Life in a Japanese
rison Camp

With the Shanghai Municipal Police, Medley Eventually Found Himself in a
Japanese Prison Camp—Repatriated Last Year on the “Gripsholm”—Is Now a
Member of the B.C. Police and in This Exclusive Article for “The Shoulder
Strap” Readers, He Gives a Gripping Eye-Witness Account of What Happens

IT WAS 4 A.M. on December 8th, 1941,
when the teleprinter in Shanghai’s main
municipal police building buzzed a prepara-
tory warning. Then letter by letter under
the glass cover the ominous message took
form:

“Tt is reported that a state of war
exists between Great Britain, United
States and Japan.”

Like lightning the word spread through
the various police branches; we were
stunned, of course. But there was also the
qualifying feeling of relief as if an op-
pressive load had been lifted from our
minds. Like the people of Britain when the
first bombs fell, we knew the worst. There
had been so much talk over the months, so
much waiting. And now, this was it! We
were enemies of Japan.

. We of the Shanghai Police had witnessed

plenty of the horrors of war, an Asiatic
war where human life was the least of the
factors. We wondered what fate had in
store for us. Would the Japanese intern
us? Or would they exterminate us, as we had
seen them deal with countless Chinese. We
had witnessed at first hand the fighting of
1937 and were under no illusions as to what
our treatment might be. As a matter of fact
we might get worse than the Chinese, for
under the new Japanese creed the white
man had to lose “face.” He was going to be
expelled forever from the Orient.

Men who had not sent their wives and
families home some months ago (at the
urgent plea of British and American con-
sulates) were now besieging the Consular
offices to try and obtain protection for their
loved ones. It was too late now, nothing
could be done. The complacent attitude of
so many of Shanghai’s white residents was
boomeranging.

We carried out our ordinary duties with
mixed feelings, and the next day the Jap-
anese High Command, through the Japanese
local authority, His Imperial Japanese Ma-
jesty’s Consul-General, issued a proclama-
tion to the effect that the Japanese had no
intention of taking over the International
Setttlement of Shanghai. Furthermore, he
added, the Japanese Government was aware
of the International status of China’s cosmo-
politan metropolis, and they wished for a
continuation of its unique position.

The Japanese were being very correct;

TWELFTH EDITION

When the Nipponese Take Over.

and knowing the Japs, we smelt a rat. We
were certain this was only a respite, for it
was not like the sons of Nippon to treat
their enemies with much tolerance. A little
later their motives became clear when they
announced they had surrendered their extra-
territorial rights throughout China to the
puppet Wong Ching Wei government.
This so-called “Chinese Government” im-
mediately declared a state of war existed
between itself and the Allies. Other foreign
governments having extra-territorial rights
in China were now subjected to diplomatic
pressure on the part of Japan, who pointed

Const. John Medley of the B. C. Provincial

Police knows what freedom means. He was
ten months a prisoner in a Japanese concentra-
tion centre.

to her own abandonment of extra-territorial
rights. One by one the foreign governments
ceded to Japan’s insistence—they couldn’t

help themselves. And now, as the Nanking —

government was at war with the Allies,
Great Britain and the British Common-
wealth, the United States, Holland and
others forfeited their rights of extra-terri-
toriality. Hence, extra-territoriality in Jap-
anese occupied China was dead. And people
who had been living in the comparative
safety of Shanghai's International Settle-
ment now found this haven of refuge had

*

By
CONST. JOHN MEDLEY

*

become enemy territory. The question
was—would Japan or her puppet govern-
ment administer the International Settle-
ment. The answer wasn’t hard to guess.

We sensed that internment was close at
hand—closer than we thought, for at 4
o'clock in the morning of November 15th,
1942, three hundred men were roughly
awakened from their sleep by armed mem-
bers of the Japanese Gendarmerie. Without
time to dress properly, or take any food with
them, they were hustled into open trucks
in a downpour of rain, and swiftly driven
to the Japanese Gendarmerie Camp at
Haiphong Road.

It wasn’t long before we (the British and
American members of the S.M.P.) received
notice to report at the Drill Hall for the
purpose of being sent to Pootung Civil
Centre.

Prior to our assembly at the Drill Hall,
the Japs had issued us with labels bearing
Japanese characters and a number. These
we had to fix on the lapel of our coats.
Just another method of making the white
man lose “face.”

When we assembled at the big drill hall,
we were segregated and marched through
Shanghai’s war-torn streets with an impos-
ing escort of Japanese soldiers, marines and
gendarmes. There was no doubt in our
minds that the march was purposely ar-
ranged. with the idea of humiliating us in
the eyes of the Chinese public. Some of
my comrades in the police were somewhat
dubious of the attitude the Chinese popu-
lace would adopt when they saw white
police officers “taken in charge.” These same
British and American police officers seemed
to have some curious affliction of the eyes
as they marched through the streets be-
tween glinting Jap bayonets, and heard the
throngs of Chinese on the sidewalks
cheering them. Many of the Chinese spec-
tators broke through the Jap police lines to
carry our baggage and in many instances
pulled rick-shaws for the elderly. This was
one occasion when Japanese strategy back-
fired. It was the proud sons of Nippon who
lost “face!”

In 1927 the Insurance underwriters of
Shanghai had condemned a godown (ware-
house) owned by the British America To-
bacco Co., as a fire hazard. This was to
be our new home.

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