The Pittsburgh Press (July 7, 1946)
Emily Hahn reveals harrowing experiences suffered under Japs
Hardships were in Hong Kong
By John D. Paulus
Have you ever wondered what life under a Japanese occupation army would have been like had we not won the war?
Emily Hahn, a clever writer and an astute observer, went through several years of such an occupation in Hong Kong and tells about it in her new book, “Hong Kong Holiday,” just published by Doubleday. The experience was harrowing, sometimes brutal, often filled with a sardonic humor that is Miss Hahn’s best stock in trade.
The book starts off in Chungking, the wartime capital of China, and a ghastly, raid-filled description it is. The book then moves to Hong Kong on the eve of Pearl Harbor. Miss Hahn was teaching in a college which had been evacuated from Shanghai and caring for her daughter Carola.
Jap attack
When the bombardment of the city began, Miss Hahn moved to the home of a Britisher who was director of medical services. He is pictured as a remarkably formidable character, a man who could dispassionately discuss medical prospects while shells poured down all about him.
The Japanese attack, then land, and herd most of the foreigners behind barbed wire. But Miss Hahn manages to remain at liberty. She wants to remain free to find food for her baby and to do what she can for the baby’s father, British Major Boxer, who was wounded and taken to a Jap prison.
The book then goes into a narrative of finding food, of living from day to day, of the constant danger and the gnawing fears.
Spies’ tricks
Then there were the Jap spies. They tried to pin something on the elusive Miss Hahn but failed dismally. But they were spies of all sorts, male and female. There were soldier-spies ranging from private to captain. There were turncoat Chinese who would sell their souls for a dozen yen and there were cute Jap characters who plied the lady with food and drink and entertainment, seeking in their clumsy way to pry information out of her.
Miss Hahn got her biggest kick out of the indelicate young man who offered to make her a Jap colonel’s mistress. that station in life being one that would assure her of food and clothing and help for her friends.
The Jap military administrators of fallen Hong Kong were stupid and crass individuals who, in Miss Hahn’s eyes, did a bad job of occupying the city. They were crooked and confused; tired and sometimes just plain scared.
Misery of times
While Miss Hahn tries to keep her narrative on a light plane, she sometimes cannot escape the sheer horror and misery of the abnormal times through which she lived. She tells how three hundred corpses had to be cleared off the streets of Hong Kong each morning – the bodies of men, women and children who had died of starvation in the night.
She tells of the transformations of respectable people into the vilest forms of animal life, lying and stealing and even killing for a mere scrap of food. Even though the Japs bungled the occupation, their administration caused the loss of thousands upon thousands of lives.
Miss Hahn has done an excellent job again. Her “China to Me” of two seasons ago will be remembered as an excellent and best-selling book. This one isn’t quite as good as the first but it is interesting, well written, and dramatic.