Relief Work and Mme Sun Yat-sen
Bertram began to more actively support China's war against the Japanese, and carried out aid work with the China Defence League (CDL) under Madame Sun Yat-sen (Song Qingling). The CDL was a relief commmittee formed in Hong Kong to help maintain Norman Bethune and the International Peace Hospitals in China's northern war area. During this time Bertram gave fund-raising lectures in the US and led a convoy of supply trucks with petrol and medical supplies from Haiphong in Vietnam to Yan'an. Part-way through this journey England declared war on Germany. "Suddenly I remember I was a New Zealander; I caught the first plane back, and came home.". The first troop contingent being already fully enlisted, he was given permission to return to China and early in 1940 he arrived Hong Kong to continue work on the organization of medical relief with the CDL and also with the British Ministry of Information, spending his time between Hong Kong and the Chinese war time capital of Chungking (Chongqing).
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