70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, who has remained uninterned to carry on his work as Medical Officer, is arrested early in the morning by the Kempeitai, who believe he is the head of British espionage in Hong Kong.

The arrest is the beginning of a long ordeal for Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, who, despite prolonged torture, refuses to incriminate himself or name a single one of the many associates in his real work, which is not spying but organising 'illegal' relief for the camps and the dependants of Volunteers left without any means of support in occupied Hong Kong.

The French Hospital is 'locked down' after his arrest and thoroughly searched for evidence of espionage. Dr. Frederick Bunje, a well-known Hong Kong physician, is taken into custody, probably at the same time as Selwyn-Clarke. Public Health official Alexander Christie Sinton is arrested about midday. Accounts of these events are understandably confused, and different sources list other arrests although none can be regarded as certain: Dr. Murdo Nicholson, Dr. Mackie (probably living in Robinson Rd. at the time) and Selwyn-Clarke's assistant Mr. Frank Angus. Anyone who is arrested, other than Selwyn-Clarke, Bunje and Sinton, is soon released.

A number of Selwyn-Clarke's Chinese or Eurasian colleagues and helpers are also held, for example, Dr. Arthur Woo, a radium expert, Helen Ho, organiser of much of the relief into Bowen Road Hospital and Constance Lam, whose persistence in sending him extra food while in prison will later be credited by Selwyn-Clarke with saving his life.

As May 2 comes to an end, most of those arrested are in the Kempeitai headquarters at the Supreme Court, their colleagues, friends and families at the French Hospital are in an agony of worry, and everyone is wondering who will be the next to be arrested.

All over town, in the bankers' hotel as well as in my house, in a hundred hovels and tenement rooms, were people holding their breath, terrified for Selwyn's safety and for their own.

Sources:

http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-french-hospital-arrests-a-synthesis-of-sources/

All over town: Emily Hahn, China To Me, 1986 ed., 405

For Hahn's account of Hilda Selwyn-Clarke's behaviour at this time see

http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/emily-hahn-as-source-3-the-art-of-vendetta-hilda-selwyn-clarke/

Note: see entry for May 7. The fact that Angus, Nicholson and Mackie were sent to Stanley with those definitely not arrested casts a question mark over the BAAG reports that they were taken into custody.