Guests
of His Imperial Majesty
Fiona Eberts reports on a reunion of ex-internees who were trapped by the Japanese invasion
of
China
Sunday
Times, 23/10/1988
LAST
weekend, at a hotel in Weybridge, 360 people gathered - some from as far as
Canada
,
New Zealand
,
Australia
, the
United
States
and
South Africa
- for a reunion which united many of them for the first time in 43
years.
The
ties which brought them together go back to pre-war China, where they formed
part of a far-flung European community of doctors, missionaries, teachers,
administrators and traders, whose centre was Shanghai, the "Paris of the
East" and, by 1939, the world's fifth largest city.
This
colourful era came to an end in the early hours of Monday December 8, 1941,
when the Japanese army marched unopposed into
Shanghai
and the
Rising Sun was hoisted over much of
China
.
Caught in the net were approximately 10,000 foreign civilians.
One
of them, Mary Louise Newman, then a 25-year-old
second-generation "Shanghailander" recalls:
"We awoke to find the Japanese in control of everything. They'd sunk the
British gunboat Petrel in the Wangpoo river, taken over the wireless,
telegraph, offices and banks.
"All
our accounts were frozen and travel halted. I had planned to book a berth for
Singapore
that day, to join my fiancé. Luckily I could not, as we would either have been
torpedoed at sea or captured when
Singapore
fell and put in one of those camps shown in the television series Tenko."
Instead,
everyone holding an allied passport was ordered to register with the Japanese.
"They
gave us red armbands, which we wore at all times. It was very orderly and
no-one panicked. We knew we would be interned eventually but it was between 15
to 18 months before we actually went into camps.
"The
Japanese established about 15 Civilian Assembly Centres, some up north in
Chefoo, Weihsien,
Tsingtao
and
Yangchow
. Others (like the former
Chinese
University
at Lunghwa - which provided the background for the J. G.
Ballard novel and Spielberg film, Empire of the Sun)
were around
Shanghai
."
Within
the overcrowded camps, people from all strata of
China
's
foreign community found themselves in unaccustomed proximity. Captains of industry and clerks, missionaries and madams, the
new-born and the elderly. With space, privacy, possessions and food in
limited supply the key word became "make-do".
The
day-to-day running of the camps was left to the prisoners themselves, many of
whom had been administrators in
Shanghai
's well run "taipan oligarchy".
It
became a source of fierce pride to present a disciplined, well-organised front,
as much to keep "face" with the Japanese as for their own morale.
Hospitals,
libraries, theatre groups, and schools were started and with so many educators
interned, a high standard of education was maintained.
By
August 15, 1945 most people had spent an average of 2 years as "guests
of His Imperial Majesty" sharing an experience which created deep bonds.
Early
last year, while in hospital nursing a shattered hip, René Cumberbatch (née
Yates), an ex-internee from
Lincoln
Road
camp, reflected on
those ties. "After the war, some of us stayed on in
Shanghai
and some
of us came home; we were busy rebuilding our lives, with jobs and families to look
after. Then, at a certain age, many of us felt a strong need to get in touch
with our past ... to meet people with whom we shared a unique experience.
"I'd
heard that
Yangchow
camp have a reunion each year. I thought, why not have a reunion for all the camps while there are still some
of us left! So, when Lunghwa had their first in 1987,
they passed out my notice about this one, suggesting that people contact anyone
they knew who'd been interned in
China
.
Then the bush telegraph went into operation and the response was
incredible."
Eighteen
months and two heart attacks later, she and her committee found themselves
hosting a reunion which united ex-internees from eight camps for a weekend of
nostalgia and emotion.
Past
displays of memorabilia, photos, camp cartoons; people searched the lobby of
the Weybridge hotel, trying to match faces with memories.
For
Australian Eddie Weidman it was a charged moment. "I had three favourite
ladies in camp and here are two of them," he said, with a broad grin, and
an arm around both.
By
lunchtime reserve had been replaced by laughter and memories, remembering how
they had stirred the breakfast rice gruel at 4 am, bank managers on latrine
duty, the Russian lady's wail "For why I am in this constipation
camp!", the Japanese signs separating "married women, attached woman
and loose women", the way demoralised men at the all-male Footung camp spruced up at the arrival of the women
inmates, and on and on into the afternoon.
Internment
was not the only common tie. "Far from the truth," said
Yangchow
internee Ken Flemons at the mention of J. G. Ballard's book. But was it
not a stated work of fiction? "Then he shouldn't have used people's real
names and if he was going to use real events, he should have got his facts
straight," was the crisp, much echoed reply.
Stella Sollars (Barrs), from
Kansas City
,
mounted a one woman press campaign against the film. "We were deeply
offended. At the end, the boy says that camp taught him that ‘people will do
anything for a potato'. Of course it wasn't paradise on earth but there was
great discipline and dignity.
"The
Japanese were generally pretty reasonable as well. Ballard and Spielberg traded
any obligation to the truth for box office and bucks."
One
unexpected result of her attempt to set the record straight was a heartfelt
letter from the Lunghwa Commandant, Mr Tomohiko Hayashi, now 84, promising to visit the
United States
to thank her in person.
For
American, Hank Behrens, captured with the USS President Harrison, the main
surprise going into Lunghwa was the kindness shown
him by complete strangers.
"My
mother is Irish and I never heard one good thing about the British. Turns out I never met a more decent bunch of people in
my life."
The
consensus appeared to be with Mary Louise (Newman) Leckie:
"I feel camp made me a less selfish, more tolerant person of me, and apart
from learning never to judge a book by its cover, since it was often the people
you least expected who showed up best, I saw that when they have to, people can
do just about anything."
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