Prisoner of the Turnip Heads

Prisoner of the Turnip Heads
Author: George Wright-Nooth
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 298
Release: 1994-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0850524156

As a police officer in pre-war colonial Hong Kong, George Wright-Nooth was studying for his Chinese language exams when the Japanese invaded on Christmas Day, 1941. He spent the next four years incarcerated in the Japanese Military Internment Camp at Stanley. Daily life became marked by hunger and appalling suffering at the hands of the guards. He regularly witnessed death and torture, and his account of a multiple execution by sword is as moving and horrific as anything one is ever likely to read. While many of his fellow prisoners cracked beneath the terror of such atrocities, the author repaid such treatment with subversive activities, such as the running of secret radios, and the smuggling of food and messages to and from some of those held by the dreaded Japanese Gendarmerie. Perhaps most remarkably of all, the author kept a diary throughout his incarceration which, miraculously, was never discovered by his captors.

Prisoner of the Turnip Heads

Prisoner of the Turnip Heads
Author: George Wright-Nooth
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780304352340

It took endurance beyond belief. On Christmas Day, 1941, Hong Kong fell to the Japanese Army, and George Wright-Nooth--along with many other British soldiers and personnel stationed there--became their prisoner. This is their shocking story, captured in Wright-Nooth's secret diary, kept at great risk. What unfolds is the horrifying tale of near starvation, cruel beatings, and massacres. The term "turnip heads" comes from the nickname that the Chinese called the Japanese, their long-time enemies.

Blood on Their Hands

Blood on Their Hands
Author: Cecil Lowry
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2024-04-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1399037897

From its invasion of Manchuria through to the Allies’ victory in 1945 the Japanese Imperial Army was guilty of widespread atrocities against its enemies and, in particular, the civilians of occupied countries. Massacre, human experimentation, starvation, forced labour and even cannibalism were commonplace during that period. It has been estimated that the number of deaths which resulted from these atrocities range from anything from three to fourteen million people. Using this appalling record the author explains in graphic detail the cruelty of Japanese military forces, drawing attention to the impact on ordinary people. He explores the possible reasons why people committed such horrendous acts. Seventy-eight years have passed since the surrender, yet the Japanese government has never squarely acknowledge their crimes, nor has it made an official apology. Over the years since, a handful of extreme right-wing elements in Japan has depicted the war and the atrocities as ‘the liberation of backward nations.’ They have attempted to reinterpret bloody massacres as 'a self-defensive holy war.' As his father Hugh Lowry suffered grievously as a Prisoner of War on the infamous Thai/Burma Railway, the author knows first-hand of the lasting psychological and physical wounds suffered by victims of Japanese brutality. This disturbing book should serve as a warning that such extreme and widespread behaviour should never be repeated.

The Occupation of Hong Kong 1941-45

The Occupation of Hong Kong 1941-45
Author: Philip Cracknell
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2022-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1398110280

Four years of fear: escapes, resistance, internment, occupation and finally - liberation. Philip Cracknell brings his unrivalled knowledge of Hong Kong during this time.

Hong Kong's War Crimes Trials

Hong Kong's War Crimes Trials
Author: Suzannah Linton
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 1442
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191652989

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the British military held 46 trials in Hong Kong in which 123 defendants, from Japan and Formosa (Taiwan), were tried for war crimes. This book provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of these trials. The subject matter of the trials spanned war crimes committed during the fall of Hong Kong, its occupation, and in the period after the capitulation following the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but before the formal surrender. They included killings of hors de combat, abuses in prisoner-of-war camps, abuse and murder of civilians during the military occupation, forced labour, and offences on the High Seas. The events adjudicated included those from Hong Kong, China, Japan, the High Seas, and Formosa (Taiwan). Taking place in the same historical period as the more famous Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, the Hong Kong war crimes trials provide key insights into events of the time, and the development of international criminal law and procedure in this period. A team of experts in international criminal law examine these trials in detail, placing them in their historical context, investigating how the courts conducted their proceedings and adjudicated acts alleged to be war crimes, and evaluating the extent to which the Hong Kong trials contributed to the development of contemporary issues, such as joint criminal enterprise and superior orders. There is also comparative analysis with contemporaneous proceedings, such as the Australian War Crimes trials, trials in China, and those conducted by the British in Singapore and Germany, placing them within the wider history of international justice. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of international criminal law and procedure.

Hong Kong Internment, 1942-1945

Hong Kong Internment, 1942-1945
Author: Geoffrey Charles Emerson
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2008-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789622098800

Hong Kong Internment, 1942-1945: Life in the Japanese Civilian Camp at Stanley tells the story of the more than three thousand non-Chinese civilians: British, American, Dutch and others, who were trapped in the British colony and interned behind barbed wire in Stanley Internment Camp from 1942 to 1945. From 1970 to 1972, while researching for his MA thesis, the author interviewed twenty-three former Stanley internees. During these meetings, the internees talked about their lives in the Stanley Camp during the Japanese occupation. Long regarded as an invaluable reference and frequently consulted as a primary source on Stanley since its completion in 1973, the study is now republished with a new introduction and fresh discussions that recognize later work and information released since the original thesis was written. Additional illustrations, including a new map and photographs, as well as an up-to-date bibliography, have also been included in the book.

The Fall of Hong Kong

The Fall of Hong Kong
Author: Philip Snow
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780300103731

The definitive account of the wartime history of Hong Kong On Christmas Day 1941 the Japanese captured Hong Kong, and Britain lost control of its Chinese colony for almost four years, a turning point in the process by which the British were to be expelled from the colony and from East Asia. This book unravels for the first time the dramatic story of the Japanese occupation and reinterprets the subsequent evolution of Hong Kong. "Magnificent. . . . The clarity of mind Snow brings to his labor of storytelling and contextualizing is] amazing."--John Lanchester, Daily Telegraph "Beautifully written, with many telling anecdotes."--Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs "Very good. . . . Provides] a much more nuanced picture than has appeared before in English of life among Hong Kong's different communities before and during the Japanese occupation."--Economist

Fortune's Bazaar

Fortune's Bazaar
Author: Vaudine England
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2023-05-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1982184531

A timely, well-researched, and “illuminating” (The New York Times Book Review) new history of Hong Kong that reveals the untold stories of the diverse peoples who have made it a multicultural world metropolis—and whose freedoms are endangered today. Hong Kong has always been many cities to many people: a seaport, a gateway to an empire, a place where fortunes can be dramatically made or lost, a place to disappear and reinvent oneself, and a melting pot of diverse populations from around the globe. A British Crown Colony for 155 years, Hong Kong is now ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. Here, renowned journalist Vaudine England delves into Hong Kong’s complex history and its people—diverse, multi-cultural, cosmopolitan—who have made this one-time fishing village into the world port city it is today. Rather than a traditional history describing a town led by British Governors or a mere offshoot of a collapsing Chinese empire, Fortune’s Bazaar is “a winning portrait of Hong Kong’s vibrant mosaic” (Publishers Weekly). While British traders and Asian merchants had long been busy in the Indian and South East Asian seas, many people from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds arrived in Hong Kong, met, and married—despite all taboos—and created a distinct community. Many of Hong Kong’s most influential figures during its first century as a city were neither British nor Chinese—they were Malay or Indian, Jewish or Armenian, Parsi or Portuguese, Eurasian or Chindian—or simply, Hong Kongers. England describes those overlooked in history, including the opium traders who built synagogues and churches; ship owners carrying gold-rush migrants; the half-Dutch, half-Chinese gentleman with two wives who was knighted by Queen Victoria; and the gardeners who settled Kowloon, the mainland peninsula facing the island of Hong Kong, and became millionaires. A story of empire, race, and sex, Fortune’s Bazaar presents a “fresh…essential” (Ian Buruma), “formidable and important” (The Correspondent) history of a special place—a unique city made by diverse people of the world, whose part in its creation has never been properly told until now.

The Internment of Western Civilians under the Japanese 1941-1945

The Internment of Western Civilians under the Japanese 1941-1945
Author: Bernice Archer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2004-08-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135768404

Bernice Archer's comparative study of the experiences of the Western civilians interned by the Japanese in mixed family camps and sexually segregated camps in the Far East, combines a wide variety of conventional and unconventional source material. This includes contemporary War, Foreign and Colonial Office papers, diaries, letters, camp newspapers and artefacts, post-war medical, engineering and educational reports, biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and over fifty oral interviews with ex-internees. Using contemporary personal accounts, the shock of the Japanese victories and the devastating experience of capture are highlighted. This book also covers wider issues such as the role of women in war, gender and war, children and war, colonial culture, oral history, and war and memory.

Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories

Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories
Author: Ayşe Gül Altınay
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2016-04-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317129679

The Introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315584225 The twentieth century has been a century of wars, genocides and violent political conflict; a century of militarization and massive destruction. It has simultaneously been a century of feminist creativity and struggle worldwide, witnessing fundamental changes in the conceptions and everyday practices of gender and sexuality. What are some of the connections between these two seemingly disparate characteristics of the past century? And how do collective memories figure into these connections? Exploring the ways in which wars and their memories are gendered, this book contributes to the feminist search for new words and new methods in understanding the intricacies of war and memory. From the Italian and Spanish Civil Wars to military regimes in Turkey and Greece, from the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust to the wars in Abhazia, East Asia, Iraq, Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Israel and Palestine, the chapters in this book address a rare selection of contexts and geographies from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. In recent years, feminist scholarship has fundamentally changed the ways in which pasts, particularly violent pasts, have been conceptualized and narrated. Discussing the participation of women in war, sexual violence in times of conflict, the use of visual and dramatic representations in memory research, and the creative challenges to research and writing posed by feminist scholarship, Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories will appeal to scholars working at the intersection of military/war, memory, and gender studies, seeking to chart this emerging territory with ’feminist curiosity’.