EPISODE IN CHINA

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 2, 26 February 1945, Page 27

EPISODE IN CHINA

Mr. E. D. Crossley, whose story this is, was until recently a Squadron Leader in the R.N.Z.A.F. He has now returned to civilian occupation. Before the war he was a commercial traveller in Sydney. In three and a half years overseas he saw service in Hongkong, the Persian Gulf, Sicily, East Africa, Egypt, North Africa, Malta, India, French Morocco, Palestine, and Iraq. In 1942 he won the first M.C. awarded in this war to a member of the R.N.Z.A.F. and in January of this year he was mentioned in dispatches. The story which he tells below is one of two he has written for Korero.

On August 4, 1941, I was posted from Singapore to an R.A.F. station at Kaitak, Hongkong, for duty as an Army Co-operation pilot. The island of Hongkong, which is separated from the Chinese mainland by about half a mile, seemed to me a very beautiful little place. The winter climate was agreeable, prices of most commodities were reasonable, and in general I thought living there particularly pleasant. At that time the war in the western hemisphere seemed distant and unreal, except when I saw the names of comrades in the casualty lists. A war in the Far East, involving us, seemed nothing more than a remote possibility ; though occasionally I wondered what would happen if the Japs did attack, since their frontier troops were only twelve miles away. But then came the morning of December 8. At approximately 7 a.m., without any warning, a formation of some forty Japanese planes came out of

the blue directly over the aerodrome. We watched them coming. They kept splendid formation, and I remember thinking they looked very pretty. But to say I was scared is putting it mildly. I was in an absolute palsy of fear. Our aerodrome defences were not very good. We had only a few anti-aircraft guns and no fighters. And after this first bombing attack, which did considerable damage to the aerodrome, we had no serviceable aircraft of any kind. The nearest enemy aerodrome was only twenty miles away, and from this first day until the end of the campaign the sky was never clear of Japs. For the first few days we had an alert every hour. Our station was actually on the mainland of China, but when the Japanese broke through the lines held by the Punjabi Regiments and the Royal Scots, we were compelled to abandon it and fall back on the island. All Air Force men in Hongkong were then

attached to the Navy for whatever duties they wished to allocate us. I was posted to a machine-gun position on a hill on the right flank of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, with instructions to hold it at all costs. I had three machine guns and eighteen men. We could see the Japanese clearly, and I must say they were determined. About half a mile away, in a valley, they had occupied an isolated hillock and placed a flag on the summit. We could see Japs moving on this hill ; so we informed a battery of howitzers immediately in our rear. That afternoon the howitzers literally blasted the top off the hill. But ten minutes after the last shell struck, the Japs were back again with another flag. This business of knocking the Japs off the hill, only to see others take their places, went on for several days, and the enemy’s casualties must have been considerable. The position we had been defending covered the entrance to the reservoir and the main road coming away on the side of the hill to Naval H.Q. It was subjected to intense mortar fire from positions immediately below, and so we were ordered to take up another position covering the main road two miles to the rear. There we mounted a gun on either side of the road. As you know, however, Hongkong was unable to hold out, and after our capture the Japs marched us, with six thousand other men, through the main streets of the island. Every man, including the G.0.C., the Commodore, and the Air Officer Commanding, had to carry his own kit. The Chinese in the streets watched us pass in silence. Our destination was a former British barracks on the mainland. The Japanese had stripped the buildings of everything of use and value. Floorboards, pipes, wiring, taps—all had been removed. Officers were not separated from the men, and we had also in the camp a number of Indians and Chinese. For nearly two months we lived on third-quality Saigon rice, which we cooked ourselves in 30-gallon petrol-tins cut in halves. My portion was two “ 555 ” cigarette-tins a day. Water, however, was plentiful. The building

which the sentries used as a guardhouse had been the British troops’ recreation hut, and over the door was a large sign, “ Welcome.” In the compound there were no trees : it was bare. But there was room enough to take exercise. After five weeks here on two cigarettetins of rice a day, things were getting pretty grim. The commonest complaints were dysentery and constipation. There were more than two hundred cases of amoebic dysentery, and because we had no medical supplies of any sort nothing could be done for them. You can imagine, too, how, with six thousand men confined in a small space, fantastic rumours quickly circulated. Two of the commonest were that Hitler had committed suicide and that the German Army had been totally defeated. When I later found out how things actually were, I was naturally badly shaken. The greatest difficulty we had to face in planning an escape from this camp lay in the fact that the only way out was through China. We knew neither the land nor its people, but we had heard that bandits infested the surrounding countryside. In addition, the Japs had spies in our camp. An exchange of some Chinese sweets for a bottle of soya-bean sauce was to help me a lot. I made the exchange with a Chinese who put me in touch with a British Army officer in the camp who spoke Cantonese. This officer, who had an extraordinary Oxford accent and wore a monocle, was an Army doctor married to a Chinese who was a friend of the owner of the soya-bean sauce. He and I compared notes and plans for almost three weeks. We were trying to discover the positions of the Japanese troops, for if we were to escape we would have to cross the main road. A break in the night wouldn’t lessen the problem much, since the road was brilliantly lit. One by one our plans went astray, until in the end our position looked hopeless. More and more sentries were posted round the camp, and the barbed wire was first doubled and then tripled. An outside contact we had managed to make came to nothing, and the attempt we finally made to escape was a desperate

bid for freedom at any cost rather than the result of any carefully prearranged plan. I had by chance met in the camp an Army captain who knew the layout of what were called the new territories of Hongkong—-a strip of land extending about twenty miles inland. The captain joined the doctor and myself, and the three of us made the break together, I should mention here that I had promised to provide, as my contribution to the escape plans, an aeroplane to take us out of Fred China when we arrived there. I didn’t know, of course, that we had no Air Force there at that time. But the other two believed me, and so I was able to go along with them. Five minutes after we got outside the compound the sentries spotted us and immediately opened fire. Bullets were flying in’all(directions, but I feel sure now that we did not provide a .definite target and that the shots were fired indiscriminately. Although we had been told that the Japanese would shoot escaping prisoners on sight, we wore our uniforms. Our prison camp was on a small promontory on the China coast opposite the island of Hongkong. After we got out-

side the compound we entered the sea and swam across the bay, of which thepromontory formed one end. The swim took about forty minutes. We still had to cross that brilliantly-lit main road, and so, on leaving the water, we crept along by the side of the road in the hope of finding a suitably shaded spot to cross. While we were doing this two native dogs barked, and as’ we threw ourselvesinto a ditch a Japanese patrol passed at the double. We waited until we thought the Japs could no longer hear us, and then climbed on to the road, crossed it, and made our way into the surrounding hills. We had felt exhausted after our forty-minute swim across the bay, but we were able to march over the hills for four hours without stopping. As dawn was breaking we entered some thick foliage and there slept through the day. We resumed our journey at dusk, heading due north with the idea of reaching the East River, which runseast and west across the Kwantung Province. When the moon came up about ii o’clock, however, we discovered we were lost. We were in the fortifications of the Shingmun Redoubt, and

about us lay the putrifying bodies of our ■own men killed there three or four months previously. We lost as little time as possible getting away. Our march that night was one I shall never forget. About us were the white limestone cliffs of the Shingmun Valley, shining in the light of a full moon. The quality of the light somehow suited the country. It eliminated distances : it scored every cleft of the valley and made the shapes and promontories of the hills familiar.

We were fortunate enough to find the main road again, but almost as soon as we had done so we had another lucky ■escape. As we sheltered in the shadows at the side of the road, two Japanese passed within io ft. of us. For the next ■few days we marched over hills and through swampy valleys. Our foodsupply, which consisted at the time of •our escape of two tins of bully, a tin of •cheese, and a tin of sardinessardines were worth about a —had run out .and we were getting very hungry. Then, one very cold misty night in the Fills, we met a Chinese who spoke excellent English. He told us he was a proBritish guerrilla operating in the surrounding country, and said that if we •cared to wait a few hours he would find food and arrange for a junk to take us .across the bay. Earlier that day we had passed through a village where we paid a thousand dollars in Hongkong currency for a guide for the afternoon. We surmised that this fellow, having seen our money there, had followed us. The whole thing seemed a bit suspect, but we decided to accept the fellow’s •offer. It had been raining continuously for two days and we were wet, tired and, hungry. This possibility of assistance, therefore, was one we were not prepared to give up. The Chinese took us to a

cleft in the hills and told us to wait for two or three hours while he made the necessary arrangements. We must then have dropped off to sleep, for the next thing I remember was seeing a man waving a dagger and shouting “ Yakpunchai ! ” (Cantonese for We are Japanese men ”). One of my friends, Tony, was on the ground with four men beating. him up. The only weapon at hand was a pole, sharpened at one end, which we had found in the hills. I picked this up and drove it into the stomach of the nearest of our assailants. As he collapsed, two more of the bandits—there must have been eight or nine of then altogetherturned to deal with me, but at this moment Doug, the third member of our party, appeared, from where I don’t know, and smashed one of them over the head with a bayonet, which he had apparently taken from an earlier opponent. Between us, Doug and I managed to account for about four of them, and the others ran away. When we picked Tony up we found he had two terrific gashes across the scalp and all the tendons of his right arm were severed. He was only semi-conscious, but we patched him up the best way we could with a couple of field dressings which we happened to have, and as soon as possible went on our way again. Tony in the next few days performed miracles. The pain in his arm must have been great, but not once did I hear him complain. Doug, who was an Army doctor, managed to keep the wounds clean until we were able to get Tony to hospital some two weeks later, and this although we had only one bottle of permanganate . and sometimes had to wash the wounds in stagnant water. The day after this encounter one of Doug’s knees packed up on him, and I contracted dysentery. And so when a couple of nights later we fell in with more bandits we were in no condition to oppose them. This time there were about sixty of them, and if we had resisted we would probably all have been killed. After they had stripped us of everything of value, the bandits ,however, were not at all sure what to do with us. They held us for twenty-four hours, then let us go.

Within four hours of leaving them we ran full into another bunch. This crowd were armed with Mausers, but for reasons which will appear presently it would be unfair to describe them as bandits. They were mainly Chinese negroes and most of them seemed to have relatives in Jamaica. Their leader was named Lee— Lee. He wore Chinese trousers with a coat and waistcoat in European style and a slouch felt hat. Round his waist were three rows of bullets and a Mauser hung on either side. He had two gold watches on one arm and magnificent rings on every finger. When we first met I offered him my Onoto fountain pen as a peace offering, but he gave it back to me, saying it was too cheap ! He told us his was one of the many unrecognized guerrilla bands in South China. He depended on village folk to assist him with supplies. If they refused, he burned their villages down. All in all, he was as bloodthirsty an old rogue as you could ever hope to meet. But, once having satisfied himself we were really escaped prisoners, he seemed to take a great fancy to us. Indeed, he invited us to remain with him, promising that he would make our fortunes within twelve months. His offer tempted all three of —the life looked good to us—and it was with much reluctance that we refused it. While we were sitting round a fire in his house one evening he told us there was a Japanese Divisional Headquarters only a quarter of a mile away. He took us to the top of a nearby hillock, and from there we could see a Japanese sentry silhouetted against the sky. Indicating the sentry, Mr. Lee remarked : We shoot that b every Saturday ! ’’ It wasn’t so easy to leave Mr. Lee, and when we did finally say goodbye to him we did so with genuine regret. He gave us a guide, and on our first day’s journey we covered nearly thirty miles. This march brought us to the headquarters of a Captain Wong, who welcomed us heartily. Captain Wong’s job was to embarrass the Jap lines of communication and to train young men for guerrilla warfare under his command. These trainees were no more than twelve or fifteen years of age, but their discipline

and self-denial were incredible. In the short time we were at this camp, they destroyed four Japanese lorries, killed 130-odd infantrymen, and captured a considerable quantity of arms and equipment. Captain Wong agreed to have us conducted through the Jap lines to Free China or the first unit of the regular Chinese Army, whichever was the nearer. We crossed the Canton-Kowloon railway by night, and were then passed from village to village, the inhabitants of which fed and cared for us as we went. The time of our journey was the Chinese New Year and many of the villages we passed through had in celebration been freshly white-washed and decorated with picturesque signs. These villages were in enemy-held territory and much evidence of the Jap occupation was to be seen. The poverty was indescribable. Many villages were burned out, and fields, from which the cattle had been driven away, were empty. We heard stories of women and children being raped and murdered and of young men being conscripted into, the Jap labour corps, yet everywhere we found a will to resist. I am sure the Chinese have no such word as defeat in their vocabulary. In due course the guerrillas brought us to the regular Chinese Army and handed us over to Major Woo, of the

Signal Corps. Just at this time the Chinese Army had counter-attacked and the Japs were retreating in our direction. With the Chinese Signals we took to the hills and watched the Jap Army go by. It was in a little village at this time that we met Mr. Marsman, an American. multi-millionaire, who has since published a book called “I Escaped from.

Hongkong.” He mentions us in two or three pages. He had escaped by using enormous bribes, and when retaken by the Japanese he had produced a passport declaring him to be a Filipino and therefore a non-belligerent. In Canton, the capital of Kwangtung, which we eventually reached, we were taken to a Catholic hospital run by Father Ma, who took us down to a newly constructed eating house, and ordered what he thought a reasonable meal. There were at least eight plates of soong, the Chinese equivalent of the English meat dish, and we must have had these filled at least three times. Father Ma then ordered sumpu, a reasonable rice wine. When we had all had four glasses of this, Father Ma was becoming visibly excited and we were becoming visibly intoxicated. Before we left the restaurant Tony had liberally bespattered the good father with •quantities of rice and sumpu. We left Tony in that Catholic hospital and I have not seen him since. Doug and I went on by mule, junk, sampan, charcoal-burner, and on foot. •On the borders of Kwangtung and Kweichow we visited the palace of the last of the Kwangtung emperors. The palace dates back to the Ming Dynasty -and is excellently preserved. It is kept by a brotherhood of Buddhist monks

who use the palace as a monastery We met there a very charming old priest whose age was reputed to be 103. He was a man of considerable accomplishments, and as well as speaking innumerable Chinese dialects he had at least four foreign languages. The palace consisted of a series of pagodas increasing in size. The largest of these housed a 30 ft. gold and gilded statue of Buddha. At the rear were two enormous trees, said to be two thousand years old. For hundreds of years these trees had shown no sign of life and were, in fact, decaying. But at the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese war they sprouted. The Chinese, for a reason unknown to me, regarded this as a good omen and built a shrine at the base of the trees. The pagodas were coloured in blue, red, yellow, and white and were much gilded. They were solidly built, mostly of wood, with what looked like tiled roofs. I often wish I had had a camera with me, but mine had been stolen by the second bunch of bandits together with my films of our experiences in Hongkong, among which was one of our march to the prison camp. The remainder of our journey was uneventful. It took us to the British Consul’s residence at Kunming, and from there we were flown to Calcutta.