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).
Read more about this topic: James Munro Bertram
Famous quotes containing the words relief, work and/or sun:
“As Jerome expanded, its chances for the title, “the toughest little town in the West,” increased and when it was incorporated in 1899 the citizens were able to support the claim by pointing to the number of thick stone shutters on the fronts of all saloons, gambling halls, and other places of business for protection against gunfire.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“There was a deserted log camp here, apparently used the previous winter, with its “hovel” or barn for cattle.... It was a simple and strong fort erected against the cold, and suggested what valiant trencher work had been done there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain! The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)