for our teachers. Mr.
Foxlee was the headmaster, and the teachers from Tientsin Grammar School. In Tientsin, after December 1941, classes
were held in several locations in private homes.
As Pamala said in her e-mail, there
were a slew of us in the assembly hall school.
Natasha
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: jeudi 29 janvier
2004 22:01
Pamela and Natasha have kindly answered
my enquiry. But no one has
specifically stated that they recall
Bazire, Welch and myself leading the
re-organised
school in the church building for the
last year of internment. Norman Cliff
De: "Pamela Masters" <pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: jeudi 29 janvier 2004 22:04
Sorry Norm, I'd already graduated, and
don't know who took over the teaching after I left. Best regards -- Pamela
De: "Dwight W. Whipple" <thewhipples@comcast.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: jeudi 29 janvier
2004 22:22
I remember Sister Blanda and Sister
Donatella teaching us first and second graders.
~Dwight W. Whipple
De: "Natasha Petersen" <np57@cox.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: vendredi 30
janvier 2004 18:44
I, too, had graduated by that
time. I do not remember the
re-organisation of the school.
Natasha
De: "Albert Dezutter" <albertdezutter@worldnet.att.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Weihsien: More than one
"other" school
Date: vendredi 30
janvier 2004 18:44
There was, of course, still another
school, run by Miss Moore of the Peking American School. That is the school I
attended. Sister Hiltrudis and other nuns taught at that school. It was conducted
quite informally, but nevertheless effectively. We sat around a table in a room
in Block 23 facing the area behind the building, and studied at our own pace
with teachers readily available to help and instruct. I was 13 when we were liberated in 1945 and
had already completed a year of high school according to the American system.
Normally one would be 15 after a year of high school. I also remember earlier
attending school in a more traditional classroom, though I don't remember which
building that was in.
Albert de Zutter
De: "Joyce Cook" <bobjoyce@tpg.com.au>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: samedi 31 janvier 2004 6:15
I very well remember sisters Donatella,
and Blanda as well as sister Hiltrudis. They taught me at the St. Josephs
Middle School at Tsingtao before Weihsien. I graduated from the Peking American
High School which was set up in camp by the principal Miss Alice Moore and I
still have my certificate. But there was no graduation ceremony unfortunately.
The Japanese showed their cruelty when
they severely beat up Armic Baliantz in Tsingtao Iltis Hydro Camp, I believe
because he, as a fluent Japanese language speaker refused to spy for them. I
saw his terribly bloodied and bruised body when he was brought back from the
beating. His wife asked my mother to
lend her some cushions to help ease his pain. I remember he was beaten up about
three times again after arriving in WeiHsien. He did survive the war and a few
years ago I discussed his mistreatment with his wife Tsolik in San Francisco. I
also saw a Chinese beggar boy being used for Kendo target practice. There were
other instances of cruelty at the Iltis Hydro. I do not know whether the guards
responsible for these atrocities were ex-consular guards. Like many others I
had been in Japanese custody from Pearl Harbour day to one month after we were
liberated in WeiHsien. Joyce Bradbury- Original Message -----
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: dimanche 1 février
2004 1:47
Joyce,
Your memories of evidence of Japanese
cruelty toward some internees are terribly sad, and truly deplorable. Not all
guards were "saints" obviously! But thank God the ones to whom I was
exposed were truly decent and exhibited courtesy and friendliness at times. I
am thankful for my memories, none of which involve Japanese cruelty.
I do however recall that our
headmaster, Mr. P.A. Bruce, was taken into custody for several weeks by the
Japanese for questioning during the months immediately following "Pearl
Harbour." Other leaders of the foreign (to the Japanese) community at
Chefoo were taken into custody with Mr. Bruce at the Astor Hotel on Beach Road
across from the seaside at Chefoo. I do know that one of these men did not survive
that period of imprisonment.
All the men were released except a Mr.
McMullen who was the editor of the English language newspaper in Chefoo. His
widow was informed by the Japanese that he had died of typhoid during his
detainment. I think that the cause of his death could very well have been the
result of physical cruelty. I think that his body was cremated and the ashes
returned to Mrs. McMullen. I was one of a small group of children from our
school who accompanied one of our teachers when we walked to the McMullens'
home where Mrs. McMullen gave us some toys such as teddy bears and so on to
bring back to our school. I don't know whether Mrs. McMullen and her children
were repatriated to Britain around that time. I think they may have been. Our
visit to her home that day in early 1942 was a very sad one really.
Re. Civilian embassy guards:
I am almost certain that such
interrogations and brutality were carried out by the Japanese military and NOT
by embassy guards who later guarded our Temple Hill camp. Mr. Kosaka, our
"Chief of Police" at Temple Hill, was a true "gentleman"
who actually considered that he was selected by divine Providence for his
position of responsibility over us. He was protective and courteous.
Please don't get me wrong: I know that
World War II in both Europe AND Asia was replete with many instances of
horrible cruelty. And sad to say there were even instances of cruelty and
murder by some members of the Allied military toward the Japanese. On the troop
transport vessel taking some of us home to North America, were 800 United
States Marines. One of them told me personally (I was thirteen at the time)
that he had taken part in a murder of a number of Japanese soldiers who had
surrendered. Then he and some of his marine friends proceeded to rape a couple
of young women in the group of prisoners.
Just a year ago, here in Vancouver,
Canada, six of our police officers were reported by a colleague for taking
three men to a lonely park at night and giving them a severe beating and then
leaving them to stumble home several miles in pain. Two of these officers have
now been dismissed and the others reinstated on the Force.
So, yes cruelty exists and has always
existed. It's just that I saw none of it in our camps and want to make my voice
heard on the positive side re. our Japanese captors. For the sake of fairness!
David Birch
----- Original Message -----
From: Mahlon D. Horton
To: David Birch
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 2:13 AM
Apparently I can't post
letters on the Weihsien site as I tried and received it back saying I wasn't
part of the list.
So perhaps you can answer this question for me.
Just a question.
As I remember Miss Evelyn Davies (now Huebner) of Chefoo-- said she taught
kindergarten in Weihsien. Which school did she teach
in? She was not referring to the Chefoo school.
If I
remember correctly she said these were happy and contented students.--something
to that effect. It didn't matter that they didn't have the
toys etc.
I thought she said they were the
happiest children she had taught.
Audrey
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: "Mahlon D. Horton" <berean@lincsat.com>
Cc: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Mrs. Huebener, nee
Evelyn Davey
Date: dimanche 1 février
2004 4:50
Audrey,
I'm sorry, I do not have the answer
either to your question about Miss Davey, or to your question about why
weihsien@topica.com will not accept e-mail from you. I'm sending a copy of this
reply to them however, so hopefully they will reply directly to you.
Regards,
David Birch
De: "
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:DFR McMUllen
Date: lundi 2 février 2004
10:33
Re David Birchs Report on the McMullens
DFR McMullen died as the result of
interrogation in Tsinan Military Prison the brief details are recorded in
Document reference FO371/31746 held at the British national Archives Kew.
For the record his widow Mrs Winifred A
McMullen b 1897 and American was evcuated on the first exchange sailing from
Rgds
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:DFR McMUllen
Date: lundi 2 février 2004
Thank you very much, Ron, for
clarifying for me some of the situation surrounding the death of Mr. McMullen.
Tragic indeed. The Japanese military were indeed cruel.
As I thought, Mr. Mcmullen's
interrogation and death were carried out by the Japanese military and our
civilian guards had nothing whatever to do with it!
Sincerely
David Birch
De: <m.bull@sympatico.ca>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: lundi 2 février
2004 20:49
I had attended the
If any one remebers me I would love to
hear from them.
Marjorie McLorn Bull
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: mardi 3 février
2004 1:07
Marjory McLorn Bull,
I remember your father, John McLorn, in Temple Hill camp. He was tall
and well spoken. I have an
autograph album signed by your parents which paid tribute to Miss Inez Phare of the Chefoo
Girls' School being "a dear neighbour we'll miss". Norman Cliff
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Cc: "Janette & Pierre @ home" <pierre.ley@pandora.be>
Date: mardi 3 février 2004
Dear Mary, Dear Kay,
A great many thanks for all you sent my
way. Fantastic. My head is already buzzing with ideas for a nice page layout.
When I finished (at last) the 37 pages
of Dorothy Potter's story of Weihsien with Kay's help and when finally I made
the "transfer" to the web site --- my transfer protocol program let
me down. :-((
The result is, that nothing is working
as it should. I am trying to find an honourable way out of it but for the
moment, I'm very perplex!
Time and patience! We will fix it --- I
don't know how, but we will fix it. !!
All the best,
Leopold
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: No Subject
Date: mardi 3 février
2004 2:42
I'm so glad my materials reached you
safely, Leopold. I hope you can incorporate them into your web page.
What a gift you are giving to all of
us.
Mary Previte
De: "Kay Allan Canning" <kay_m_allan@hotmail.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: RE: transfer protocol
Date: mardi 3 février 2004
you know my distinguished level of
incompetence in technical matters, so it is best if i simply wish you good luck
with the transfer
k
De: "David
Beard" <beard@xtra.co.nz>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: transfer protocol
Date: mardi 3 février
2004 10:52
Leopold, could you possibly have
exceeded the size allocation thatSkynet has given you for your web site?
Margaret Beard
De: "David Allen" <dandya@fidalgo.net>
À: "Weihsien internees" <weihsien@topica.com>; "Mahlon D. Horton" <berean@lincsat.com>
Objet: Re: Miss Evelyn Davey
Date: mardi 3 février
2004 23:12
Dear Audrey:
Thanks for your quick reply. I
would really like that address if you
have it. There are times that I go east to
Woodinville and see her. The fantastic detail came only from my
letters I wrote and that my mother so carefully saved through those troublesome
time. She sent the letters to Hongkong,
before it became Chinese territory and then they were forwarded to
They were all sealed in a box with
about 700 letters. I noticed like you
said that that many of the leters I wrote in 1943 were lost but in 1944 and
1945 they came through much better.
While we were interned we would write letters once a month but after I
went to Kuling we sent letters once a week.
My life was much more interesting in Kuling than in Weihsien and I have
volumes of information from ages 13 - 161/2.
All the hikes, games played, lesson classes we took, scouting games, Christmas activities (because our family was
separated for another 3 years). From the
time I was 6 until 17 I lived with my parents for 2 years (1945, one year after
the war, and 1947, the year my parents were on furlough.) I really didn't know my parents until I was
about 40 years of age after I moved to
I have complete letters from 1948 - 1951, these are the complete letters
transcribed instead of one line
phrases. I would explain what I saw at
Chinese pagodas, swimming holes, and exploring trips to places we named like
Abraham's heights, where we did rock climbing, or the delapidated White Russian
homes that had been abandoned 20 years earlier and were falling into disrepair.
We would bash down the brick walls and
fly out of the house before they fell on us.
There were many letters describing scouting exercises and the fun we had
there. I described the different floor
exercises we performed in the gymnasium etc.
What I am trying to say that for those writing about Weihsien, they were
in their teens and full of life. I was
too young to appreciate much of what went on.
But I was a teenager in Kuling and I was alive to all the excitement
that happened in those years. Kuling was
a beautiful place, even
the communists repect it as a tourist
place with much historical significance. Kiang Ki Shek would come there for
summer vacation trips, and Mao Tse Tung had his summer planning sessions in the
school across from where we went to
school after we left in 1953. I returned there in 1991 (40 yeqrs after
leaving and realized that the glory had departed.)
Nice to hear from you. I would
like to hear more about you and your life at that time and since. Peoples lives are interesting! Let me know more about Phil and what he has
done since and how he looks back on life.
David Allen
dandya@fidalgo.net
De: "Mahlon D. Horton" <berean@lincsat.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Miss Evelyn Davey
Date: mercredi 4 février
2004 2:16
Mrs. Evelyn D. Huebner
Greenbrier
14390 N.E. 189 Pl.
Do not have phone number.
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: transfer protocol
Date: mercredi 4 février 2004
Believe me, Leopold, I excel in computer incompetence, so I can be
no help at all. I glow with
accomplishment when I can even get an e-mail through on the internet.
Frances Osborne is wanting to use in
her upcoming book a snapshot of an airplane flying low over Weihsien. The snapshot includes the tip of the roof of
the church showing above a lot of trees.
Does anyone have that photo or one like it that they can scan to
Mary Previte
De: "Mary Broughton" <wilmar@clear.net.nz>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: the other school
Date: mercredi 4 février
2004 23:03
Dear Marjorie,
Recently I have been wondering where
you are and what happened to you.I remamber you very clearly from the time we
were living in the white room (ie operating theatre) in the hospital building
in Weihsien.
You may be interested that our Form are
planning a
It will be good to hear from you,
Mary (Hoyte) Broughton
De: "Frances Osborne" <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Langdon Gilkey and
Martha Philips
Date: lundi 9 février 2004
Does anyone know how to contact either
of these, if they are still with us?
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Langdon Gilkey and
Martha Philips
Date: lundi 9 février
2004 19:38
You might get Gilkey at
804-293-3949. It's been a couple of
years since I spoke to him, but that's
the number I have.
De: "Frances Osborne" <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Langdon Gilkey and
Martha Philips
Date: lundi 9 février 2004
Dear Donald,
Thank you very much for your email.
Success!
Best wishes,
Frances Osborne
De: "Stanley Nordmo" <shnordmo@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Langdon Gilkey and
Martha Philips
Date: mardi 10 février
2004 7:22
-
Dear Frances
Martha Philips died in
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Langdon Gilkey and
Martha Philips
Date: mardi 10 février
2004 8:54
Martha has died. Prof. Langdon
Gilkey,
De: "Frances Osborne" <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Eloise Cauthen
Date: mardi 10 février 2004
Does anybody know Eloise Cauthen,
formerly Lois Glass, daughter of Dr Wiley Glass who was in the Temple Hill camp
at Chefoo and then briefly at Weishien before being repatriated on the
Gripsholm? I have an address for her at
De: "Frances Osborne" <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: male/female ratio
Date: vendredi 13 février 2004
Does anyone know what the male/female
ratio was in Weihsien, particularly between October 1943 and the end?
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: male/female ratio
Date: vendredi 13 février 2004
De: "Pamela Masters" <pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: male/female ratio
Date: vendredi 13 février 2004
You could find that out by reading the
list of internees. Mine is not
up-to-date, or I'd do it for you.
Pamela
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: male/female ratio
Date: samedi 14 février 2004
Hello,
on the picture gallery, click on Ron's
chapter, then on the *.xls file.
Italians included, the priests and nuns
were transferred and those evacuated on board the Gripsholm. Remains, 772
F and 794 M.
Hope this answers the question.
Best regards,
Leopold
PS, there are new documents to read in
Mary Previte's chapter on http://users.skynet.be/bk217033/Weihsien/index.htm
De: "Frances Osborne" <frances@francesosborne.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: male/female ratio
Date: samedi 14 février 2004
Thank you!
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Fw: weihsien
kindergarten
Date: mardi 17 février 2004
>From Janette,
----- Original Message -----
From: Pierre Ley
To: PANDER LEOPOLD
Sent:
Subject: weihsien kindergarten
for Leopold and for Topica:
Thanks for Evelyn Davey Huebener's
address...
Well after our March 1943 arrival,
sometime by the end of summer, Papa said I was to go to school.I'd learn to
read and write and do up sums. Most of all I was to learn English so I could
play with children my age. I was 4,1/2 years old. Mama cut out a schoolbag from
a pair of pink flannel pajama-legs.When it was all sewn up Papa embroidered my
initials ... brown thread in long straight stiches! I have it still, it's
become shabby now with most of the pink faded away...
Kindergarten classes took place at
Shadyside hospital, at an entrance you can see on David Beard's 1945 photo,
from the Weihsien Picture Gallery
We climbed the steps, and entering
turned to the right and walked down a central aisle. To our right and left were
high windows and hospital beds. The children were made to walk quietly and
quickly down this aisle up to two big doors opening into an end room that took
the width of the hospital floor.Left and right were the same high windows, the
fouth side of the room being a full wall.
There were two long tables,each next to
a window, and benches, all our size, they must have been made specially for us
by our Weihsien carpenters!
Entering, on the left hand side, were
the Rabbits, 4 to 5 years old, seated all around the table. On the other side
were the Squirrels, 5 to 6 years old. In my age group I only remember by name
Margaret Fraser and
Paper and pencils were scarce,and
precious. At some time in the beginning we each received a slate and fine
grey-white chalks. These didn't last long so we handed back the slates.
Rabbits learnt to draw their letters, in
turn from a to z with "rounds and sticks" I don't remembrer drawing
numbers but we must have done! Squirrels learnt to read (Run, Rover, Run!)
Miss Davey was wonderful, I remember
her as a young smiling dark-haired woman full of energy. She had a "big girl"
to help her out who wasn't always present nor always the same. When we weren't
using pencils or reading, Miss Davey had us play vocabulary and counting games
("I spy with my little eye...") she read stories out loud and we
listened in rapture, we learnt poems (Wordsworth's Daffodils) sang songs
(Swallow tell me why you fly) played round games outside, just at the bottom of
the hospital steps, learnt to skip, hop, jump, run... most of all learnt to
relate to one another...
Very much later on, I often wondered
who she really was, had she adapted just for us some kind of Montessori method?
Only very recently and thanks to David
Michell's book, I know she was "from Chefoo", was part of the CIM
school staff and voluntered to set up school for all the Weihsien kids from 4
to 6 !
Now, Audrey via David Birch is
wondering and asking questions! I hope there will be others to help remember...
"Miss Davey" , all of you
diverse Weihsien educators, we owe you so much!
Janette
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Fw: weihsien
kindergarten
Date: mardi 17 février
2004 18:06
Those are beautiful memories,
Leopold. Thank you for them.
De: "Mahlon D. Horton" <berean@lincsat.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: weihsien kindergarten
Date: mardi 17 février 2004
I would like to add Mrs. Huebner's
phone number as I didn't have that before, unless someone else has added
that. She is living in the Greenbrier
Senior Residence, 14390 NE 189 Pl. #102,
She said that if someone is coming to
visit her to please phone ahead by cell phone, if you have one. Phone her when you are close, as the building
is locked and the intercom system doesn't always work, so that she can go down
and let you in.
Thank you for the information.
Audrey Nordmo Horton
De: "Natasha Petersen" <np57@cox.net>
À: "weihsien" <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Book
Date: samedi 21 février
2004 21:53
I have just started reading 1421,
The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies. He lives
I have read only 50 pages. I would love to hear from those who have read
the book, your ideas etc. In
addition I would like to know how accurate
is his description of history and the huge junks.
Natasha Petersen
De: "
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Book
Date: dimanche 22 février 2004
The navigation exploits of the Chinese
throughout the world have been discussed for a number of years in specialist
navigation circles. With the opening up of
Rgds
***
De: "Natasha Petersen" <np57@cox.net>
À: "weihsien" <weihsien@topica.com>; "Previte, Mary" <mtprevite@aol.com>
Objet: messages
Date: lundi 8 mars 2004
Mary Previte wonders whether she has
been taken off the membership list. I
check the messages, and I have not received any messages since
Natasha Petersen np57@vox.net
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: messages
Date: lundi 8 mars 2004
I haven't received any either since
that date - Norman Cliff
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: messages
Date: lundi 8 mars 2004
17:51
Has anyone sent any messages since
of one of our periodic dry spells after
a flurry of activity.
De: "Bobbie Bridger Backhouse" <backie@ihug.co.nz>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: rons birthday
Date: lundi 8 mars 2004
Dear All
Ron
was 70 years young
on March 3rd. And
yes I have
heard from him ,
he may be
still celebrating!!!!!!!!!
Best wishes to you all
Bobbie
De: "Pamela Masters" <pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: rons birthday
Date: lundi 8 mars 2004
Hello Bobbie -- Greetings from the only
other female 'Bobbie' in camp. How the
Sam Hill have you been? Please drop me a
line when you have time.
Fond regards -- Pamela (Bobbie Simmons) Masters
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: mardi 9 mars 2004
Hello, Everybody:
James Jess Hannon, one of the Weihsien rescue team, has been
hospitalized
with a variety of distressing
symptoms. He will be 85 in November.
I'm sure Jim would be encouraged by get well cards or letters. Here's
the address.
James J. Hannon,
Mary Previte
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: mardi 9 mars 2004
Mary, you're a wonder to behold! How great that you have kept up with your
heroes throughout their lives. When did you actually start tracking them
down?
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: mercredi 10 mars 2004
Weihsien rescuer Jim Hannon has been
hospitalized with a stroke and has
started physical therapy. Jim's wife phoned me yesterday.
My saga of finding these heroes who
liberated Weihsien started in 1997.
Shortly after being asked to run for
election to the
Assembly, I was asked to honor American
World War II veterans from a group called
the China-Burma-India Veterans
Association. They were holding an
all-East
coast of the
house.
I had never before heard of the
China-Burma-India Veterans Association.
When
it occured to me that some of our
Weihsien heroes might be attending that
reunion banquet, prickles rippled up and down my spine . So I took to the
banquet the list of names of our
heroes. I found 150 men and women in
their 70s
and 80s, swapping World War II stories.
When I got my turn at the
microphone,
I
presented them with a
proclamation from the New Jersey Legislature,
thanking them for their service to
Americans parachuting from a
B-24 "Liberator" -- August 17, 1945 -- to liberate 1,400 prisoners in the
Weihsien Concentration Camp -- me among
them. I read the names into the
microphone and asked if any of my
heroes were in the room. I was greeted
by men
and women weeping, and I was greeted by
silence. But after the banquet, they
swarmed me, wrapped me in their arms, gave me
souvenirs. They said I must
list the name of our heroes in their
national magazine and include my name,
address, and phone number -- and ask
for help in finding them. I did exactly
that.
By the end of that year -- 1997, with
letters, and phone calls, and luck, I
had found them all and said thank you
by telephone. As I found each one, I
made a rumpus in their towns, phoned
their local newspapers to say they had a
hero in their town. I told their story. Many of their families
had never heard
it.
Newspapers ran stories of their heroism.
I wrote a story for the Chefoo
Magazine, listing their names, adresses and
telephone numbers.
When I was elected and sworn in as an
Assemblywoman in 1998, an Assemblyman
who is a retired member of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
orchestrated the surprise of the century in the
legislature. This Assemblyman and
other retired FBI agents flew Weihsien
rescuer Jim Moore and his wife from
Assembly chambers. Grown men wept. (Jim Moore, by the way, is a retired FBI
agent.)
That's when I decided I would start my pilgrimage across
each one and say thank you face to
face. What a wonderful journey! It took me
about a year and a half.
I keep in touch with them by telephone
and letter. And whenever I tell the
story to school children, I ask the
children to write letters. As a result,
these aging heroes get a fairly
frequent flurry of letters and drawings, full of
the innocent admiration of
children. Then the heroes write back to
the
children and even send photos from
World War II. Our mailmen carry
joy. The joy
most certainly splashes over me.
In one of my other worlds, I'm taking the lead in the state legislature
in
reforming the state's criminal
code. These Weihsien friendships provide
a
delightful change of pace.
Mary Previte
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: mercredi 10 mars 2004
Thanks, Mary for the story of your
discovery.
I have often been struck by how many of
the world's creative and innovative
things only happen because someone --
some individual person -- becomes
deeply involved and committed to them
in a way that other people who don't
share that commitment find hard to
understand. Your "magnificent
obsession" is an example of how
that kind of single-minded focus and deep
commitment can truly make the world a
better place. Thanks again.
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: jeudi 11 mars 2004
Excellent, really excellent.
Thanks Mary, thanks Don, now there is a
text to illustrate the colour photograph Mary recently sent to me (for the
picture gallery). It is now the "number one picture", first page in
Mary's chapter.
---
I do hope JJ Hannon will get better
soon.
I finished reading his book a few days
ago and passed it on to Father Hanquet.
It is a good book for us --- not to
forget that it happened --- and --- for the young generation --- to know that
it happened.
Leopold
De: "alison holmes" <aholmes@prescott.edu>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: jeudi 11 mars 2004
What was the book you read,
Leopold? I have just read his bood The
Savage American and living in the South West and knowing Navajos and Apaches as
I do, I can attest to the accuracy of his portrayal of how we have treated and
still in many cases are still treating Native Americans. An ironic title for sure.. I shall send him a card today. Alison
De: "Pamela Masters" <pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: jeudi 11 mars 2004
Good morning, All --
Didn't know Jim Hannon's book was
out. Please let me know it's ISBN,
title, and where I can get it.
Thanx a million -- Pamela
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: jeudi 11 mars 2004
Hello,
The title is: "Five Marks"
and I shall send you the ISBN as soon as Father Hanquet has finished reading
it. He is a very fast reader.
Best regards, Leopold
De: "Pamela Masters" <pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: jeudi 11 mars 2004
Thank you so much, Leopold! More than likely I can get it with just the
Title and Author.
Incidentally, "Love's Like
That", my sequel to "The Mushroom Years", will be available in a
couple of weeks. It's another story of
survival -- this time in the good old US of A.
The only galleys I have now are out being reviewed, so I don't have the
ISBN.
Have a great day...and thanx again --
Pamela
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: samedi 13 mars 2004
Hello, Allison,
Jim Hannon has been hoping that the interest his book, THE SAVAGE
AMERICAN, has stirred will result in a movie based on
the story. He almost
routinely turns his books into screen
plays.
Mary Previte
'
De: "alison holmes" <aholmes@prescott.edu>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: samedi 13 mars 2004
Hello right back at you, Mary! I have been thinking of you often as I am
reading your "Hungry
Ghosts". This is/was good work you
are doing, with the
children who have been abandoned by
society.. And you hinted in one of your
postings that you are working at
changing the attitudes of
crime!
This is taking on a big task, but it doesn't seem that much daunts
you.
I am still looking forward to receiving the reprint of the original
article in the
cheering for his book, the Savage
American.. I have also looked up Five
Marks on Amazon; it doesn't have any reviews or cover notes so
I would be
grateful to hear from anyone who has
read it as to what this
covers.........thanks, Alison
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: secret brigade
Date: dimanche 14 mars 2004
>From Father Hanquet,
Secret Brigade:
Recently, Mary Previte helped us to
remember how we were liberated by a team of seven "angels" composed
of 5 Americans, 1 Nisei and a young Chinese who served as an interpreter and
who parachute-jumped for the first time on this particular mission.
As already told by many of you, and in
spite of the armed guard standing at the entrance of the camp, we forced the
gate and rushed into the fields out of the camp in order to cheer and
congratulate our rescuers.
Major Staiger was in charge of the
team. He had already put his harness and parachute aside and was standing on
top of a mound when we first saw him.
This mound was a tomb. For centuries, the Chinese used to bury their
ancestors in the fields and they built a mound to mark the place of the burial.
The highest mound was assigned to the oldest ancestor.
Major Staiger accepted our cheers but
very soon, wisely said: "Please gather next to this tomb, all the
parachutes with their loads and also, bring here the men who had jumped with
their white silk parachutes. About more or less an hour later, everything was
ready and we hoisted the seven men on our shoulders as, of course, we wanted to
honour them as our heroes. When we
approached the walls of the camp, Staiger gave us the order to let them down so
that they could encounter the captain of the camp and the guards who were
watching us coming.
This was a wise measure , since the
guards were all armed and our rescuers did not know at that moment what the
Japanese's reaction would be in regard to this particular situation.
As I re-entered the camp on my own I
met two friends who were standing alongside the wall ready to defend us in case
of a violent Japanese reaction. They were Roy Chu and Wade. Both had an axe in
their hands, and they had put their red armbands to be recognised. Only then,
did I discover that a group of bachelors in the camp had organized a secret
brigade to protect us from the Japanese, in case they would start their plan to
exterminate us all.
Fortunately this did not happen.
Everything went smoothly when the rescue
team met the guards. Both groups received instructions not to fight and we
would sleep in peace during the next two months that we had to stay in camp,
allowing intelligence officers to screen the past history of every one of us
and to finally be able to evacuate my group to
Father Hanquet.
***
De: "Leopold Pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: dimanche 14 mars 2004
Hello,
Can this help?
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=sr_sp_go_qs/028-1386133-7010908
Best regards,
Leopold
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: secret brigade
Date: lundi 15 mars 2004
Hello, Father Hanquet,
What a fascinating memory of
secret brigade?
I do hope you will continue to add your memories and insights -- so
valuable to those of us who were
children -- because you add
recollections from
someone who saw the camp from the viewpoint of a grown up. Thank you so much.
Our Weihsien rescuers tell me their Weihsien memories are badly faded
now.
Mary Previte
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer
hospitalized
Date: lundi 15 mars 2004
Jim Hannon told me that his latest book, FIVE MARKS, is autobiographical
about his own experience and escape
from a German concentration camp in 1944.
I
believe he was captured in
Mary Previte
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer hospitalized
Date: lundi 15 mars 2004
Hello,
I'm just back from seeing Father
Hanquet. You all have a warm "hello" from him.
ISBN: 1-4107-2976-1 (e-book)
ISBN: 1-4107-2977-X (paperback)
ISBN: 1-4107-2978-8 (dust jacket)
All the best,
Leopold.
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien rescuer hospitalized
Date: lundi 15 mars 2004
Sorry, forgot to mention that the ISBN
numbers were those of James Hess Hannon's book: "FIVE MARKS"
Best regards,
Leopold
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Main Switch
Date: mardi 16 mars 2004
18:36
>From Father Hanquet,
MAIN SWITCH,
During our second winter in Weihsien,
we, the 12 Fathers who remained in camp, were living in block 56.
We used to celebrate mass in the early
morning, but that was before the
The electricity main switch was located
in a cabin situated more or less fifty yards behind our block. Whilst observing
the comings and goings of the Japanese guards, we noticed that one of them came
to the main switch cabin early in the morning to enable the light for our
quarters at
Being in need of light before that
hour, Father Palmers and I decided to help ourselves as the cabin-door was
usually left half open. We'd put the switch "on" in order to give the
light to the whole camp.
For a few weeks, that worked all right.
One day, Father Palmers did it and the next day, it was my turn. Everything
went smoothly till that early morning when I saw Father Palmers running and
puffing, hurrying back to our block and telling us that the Japs were after
him. In fact, they came a little later to our bock, demanding the culprit.
Father Palmers was taken to the guard
house at the entrance of the camp. The guards yelled at him and wanted to
torture him. Father Palmers remained stoical. They put chopsticks between his
fingers, and while pressing the whole hand, were furiously moving the
chopsticks between the fingers.
After that, they took him to the jail
where he remained for one or two days. Since that day, we never got any light
before exactly
There were no more volunteers to have another
try!
Father E. Hanquet.
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Some info. please
Date: samedi 20 mars
2004 15:14
Can anyone tell me what happened to the
DE SAINT HUBERTS? There was a son
and a daughter, both quite tall I
think, and of
De: "David Birch" <gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Some info. please/the de Saint Huberts
Date: dimanche 21 mars
2004 1:30
I would also like to know what became
of the de Saint Hubert family. I got to
know Mrs. de Saint Hubert very slightly at Weihsien. She was a refined
gentlewoman and fond of children. I recall her being friendly to me when I was
about twelve or thirteen years old. She would stop me for a friendly chat. I
really liked her.
I don't recall the name of her son, but
her daughter was Jacqueline de Saint Hubert. Jacqueline was a highly talented
singer who used to practice at Kitchen #l. I remember being quite awed by the
strength and range of Jacqueline's soprano voice. It was rumored that she could
actually crack a glass tumbler with her high notes.
Why, I do not know, but I always
thought that Mr. de Saint Hubert was a Belgian diplomat! Perhaps because he
seemed like such a dignified gentleman. In my young mind he just filled the
profile of an ambassador or consul or something similar!
Anyway, I too would love to know where
these folk went and what they have done in the years following our internment!
cliffnorman@aol.com wrote:
Can anyone tell me what happened to the
DE SAINT HUBERTS? There was a son and a
daughter, both quite tall I think, and of
De: "Pamela Masters" <pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Some info. please
Date: lundi 22 mars 2004
Hello Norm -- Their names were
Christian and Jacqueline. The last I
heard, was that they were both doing well in
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Some info.
please/the de Saint Huberts
Date: lundi 22 mars 2004
3:45
Emily,
You have the address of Jacqueline de Saint Hubert, don't you? I believe
she lives near
Mary Previte
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Jacqueline de Saint
Hubert
Date: dimanche 4 avril 2004
My last contact:
Solange MacLean (formerly Jacqueline de Saint Hubert)
Phone: 703-534-1528 or 540-687-4255
6905 Hickory Hills
Mary Previte
De: "Leopold Pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>; "Norman Cliff" <Cliffnorman@aol.com>
Objet: Christian de
Saint-Hubert
Date: mercredi 7 avril
2004 16:50
Dear Norman,
The only reply I got after writing to
the "Ministère des Affaires Etrangères" in
Searching the Internet, I found this,
that might interest you and others ---
Go to:
http://www.warship.org/backis.htm
and in issue n°2 of 1994 there is an
article about Christian de Saint-Hubert.
1994 Issues
No.1 1994
featuring: The Redoutable Part
I; The Loss of HMS Glorious - An Analysis of the Action
No.2 1994
featuring: The Redoutable Part II; Obituary of Christian de Saint
Hubert; The Bismarck's Final Battle.
No.3 1994
featuring: Powering of Warships; Obituary of Fukui Shizun; The Royal
Navy Scout Class of 1904-05.
No.4 1994
featuring:
Hope this helps,
All the best,
Leopold
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Evelyn Davey (Huebener)
Date: mardi 13 avril
2004 21:27
Dear Friends,
I sent a copy of Leopold's tribute to Evelyn Davey to her. Her
response was:
I think that there is quite a
lot of confusion, and I'm
pretty sure he was talking
about Nelma Stranks's class
and not mine. Perhaps before the Chefoo contingent
arrived. After that I was loaned to the
and taught 4 - 5 year olds,
while Nelma had the 6- 7s.
It would be easy to confuse
us as we were both about
the same age, and both with
dark hair. My class was
not in the Hospital, but in
a disused laundry. It was
located near the cobbler's
shop and the barber's, some-
where between the Hospital
and camp headquarters.
I don't remember many
of the children's names, but
I did have Margaret
MacMillan, Mickey Paternoster, a
Janette, and a Gillian
Pryor, and Andrew (Cess Pool)
Kelly.
So perhaps there should
be a correction, and
Leopold's
nice remarks go to Nelma
instead.
Quoted by Norman Cliff.
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Fwd: Weihsien-OSS Duck
Mission-Baby Bonnet
Date: jeudi 29 avril
2004 3:16
Hello, Everyone,
Here's a fascinating request for information about a baby bonnet from
Weihsien. I know someone will have all the answers for
this writer.
Mary Previte
----- Original Message -----
From: Susan Strange
Sent:
Subject: Weihsien-OSS
Duck Mission-Baby Bonnet
I work at the
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in
I am writing
because the National Museum of American History is opening a new
military history exhibit on Veterans Day entitled "Price of
Freedom." One of the objects on display will be the baby
bonnet, apparently made from old curtains. Especially interesting
are the 22 signatures on the brim. One name, Tad Nagaki, I was able
to decipher thanks to the several websites that contain information about the
If I
were able to get a close-up of the names, perhaps you would be willing to
look them over to see if you recognize anyone. Mrs. Small was told
that the signatures were of camp members as well as the rescuers. I
see that you have several photographs as well as a copy of the mission
report; I am hopeful you might allow us to make copies or point us to the
original sources. The piece of parachute silk with the men's signatures
done in embroidery is especially interesting; some of the signature's on the
bonnet have also been embroidered.
But first, I hope
we can make contact! My work number is 202-633-3734 (8-5:00), and my home
is 301-424-3194 (
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>; "Susan Strange" <stranges@nmah.si.edu>
Cc: "Janette & Pierre @ home" <pierre.ley@pandora.be>; "Mary Previte" <mtprevite@aol.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien-OSS Duck
Mission-Baby Bonnet
Date: jeudi 29 avril
2004 18:30
Hello,
Four years old in 1945, I don't remember
anything about Weihsien prison camp --- or so little. So, sixty years later, I
am trying to assemble the pieces of the puzzle on a Web site. All this is a
Internet miracle and I'm getting help from all over the world. Just go to:
http://users.skynet.be/bk217033/Weihsien/index.htm and I hope that you will find what you are
looking for. Go to
The family Roche were in room No 10.
I recently met with Norman Cliff in
Best regards,
Leopold
De: "Donald Menzi" <dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien-OSS Duck
Mission-Baby Bonnet
Date: vendredi 30 avril
2004 17:18
Leopold, You're doing a great job.
Don
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien-OSS Duck Mission-Baby Bonnet
Date: vendredi 30 avril 2004
Thanks for the compliment. You are real
nice. I'm always open to suggestions of course --- new pictures, new documents
---
All the best,
Leopold
De: "Joyce Cook" <bobjoyce@tpg.com.au>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>; <MTPrevite@aol.com>; <stranges@nmah.si.edu>
Objet: Weihsien-OSS Duck
Mission-Baby Bonnet
Date: samedi 1 mai 2004
I have read the message from Susan
Strange about the baby bonnet. I have all the signatures of the original seven
parachutists who rescued us in Weihsien on
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Thank you
Date: dimanche 2 mai
2004 11:44
Dear Norman, --- and Weihsien
friends,
You may have already noticed that on
the Weihsien Picture Gallery web site, there is a new chapter "From Norman
Cliff". I am in possession of
A little bit every day, and the site
keeps on growing.
I need your help:
The paintings: Can somebody help me for
an interesting comment under each painting?
Who? When? Where? An anecdote about? ---
The liberation day: Absolutely
incredible. I showed the picture to Father Hanquet two days ago, and he told me
that the fellow with the sun glasses in the middle of the picture was
himself! ---- and that the little boy he
was holding by the hand was me! (I
seemed quite lost !?) Who else can you
recognise on that photograph? Which part of it must I enlarge for better
recognition? Let me know? I shall add it to the sub-chapter named
"liberation day" in
All the best,
Leopold
De: "Natasha Petersen" <np57@cox.net>
À: "weihsien" <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Weihsien
Date: dimanche 2 mai 2004
Thank you, Leopold. Your Weihsien Gallery is just great. I wish I were able to "construct"
such a web site.
I am unable to open "escape"
and "compound".
"Liberation Day" opens up without any trouble. I am afraid that I do not recognise anyone. Is anyone else unable to open the above
mentioned sections?
Natasha Petersen
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Cc: <Weihsien@t>
Objet: Re: Thank you
Date: dimanche 2 mai 2004
Leopold,
Liberation Day -
I can only identify two people - (a) Gordon Martin,
master, is to the right (from our point
of view) of Emmanuel. Between the two
men
is a white hat. Martin has only khaki shorts on, and his left
hand is in a V
shape up and down.
(b) Rev. Howard Smith, Methodist
missionary. His face is in the bottom
right
hand corner, one inch from the right
edge, and one inch from the bottom. He
has glasses on.
You will see the No. 17 at the end of a block.If you look at a map you
can work out in which direction the
photo was taken.
Keep up the good
work,
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien
Date: dimanche 2 mai 2004
Correct. "escape" and
"compound" are actually in a stand-by position and shall shortly be
completed with info.
Any memories about the paintings? I
shall try and get the other paintings "on" for next week. I need the
assistance of a photocopy shop to reduce the sizes!
Best regards,
Leopold
De: "leopold pander" <pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Weihsien
Date: lundi 3 mai 2004
Dear Natasha,
Hello, it's me again. I have been
thinking about your desire to build up a web site. This is an excellent idea.
You could assemble all you have about Weihsien and
Donald Menzi's web
site is linked to the "Picture Gallery" and vice versa. If we both
could create a link to your web site ---- (?) that would be great. Yes, I think
that it is a great idea. What do you
think?
Leopold
***
De: "Leopold Pander"
<pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: smithsonian
Date: jeudi 10 juin 2004
Hello Weihsien Friends,
Topica is so silent for the moment.
The last message is more than a month
old!
Is everybody OK?
You may like to know that the CAC
Weihsien will soon be present at The Smithsonian in
Mrs. Susan Strange of the Smithsonian
explains in a recent message:
"
Dear Dr. Cliff: Leopold Pander has been kind enough to
provide me with your email address. As
you may have read in the email that Leopold copied to you, I work at the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in
One of the objects that will be on display
in this case is a baby bonnet worn by Sandra Roche, who was born in Weihsien in
January 1945. My task has been to search
for materials that will complement the bonnet, and I was delighted when I found
Leopold's web site. While there are many
interesting images on the website, our exhibit designers selected only two -
both belonging to you. These images are "The Gateway to
Freedom" sketch and the "Allied Prisoners" flier. We plan to use a reproduction of the
"Allied Prisoners" flier, and perhaps Leopold can provide us with the
high-resolution scan we will require, if this is agreeable to you.
---
Thank you so much for considering our
requests. Sincerely yours, Susan Strange
Reference Archivist, National
"
and,
" --- If you are interested in
reading more about the exhibit, please look at
http://americanhistory.si.edu/media/pr040319.htm ---
"
All this is very exiting!
Best regards,
Leopold.
De: "Mahlon D. Horton"
<berean@lincsat.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:
smithsonian
Date: jeudi 10 juin 2004
Thank you for your good work. This is all very exciting. Audrey Nordmo Horton
De: "Donald Menzi"
<dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:
smithsonian
Date: vendredi 11 juin 2004
Congratulations to Leopold! Being the link between the Smithsonian and
Weihsien is a well-deserved honor. We are proud of what you have done.
Donald
De: "leopold pander"
<pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: red
cross parcel
Date: vendredi 11 juin 2004
Hello,
I'm not quite certain about something I
recopied from
In the "Dairy" chapter, there
is a text about the red cross parcels written by Mrs. Grace Harris. Towards the
end, she writes:
" --- and these new
words we have added to our vocabularies such as "spam"
"prem" "mor" will
bring back memories ---"
I remember my dad cutting thin slices
of spam for us after the laborious opening of the metal box which contained it.
I'm not at all sure of the spelling of the two other words and --- can someone
tell me what it is?
Best regards,
Leopold
De: "
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: red
cross parcel
Date: vendredi 11 juin 2004
They were other propriety names for the
same thing chopped pork luncheon meat
rgds
Ron bridge
De: "Fred & Coral Dreggs"
<dreggs1@bigpond.com>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: red cross parcel
Date: samedi 12 juin
2004 7:08
Hi Leopold,
The canned meats you mention have certainly
brought back memories. I particularly liked SPAM
and still do, as a matter of fact. I once heard that that brand name is an
acronym of "Specially Processed American Meat'' You reckon that's correct?
I did not like PREM which, as I recall, was a pate not unlike liverwurst you
can buy today. It came in a metal tube with a diameter of around 30mm. I never
heard of
Regards
Fred (Alfie)
De: "Fred & Coral Dreggs"
<dreggs1@bigpond.com>
À:
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Smithsonian
Date: samedi 12 juin 2004
Hi Leopold,
Thanks for bringing to mind the
reference to the "Allied Prisoners'' flier (very aptly named as it was
dropped from a plane). When these were dropped, one bundle, still tied,
containing about a ream landed just outside our cell and smashed to smithereens
a wooden tub we had. It grazed my Dad's arm and if it had hit his head the
injury would have been quite serious.
I am only mentioning this trivia just
to keep the pot boiling as there has been very little communication at the Weihsien
site lately.
All the best
Fred
De: "Peter Talbot"
<maori@sprint.ca>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: red
cross parcel
Date: samedi 12 juin 2004
I was only five when we got the
American Red Cross parcels. Spam is still my comfort food. I am told that the
word was coined from sp for spiced and am for ham. I remember some sort of
problems with the distribution of the parcels, what was that all about?
De: "Pamela Masters"
<pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: red
cross parcel
Date: samedi 12 juin 2004
Dear Peter --
Good hearing from you. I remember playing with your sister Gay in
Please give my kindest regards to your
sister. Fondly -- Pamela Masters (nee
Bobby Simmons)
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>; <president@msi-professional.org>;
<johnandbeth6690@sbcglobal.net>; <jimcora@uswest.net>;
<WMJax@cs.com>
Objet: Re:
Date: dimanche 13 juin 2004
Hello, Everyone,
I visited the
I was to have handed over to curator Susan Strange on Friday one item
for the exhibit on Weihsien, but the whole
The scene includes the date in the upper left corner --
The B-24 "Liberator" bomber is pictured in the upper right. The seven parachutes and men are pictured
floating in the sky below the plane, and
next to each is the autograph of the
rescuer. When I visited him in
Jim Hannon told me that Chinese interpreter Eddie Wang hesitated when
Wang's turn came to jump, and Hannon had to give him a little push. Part of the Air Ground Assistance Service,
Jim Hannon had trained in parachute jumping and has told me more than once that
a successful parachute drop depends on a successful start. Hannon was the only one of the team injured
in the jump -- a bad landing, he says, because he was encouraging Eddie Wang to
jump. The embroidery shows that Jim
Hannon jumped right after Eddie Wang.
This jump was a miracle in so many
ways. You can't jump out of a bomb
bay. Jim Moore described to me that for
this parachute jump, a hole had been cut
in the belly of the plane behind the bomb bay and covered with plywood. The plywood was removed when they were ready
to jump through this hole. Do you remember,
August 17 was a very windy day -- bad for parachute drops?
By the way, Carol Orlich celebrates her
83rd birthday, June 13. If anyone would
like to send her a card or note, her address is
Carol is absolutely ecstatic about
Pete's embroidered parachute silk being on display in the Smithsonian, and is
already talking of her whole family descending together on the Smithsonian's
Smithsonian asks me to indicate the
value of this embroidered and autographed parachute silk. Bless my soul! How in the world do you put a value on such a
treasure?
My brother Jim recently attended in
I had suggested mementos like that to Smithsonian curator Susan Strange as
possible additions to the Weihsien exhibit, but she says the size of the
Weihsien display is too limited.
Some of you may be interested in those who attended the recent Chefoo reunion
in London: Douglas Sadler (I believe Eric Liddell gave to Doug Sadler
the running shoes he wore when he won
the gold medal in the 1924 Olympics in Paris),
George Bell, Richard Phillips,
David Thomas, Roland Stedeford, James Taylor, Beryl Strange Goodland, Alec Luxon,
Peter Bazire, Winnie
Christensen, Roxie Hanna Wilson, Kathleen Foster, Mary Hoyte Broughton, Helen Marek, Marian Lauchlan, Roy and Maude
Campbell. I have addresses or e-mails of
most of these, so if any of you wishes to reconnect with these long ago
friends,
I'll be glad to provide the
information.
For those of you close enough to visit
Mary Taylor Previte
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Job
well done
Date: dimanche 13 juin 2004
Dear Leopold,
I am just back and excitedly turned on your good work. You have done a MAGNIFICENT JOB, and I want
to congratulate you for it. It must have
taken many hours of work.
Three questions to ask you - 1.
Would you like me to advise you of any errors?
e.g. David Michell not Mitchell (pronounced Mishell)
2. There are blanks under many of the
pictures. Would you like me to suggest
what to put there?
3.
I have now got the departments which those men were Chairmen of, and can
advise.
Keep up the good work. The whole
thing is fascinating. Yours,
Love to
Nicky.
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Dates
of Birth
Date: dimanche 13 juin 2004
Ron,
I note that there are some dates of birth missing for some Chefoo people.
I have my aunt's (Marjory Broomhall) list of every girl who went to
Chefoo, giving their dates of birth. I
can send it to you if you wish.
Greetings,
De: "David Birch"
<gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:
Date: dimanche 13 juin 2004
Mary,
Eric Liddell actually gave those
historic running shoes to a different Chefoo boy, Stephen Metcalf! Metcalf
recalls the incident in the video made by DAY OF DISCOVERY which is obtainable
from that organization. I have a copy of it. It runs for 1.5 hours and
comprises three full Day of Discovery half-hour TV programs. It is an excellent
series and very accurately and thrillingly reproduces Eric Liddell's life from
childhood, through the 1924 Olympics and culminates in Weihsien. A number of
Old Chefusians were interviewed on camera including Stephen Metcalf, Norman
Cliff, Kari Torjeson, Sylvia Welch, Grace Liversedge and one or two others.
Sincerely
David Birch
De: "leopold pander"
<pander.nl@skynet.be>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Job
well done
Date: lundi 14 juin 2004
Dear Norman,
Thanks for your message.
Glad you had a nice holiday --- it's
always good to be back home again. I am actually exploring "Scrap Book
number 2" --- and all the hand-written letters which help to build up the
"Dairy" chapter. I just finished the "Weihsien Bravery"
letter, and Janette is finishing re-copying Evelyn Hubener's dairy. That will
soon be included with all the drawings (as links).
English is not my number one language
and I still make many mistakes --- so, YES! please do tell me when something
isn't as it should. Sometimes I'm not quite sure about what I am re-copying from
your scrap books and recently got an excellent answer for "spam"
"prem" and "mor" ---
as you certainly have read on Topica.
Correct: many pictures have blanks. Yes
--- if there could be an explanation - or a story, and/or an anecdote to each
picture --- I think that the visitor to the web site would appreciate. The
interactivity between pictures and text is quite easy to create and if someone
else has an explanation or a story for a particular picture ----
you're all welcome!
Hope to read you soon,
All the best to Joyce,
Nicky and Leopold
De: "Mahlon D. Horton"
<berean@lincsat.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: a couple
of maiden names added to reunion list
Date: lundi 14 juin 2004
MTPrevite@aol.com
wrote:
Hello, Everyone,
I visited the
I
was to have handed over to curator Susan Strange on Friday one item for the
exhibit on Weihsien, but the whole
Because I also have seen a similar paper
pattern or model of this rescue scene, I wonder whether other women or girls
might have used it as a guide to embroider this same scene. Anyone have
information about this?
The scene includes the date in the upper left
corner --
Jim Hannon told me that Chinese interpreter
Eddie Wang hesitated when Wang's turn came to jump, and Hannon had to give him
a little push. Part of the Air Ground Assistance Service, Jim Hannon had
trained in parachute jumping and has told me more than once that a successful parachute
drop depends on a successful start. Hannon was the only one of the team injured
in the jump -- a bad landing, he says, because he was encouraging Eddie Wang to
jump. The embroidery shows that Jim Hannon jumped right after Eddie Wang.
This jump was a miracle in so many ways. You
can't jump out of a bomb bay. Jim Moore described to me that for this parachute
jump, a hole had been cut in the belly of the plane behind the bomb bay and
covered with plywood. The plywood was removed when they were ready to jump
through this hole. Do you remember, August 17 was a very windy day -- bad for
parachute drops?
By the way, Carol Orlich celebrates her 83rd
birthday, June 13. If anyone would like to send her a card or note, her address
is
Carol is absolutely ecstatic about Pete's
embroidered parachute silk being on display in the Smithsonian, and is already
talking of her whole family descending together on the Smithsonian's
Smithsonian asks me to indicate the value of
this embroidered and autographed parachute silk. Bless my soul! How in the
world do you put a value on such a treasure?
My brother Jim recently attended in
I had suggested mementos like that to
Smithsonian curator Susan Strange as possible additions to the Weihsien
exhibit, but she says the size of the Weihsien display is too limited.
Some of you may be interested in those who attended the recent Chefoo
(reunion in London: Douglas Sadler (I believe Eric Liddell gave to Doug Sadler
the running shoes he wore when he won the gold medal in the 1924 Olympics in
Paris), George Bell, Richard Phillips, David Thomas, Roland Stedeford, James
Taylor, Beryl Strange Goodland,( Alec
Luxon, Peter Bazire, Winnie Christensen, Roxie Hanna Wilson, Kathleen Strange
Foster, Mary Hoyte Broughton, Helen Costerus Marek, Marian Lauchlan, Roy and
Maude Campbell. I have addresses or e-mails of most of these, so if any of you
wishes to reconnect with these long ago
De: "Donald Menzi"
<dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Web Site
Date: mardi 15 juin 2004
Dear Weihsien friends,
Leopold has informed me that the
portion of my family web site dealing with
Weihsien is not accessible. I will try to fix that, but in the mean time you
can get there through the "front door" via the address d.menzi.org
(no www or any other prefix). If you go
to Site Directory you will find Weihsien as one of the directory listings, and
get to the site that way. I will try to
re-establish the direct link and will let you know as soon as it is ready.
Sorry for the temporary breakdown.
Donald
De: "Donald Menzi"
<dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Web
Connection Back Up
Date: mercredi 16 juin 2004
Weihsien Friends,
Thanks to Leopold's alert, I have
re-established the web connection to the Weihsien pages on the Wilder-Stanley
web site. You can get to it via the address
"weihsien.menzi.org."
Donald
De: "David Birch"
<gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Web
Connection Back Up
Date: mercredi 16 juin 2004
Thank you Donald!
De: "alison holmes"
<aholmes@prescott.edu>
---
Date: mercredi 16 juin 2004
Here's a silly question. I was just talking to somebody at work and he
asked why the Japanese bothered to keep us in a camp...why didn't they just
send us away? What was the point of
using soldiers to guard us? With the
Germans it was clear that they didn't want to keep 'undesirables' but we were
neither undesirable nor useful...so why were we there? Any answers gratefully received! Alison
De: "David Allen"
<dandya@fidalgo.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:
Date: mercredi 16 juin 2004
Hi Alison: 06/16/04 1325
In any occupation situation control is the greatest need to complete
conquest. If we were not confined then
we "possibly" would thwart their goal. The flip side to that was that to control us
they would have to feed up and watch over us.
The feeding had to be at the minimum so that we would not rise up and
cause problems. I lost 7 pounds weight
from age 10 - 11 when I should have gained 10 pounds. I went from 77 pounds to
70 pounds by the time I was 11.
Dave Allen
dandya@fidalgo.net
De: "Albert Dezutter"
<albertdezutter@worldnet.att.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Why a
camp for civilians?
Date: mercredi 16 juin 2004
I think the classical reason to confine
civilian "enemy aliens" is so they cannot carry out activities that
might be detrimental to the war effort from the point of view of the regime in
power -- things like providing information, sabotage, etc. Putting all those
people in an internment camp keeps all of them, including the highly competent
with the most contacts, from doing much of anything effectively to impede the
captors' prosecution of the war.
Albert de Zutter
De: "
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Dates
of Birth
Date: samedi 19 juin 2004
Many thanks I will sort them out albeit
slowly as I am now working on my consolidated list of all Camps with those
evacuated some of whom had been in camps I have 28,459 names. Also not included
are 4,000 Americans in the
Rgds
Ron
De: "
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:
Date: samedi 19 juin 2004
David Birch mention of the Day of
Discovery I was one of the "one or two others"
Rgds
De: "David Birch"
<gdavidbirch@yahoo.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re:
Date: samedi 19 juin 2004
That's right, Ron! I recall now that
you were one of the Weihsienites interviewed on the Day of Discovery program. I
recall that you mentioned that your grandfather had been a missionary.
David Birch
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Dates
of Birth
Date: dimanche 20 juin 2004
Ron:
You are compiling an invaluable piece of history. What an astonishing effort! Would you tell us what got you started, when
you got started, and how you have done this research?
Mary Previte
De: "
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Dates
of Birth
Date: dimanche 20 juin 2004
Mary,
I started back in 1997 when in was Vice
Chairman of ABCIFER I realised that if any government was going to give
anything they would want proof of internment. I glibly thought that going to
the UK National Archives they would all be in an appropriate file. Only to find
that whilst the records of the 58,000 British Military are all on a card each
raised by the Japanese and saved from burning in 1945 by an alert Royal Marine
Commando, there were no consolidated records for civilians. My thrust has been
British civilians but I have included all those in Camps where there were some
British hence you are IN as are various others who subscribed to this site. As
far as Weihsien is concerned Norman Cliff had an incomplete list dated
What seems to be happening is that after 20 years as a military pilot and
20 years as a commercial one I am hopefully going to end up with 20 years as a
Historian by which time I guess it will be time to turn off the word-processor.
The Weihsien record that you have seen
is under 2,000 names my total data base as I write is 28,459.
Sorry about the detail but you did ask.
Rgds
De: <MTPrevite@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Dates
of Birth
Date: dimanche 20 juin 2004
Ron,
What detective work and what an astonishing accomplishment! We all reap the benefit of your years of research. You've given a gift to all of us.
Thank you a thousand times.
How many people were interned in Weihsien when we were liberated?
Mary Previte
De: "alison holmes"
<aholmes@prescott.edu>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Why a
camp for civilians?
Date: jeudi 24 juin 2004
Thank you for your replies which
somehow crept in unnoticed in the daily deluge of emails. And I suppose when you think of our gallant
escapees rather than the school kids, there is some sense in lumping us all into
one place to stop us from spying or blowing things up. But it still must have cost them quite a lot
to keep us there for years. On a
separate note, reading the books of
Alison
De: "Joyce Cook"
<bobjoyce@tpg.com.au>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Why a
camp for civilians?
Date: jeudi 24 juin 2004
Apart from any other reason civilian
prisoners are a valuable asset for a combatant country. Especially as barter to
swap for their own nationals from their enemy.
I only became aware after the War that
many internees from WeiHsien were exchanged for Japanese persons in the
One of my American friends from
WeiHsien told me a couple of years ago that he was offered repatriation to US
but declined. My mother and her brother were
Russian but although she was interned as British because her husband was
British, her brother lived free under the Japanese and worked in
De: "Joyce Cook"
<bobjoyce@tpg.com.au>
---
Date: jeudi 24 juin 2004
I have just noticed my name did not
appear on the message I just sent about repatriation from WeiHsien. Sorry. I
sent it. Joyce Bradbury nee Cooke.
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Why
a camp for civilians?
Date: jeudi 24 juin 2004
With due respects to Joyce, my
Shorthand pupil in Weihsien, I do not think
that it is correct to say that Japs were exchanged with Americans on a
ratio of four to one. I have not read this in any of the histories
of that time.
Norman Cliff.
De: "alison holmes"
<aholmes@prescott.edu>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Why a camp for civilians?
Date: jeudi 24 juin 2004
Thanks Joyce! How interesting your reply is, both pieces,
that of the exchange value and the fact that your uncle carried on working
throughout the war years. Are there any
memoirs of those who worked under the Japanese?
Were they mostly Russian? I am
amazed at how small my focus has been over the years! Thank you.
Alison
De: "Pamela Masters"
<pamela@hendersonhouse.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Why a camp for civilians?
Date: jeudi 24 juin 2004
Like Joyce, I have no direct evidence
regarding the swap ratio of Japanese to Americans, but I heard it was
considerably higher than 4 to 1; actually, about twice that! It would be
interesting to get the true figures if anyone has the time and inclination...
Pamela Master (aka Bobby Simmons)
De: "Joyce Cook"
<bobjoyce@tpg.com.au>
---
Date: vendredi 25 juin 2004
Dear fellow internees.
Greetings
I do remember the name of the person
who told me about the value placed on the swapped prisoners and that person can
make his own decision whether or not to enter into this discussion. The fact
that the Japanese held captives for bargaining purposes is mentioned in page
262 of Fr. R.J. DeJaegher's book "The Enemy Within" published by the
Society of St. Paul, Bandra Bombay - 50, 1969.
On page 21 of Langdon Gilkey's book
Shantung Compound it is recorded that in late August 1943, six months after
WeiHsien camp began about 200 Americans were repatriated on the Gripsholm
followed two weeks afterwards by the majority of the Catholic clergy.
I do not know of any memoires written
by non-internee Europeans living under the Japanese in
De: <cliffnorman@aol.com>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Re: Exchange of Prisoners
Date: samedi 26 juin 2004
Dear Joyce,
When I wrote my book PRISONERS OF THE SAMURAI which related to all the internment
camps in Chinas I had a chapter (8) on "Prisoner Exchanges and
Repatriations".
In it I drew heavily from Scott Corbett's book QUIET PASSAGES. It described all the negotiations which took
places and which issues arose. There is
no reference to ratios of prisoners.
In Sept. 43 the Gripsholm sailed from
Greetings,
De: "
À: "Weihsien Chatline"
<weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Weihsien Inmates
Date: lundi 28 juin 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As many of you know Leopold Pander has
up the list of Inmates on the Weihsien website. The names are from one or more
of the following:
Swiss list of British June 1943
Swiss list of British Sep 1943
List of exchanges from the India Office
Collection British Library
US Army Signal of inmates 02Sep45 held
in the
Names extracted form the numerous books
that have been written about Weihsien.
I have limited the web site list to a
full name, nationality, date of birth, sex, profession, Camp address, date
released or moved. Date died. I actually have 25 fields on my data base of the
facts those years ago.
Increasingly there seem to be a need
for births and marriages this could be put in the Column now headed Died with
the prefix B, M or D.
This Weihsien listing is part of a much
wider study which will end up in Museums Universities etc
If anyone feels that they can add to
anything that they have seen on the website listing and do not mind it being
public knowledge for future generations I would be pleased to hear from them.
If you do not want to use this chat line e-mail me direct on
rwbridge@freeuk.com
Thank you
Ron
PS There will be an amendment on the
current listing in about a month I am working on it now and will send it to
Leopold to update the site.
De: "Donald Menzi"
<dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Illustrations
Date: mercredi 30 juin 2004
The attached page goes with the
previous email.
De: "Donald Menzi"
<dmenzi@earthlink.net>
À: <weihsien@topica.com>
Objet: Bounced Document
Date: mercredi 30 juin 2004
Hi again.
The document that the
"Illustrations" illustrated got bounce back. I'll make it still smaller and send it again
later tonight.
Sorry
Donald Menzi