In Occupied Rabaui

How Chinese Fared In Occupied Rabaui Kwong Chong Brothers Murdered by Japs

'Y'HE Methodist Overseas Mission which made the Chinese com munity in pre-war Rahaul its special charge, gives us our first real news

of how the Chinese fared during

the years of the Japanese occupation.

The following is condensed from an article which appeared in a recent issue of the “Missionary Review NOW comes news of our people who were lost during the occupation. One young man, Gerald Woo, who, with his young bride had moved out to the Baining Mountains, was killed and his body horribly mutilated because he re fused to hand over his wife to the Japanese. Leong Tim, a Chinese carpen ter, and for many years a faithful ser vant of the mission, was executed.

From another source we gather that the four Kwong Chong brothers, who were prosperous merchants and all pro minent members of the Kuo Ming Tang Party, were, with their wives and families, also executed. The sole surviving member of the Kwong Chong family was at our Newington College in NSW when war broke over Rabaul, and unfortunately he was found to be suffering from TB, and was sent to a hospital in NSW, where, after many months of nursing, he died, without knowing the fate that had over taken his family.

A letter from Mrs. Dorothy Ping Kwan, one of the brightest and smartest of our school girls who was married during the occupation, tells some harrowing stories of life in the internment camp.

In the first flush of victory, the Japan ese assaulted the Chinese women, but many of the young girls managed to hide in the jungle until some semblance of order was established. Things seemed to improve after the Japanese had estab lished their military police headquarters.

Let Mrs. Ping Kwan tell her own story.

“fIIHESE police were not good men, but X they did not commit any unlawful crime when they first captured us.

They tried to persuade us to run a Geisha house, but we refused to; at last they forced us to do so. But God helped us to remain firm in our attitude.

“They told us to hand out 20 girls from our party in two days’ time, but we would rather die than to be their victims. We had been praying day and night, and the next day, we thought they were coming to take the girls; fortunately one of them had dysentery and they sent a message to the doctor who was taken prisoner to come and see us. They were Doctors Cooper and Hosking (now presumed lost at sea), and when we saw them we told them the whole story about the girls. God gave us cleverness in handling this mat ter; what they did was they told the military police that it is better to restrict any soldiers entering the Chinese camp because the dysentery is flowing about the camp, and it was very infectious. This ended the Japanese thoughts of getting our girls, and when we all recovered our sickness it was time for us to return to Rabaul as ordered by the Commander in-Chief.

“T ATER from Rabaul we shifted to AJ Ratongo. They gave us no food we have to plant for ourselves.

Later a party of Japanese camped near us were also trying to get our girls, but there was a law and they could not lay their hands on us. But they are cunning; they were trying to cut out our food by taking over our farms for setting un AA gun. They thought that we will run out of food and have to sell our body to them, but fortunately God helped us again. We manage to get our food from other places.

“We were lucky to have such a big crowd in one camp, it is impossible for the Japs to attack the girls. We will tear them into pieces if they try to do so, but the Chinese who lived far away from Rabaul had suffered the worse, the women being raped and men being chopped.”

This extract from Mrs. Ping Kwan’s letter gives us an insight into the terrible life these cultured Chinese people were forced to live.