James Munro BERTRAM [1910-1993]
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James Munro Bertram was a left-wing New Zealand journalist active before the war in China and Hong Kong. While in the Colony he worked for Madame Sun-yatsen's China Defence League and supported other initiatives designed to help China in its war against Japan, such as the Industrial Co-operatives organised by fellow New Zealander Rewi Alley.
He was one of the few people to join the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps after the Japanese attack had begun, seeing action with the Second Battery on the Stanley Peninsula. After the surrender he was held in Shamshuipo POW Camp until being sent to Omori Camp in Japan in late 1943.
After the war he became a university profesor in New Zealand.
His book describing his war-time experiences The Shadow of a War (aka Beneath The Shadow), is considered by Tony Banham to be one of two possible 'classics' of the Hong Kong war.
Sources:
The Shadow of a War, 1947, passim
