Figure 1.-- Here we see Mary, her siblings, and two other children from the Weihsien Internment Camp as they were being flown to Xi'an in central China by the Americans and a tearful reunion with their parents. Click on the image to see the Taylor family after a tearful reunion with their parents.

The Taylor children grew up in China during the 1930s. Their parents worked for the China Inland Mission, one of the most important missionary organisations in China. The organization had been founded by the children's great-grandfather, James Hudson Taylor (1865). He was a British preacher from Barnsley, an important coal mining town in South Yorkshire, a county in northern England. He wanted to deliver the Gospels to people in the Chinese interior. The Taylors worked in Kaifeng, a historic city in central China’s Henan province, a little south of the Yellow River. It was the Northern Song Dynasty capital (10th-12th century AD). Their parents did not know what to expect when the Japanese invaded China (1937). The Japabese soldiers for the most part did not bother the missioinaries. The at first planned to leace China and return homem but as the Japanese at first left tyhemissionaroes kargely alone, they changed their minds and devcided to remain in China. They had brought ocean liner ticerts. Mary recalls that their father said, 'God didn't just call me to be a missionary here in good times, he called us to be here in good times and bad." As there woulk be no schools for missionary children in the interior, their greatgrandfather also establisdhed the Chefoo School to teach the children of Western English-speking missionaries. Chefoo or Yantai, is a coatal city on the Shandong Peninsula of northeastern Chinma. As precaution their oarents sent the four children (Kathleen, James, Mary and John) to the Chefoo School where they thought they would be safer along the coast. The coastal areas were the safer areas during the Boxer Rebllion. The problem was that the coastal areaas were ths areas that the Japanese would occupy. The children's situation all changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor (Decenber 7, 1941). Suddenly American and British citizens were dangerous enemy aliens. The following day, Japanese soldiers burst into the Chefoo school and announced that they were now in charge. A Shinto priest came with them and conducted a ceremony on the sports field. (the role of Shinto priestrs is a poorly addressed matter in the Pacific War.) The priests had pieces of paper with Japanese writing which they glued them to the furniture, pianos, and other items. The children learned that the paper stated that the various items belonged to the 'great emperor of Japan'. The Japanese used the sports field for bayonet practice which the children would watch. The children called it 'Ya' practice because that was what the sholdiers yelled as they charged. Th children were now essntully in a Japanese prison. Most frughtening was they were now cut off from their parents in unoccupied China. They would not see thenm again for several years. Their parents of course wondered if they would ever see their children again. The children remained at the Chefoo School for a year. The Japanese decided that the impressive school building and senic siuation would be a fine military headquaters. The children and teachers were transported to the nearby civilian internmnt camp at Weihsien, one of many such camps the Japanese set up throughout occupied China. Nary recalls the day they were all marched out of their school. "That was the end of Western domination of China. They had crowds of Chinese along the roadside as these white people were carrying whatever they could in their hands -- no servants were helping them now -- marching off to concentration camp." Life in the camp was more difficult than at the Chefoo School weityh sdtructerr regulations nd comfinement. The Japanese guards were strict, although mary recalls occasionally acts oif kindness. The Chefoo School teachers looked after the children. They were very imaginative, turning problems into games that would productively engage the children. When rats appared, the teachers had the children work on catching them, making it a competition. They did the same for flies and bedbugs. And the teachers came up with prizes for the winners. Mary tells us, "Our teachers set up a comforting, predicable set of rituals and traditions. Do you know how safe that makes children feel?" Of course the Japanese were terrible places, and there was no way of shielding the children from the auful horrors allaround them. There was little medicine and foodas a oproblkem from the beginning and omly became worse as the War progressed. People died. One of the mostmotble was British Olympic athlete Eric Liddell. Mary dscribed him as 'Jesus in running shoes' There were doctors among the internees. The Japnese allowed little medicvine into the camos, let alone Red Cross parcels. The doctoirs did what they could. They asked thise able to buy black market eggs to save the shells, which they baked, crushed and then fed to the children wehich were suffering from calcium deficiency. Mary recalls, "It was vile. It tasted like you were eating sand." Little news of the War reached the internees. It all ended suddenly when American poaratroopers arrived without any warning. Thankfully all four children survived and the Americans flew them back to their parents. [Bristow]

The Sources

Bristow, Michael. "Growing up in a Japanese WW2 internment camp in China," BBC News (August 17, 2015).

Created: 12:05 AM 12/1/2021
Last updated: 12:05 AM 12/1/2021