Page, John Allison (1908-1989)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0120 GC/131
Held at	: Wellcome Library   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://wellcomelibrary.org/ ›
Full title	: Page, John Allison (1908-1989)
Date(s)	: 1942-1953
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 1 box
Name of creator(s)	: Page | John Allison | 1908-1989 | Surgeon Captain
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

John Page graduated in medicine from Trinity College, Dublin, and joined the Royal Navy as a probationary surgeon-lieutenant in 1930. He was appointed to the Royal Naval Hospital in Hong Kong in 1939. After the capitulation of Hong Kong to the invading Japanese in December 1941, selected medical staff, including Page, served from February to August in St Teresa's Hospital at Kowloon, which served the Prisoner of War camps at Shamshuipo and Argyll Street, where death rates from diphtheria were appalling. In September, Page contracted the disease himself, and fortunately could not accompany a draft of prisoners of war to Japan on the 'Lisbon Maru' - the ship was torpedoed with the loss of half the draft. Page was sent with the next draft in January 1943 to Amagasaki camp near Osaka. The prisoners were forced to work at a heavy foundry, which added to problems of exhaustion and diet deficiency, and also led to industrial accidents. In June 1944, Page was put in charge of a new 'International Prisoner of War Hospital' at Kobe, a propaganda exercise for Red Cross visits. Drugs and vitamins from the USA were plentiful, but the diet was even more deficient than in the labour camps. Direct hits on the hospital at Kobe during an American raid on 5 June 1945 resulted in the deaths of 3 patients outright and a further 6 from injuries, and the destruction of admission, diet and case records. Death and operation record were saved. The survivors moved to an evacuated camp at Maruyama, where on the 21st August Colonel Murata, o/c Osaka command, brought official news of the Japanese surrender. Page's account of the interview is in the back of the Kobe operations book (Ref C4). From 7th September, Page's patients were transferred to Yokohama or Manila for further treatment.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Records, reports and correspondence relating to John Page's work in Prisoner of War camp hospitals and Japan during the Second World War, 1942-1953.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

By subject and date as follows: GC/131/1-8 Records relating to Hong Kong; GC/131/9-17 Records relating to Japan; GC/131/18-27 Reports; GC/131/25 Brief account of the medical organisation in Prisoner of War camps in Japan, August 1945; GC/131/26-27 Enclosures to account; GC/131/28-33 Post-war correspondence.

Conditions governing access:

Open. The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

Finding aids:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Given to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre (now the Wellcome Library Archives and Manuscripts Department) by Page's son, Christopher Page, and daughter, Alison Arnold-Brown, in 1992.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Entry compiled by Barbara Ball from the Wellcome Library online catalogue.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
January 2009