{"id":20771,"date":"2015-08-31T13:33:50","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T17:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/?p=20771"},"modified":"2015-08-31T13:36:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T17:36:40","slug":"a-jesuit-taking-the-first-japanese-surrender-of-hong-kong-1945","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/?p=20771","title":{"rendered":"A Jesuit Taking the First Japanese Surrender of Hong Kong 1945"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday,\u00a0 August the 30th, a day that should be remembered by everybody connected to Hong Kong, the day of liberation by the Pacific Fleet of the Royal Navy from Japanese occupation since Christmas Day, 1941.\u00a0 Little known is the fact that the Japanese first surrendered to a Jesuit way before the official surrender on 16 September!\u00a0 The following is an excerpt from \u201cJesuits in Hong Kong, South China and Beyond – Irish Jesuit Mission – its Development 1926 -2006\u201d\u00a0 Thomas J. Morrissey, S.J.\u00a0 Xavier Publishing Association Co. Ltd, Hong Kong 2008.<\/p>\n

<<On 15 August 1945, the Japanese Emperor made his historic announcement: \u201c Moved by charity and in order to save further loss of life, his Imperial Majesty has decided to put an end to the war…\u201d\u00a0 … \u201cThen one day at the end of August\u201d, as Bourke (Fr. Edward, Rector of Wah Yan) recalled, \u201c we saw the spectacle of of British warships slowly, very slowly, entering the harbour…\u201d… The Japanese army and gendarmes had interred themselves, for their own protection, in camps under their own officers.\"HMS<\/a><\/p>\n

The British ships, which had come from Australia, included the 45,000 ton battleship, H.M.S. Anson (see photo of the ship in HK), which had on board a fellow student of Bourke at University College Dublin, Fr. Matthias (Matty) Bodkin, the only Irish Jesuit chaplain in the British navy.\u00a0\u00a0 Some hours after Bourke had seen the arrival of the H.M.S. Anson, he heard someone trampling heavily up the stairs.\u00a0\u00a0 To his astonishment it was Bodkin, dressed as a naval chaplain.\u00a0 All his Irish colleagues were overjoyed and \u201clistened spell bound\u201d to all the news he had for them. Bourke expressed to him his concern about Ricci Hall.\u00a0 If the Japanese gendarmes were no longer there, there was grave danger of it being looted again.\u00a0 Bodkin suggested that they go and see.\u00a0 \u201cOn our way\u201d, Bourke remarked, \u201cwe saw looters everywhere, and the sight of a British uniform caused some of them to run away.\u00a0 We passed by the university which was being looted.\u00a0 Then we came to Ricci Hall.\u00a0 The Japanese flag was still waving so we realised the gendarmes were still there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the gendarmes saw the uniform they all lined up, bowed low, and saluted Fr. Bodkin.\u00a0 They held their swords flat on their hands as a token of surrender, and one lowered the Japanese flag.\u00a0 Fr. Bodkin was very kind to them and I think they were surprised.\u00a0 We asked the, to let us know when they were vacating, so that we could take over and prevent looting.\u00a0 Fr. Bodkin afterwards jokingly referred to the incident and claimed that he took the first surrender of Hong Kong\u201d.>><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday,\u00a0 August the 30th, a day that should be remembered by everybody connected to Hong Kong, the day of liberation by the Pacific Fleet of the Royal Navy from Japanese occupation since Christmas Day, 1941.\u00a0 Little known is the fact … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-20771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20771"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20774,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20771\/revisions\/20774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wykontario.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}