David Michell was the tender age of six when he was sent to the Chefoo School, a Protestant boarding school for missionary children in what is now known as Yantai. He and his parents had no idea they would not see each other for six years because the Japanese captured the school during WWII.

David tells his story in A Boy’s War. His parents moved from Australia to be missionaries to China with China Inland Mission, originally founded by Hudson Taylor, in 1930. David was born in China and lived with his parents and older sister until they were later joined by a younger sister. When it came time for school:

In the China of those years the only way for most children of missionaries to get a good education in English was to go away to boarding school. Chefoo offered this opportunity. At Chefoo children of missionaries and a few sons and daughters of business people lived and studied together at the preparatory school, the Boys’ School, and the Girls’ School, getting a truly Christian education for body, mind, and spirit. So good was that education, in fact, that others, non-CIMers, wanted to take advantage of it, too (Location 59, Kindle version.

Some of the school’s famous graduates were Henry Luce of Time Magazine and Thornton Wilder.

On a side note, when I first read in missionary biographies of parents sending their children away to school so young, I was horrified. But home schooling materials were not as available then as now. Plus the British boarding school system had been in place for ages. Parents wanted their older children to have the credentials for college. And in some cases, the environment was such that children were more vulnerable to some of the horrific practices of the parents’ mission field, so parents felt they were safer away at school. These days, many mission boards work with parents to teach their children at home, especially in the younger years.

David tells of his trip to school (“two thousand miles and a six-week journey away,” Location 145) and early days of adjustments. Though he missed his parents and younger sister and had some homesickness and struggles, for the most part he settled in fairly easily.

Many of the teachers had been Chefoo students themselves. Outside the classroom, “housekeepers” helped the children write letters home, mended their clothes, and generally helped where needed. I was touched to see that many of these women were widows who now “mothered” these children.

As early as 1940, the school’s headmaster conferred with the British Embassy about what they should do in the face of the conflict between Japan and China. They decided to keep the school open. However, many children could not travel home at Christmas break due to the dangers, so a larger number than usual were at the school over the holidays. The staff provided a memorable Christmas for them.

They were used to seeing Japanese soldiers in the area, but the military didn’t bother anyone at the school. That changed after Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor the following year. Now British and Americans were the enemies. Immediately, Japanese soldiers arrested the headmaster for a month and took over the campus.

Classes and activities were allowed to continue under the watchful eye of the Japanese, but supplies ran low and freedoms were curtailed.

In November, 1942, the whole campus was sent on foot to an abandoned Presbyterian mission at Temple Hill, where conditions were even more crowded and supplies were even fewer.

Then in September 1943, the school was sent on a longer journey to the Weihsien interment camp, where they remained until the end of the war. There they joined some 1,500 other people from all walks of life and several nationalities held by the Japanese.

One of the detainees was Olympic medalist Eric Liddell. He had become a missionary to China after his Olympic feats. He had sent his pregnant wife and two children home, planning to join them later. But the Japanese took over before he could. One chapter of the book is a mini-biography of Liddell. He took an active part in teaching the children, who all called him Uncle Eric. He drew pictures of chemistry equipment they didn’t have so older students could be prepared for their Oxford exams. He arranged races and athletic activities and was generally thought of as a man “whose humble life combined with muscular Christianity with radiant godliness” (Location 1516). Sadly, he died of a brain tumor while at Weihsien.

Another detainee was Herbert Taylor, oldest son of Hudson Taylor, in his eighties, having been a missionary in China for over sixty years.

Though their years in camp were fraught with hardships, the children managed to have adventures as well.

David describes the joy of seeing six American soldiers parachute nearby and the Japanese surrendered.

Then came the scramble to get everyone home and taken care of.

Though David exulted in freedom, he found some aspects hard to adjust to.

In the last chapter of the book, David described going back to Weihsien with a few of his friends from there and their sons on the fortieth anniversary of their rescue. 

I had read this book some decades ago but had forgotten much of it. Reading a frictional account of the Chefoo school’s captivity in When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor made me want to revisit this book. I am so glad I did. Hazel’s book may have more emotion, but it’s imagined emotion. David’s book is more factual. While he doesn’t downplay the hardships, he doesn’t go into great detail about them, either. I appreciated what he had to say here:

A situation like Weihsien is fertile soil for producing people of exceptional character. In our eyes, for instance, our teachers were heroes in the way they absorbed the hardships and fears themselves and tried to make life as normal as possible for us.

In fact, I think at times all of us in camp considered ourselves as heroes. We were surviving, some would say even thriving, in the midst of war. By dint of hard work, ingenuity, faith, prayer and perseverance we had transformed a compound that was a hopeless mess into a habitable and in some rare corners, almost an attractive living place (Location 1333).

Someone in the camp, Hugh Hubbard, wrote this of Eric Liddell after his death, but I think it was true of them all:

Weihsien—the test—whether a man’s happiness depends on what he has or what he is; on outer circumstances or inner heart; on life’s experiences—good or bad—or on what he makes out of the materials those experiences provide (Location 1504).

You can read a couple of testimonies of David Michell here and here.

I’m thankful to have reread this book, and for God’s sustaining grace of His people through the hardest of times.