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Show #?2 ^iy 12, 1945 Here ara some excerpts from a May 27th letter from Elmer Gait reporting Foochow conditions. K.S.Matthews "At Yungtai, on the morning of Monday,. May 21st., we had authoritative eye-witness word that our internee ..friends were there on our Foochow compound, left unharmed by the Japanese, But I felt there was little hope of a telegram getting out promptly from that' nlace with the confusion and congestion of telegrams of those days. I had telegraphed from here the afternoon of the 17th that I was starting for Yungtai next day and up to evening of the 21st that message had not got there, altho 3 days had brot me there the evening of the 20th. Then we wantad to actually see our friends before shaping up a message to the Board, Will and I arranged for boat for the next day. Plead wind slowed us down so we had to spend night on the boat and not get to our compound until after 8 AYA. of Wed* the 23d. I stayed there until noon of the 25th. tffe learned at once that a message had. been dispatched to Washington giving the names of each of the internees and reportiixg their release and instructing that their Boards be informed. That, and the conviction that the Foochow telegraph office doubtless had more work than they could cope with, decided me to wait until return to this place before sending message. "Well, it was a glad reunion that Jill and I had with the group. If you have received my letter $56 you found me menioning a "confirmed report" that our friends' had been taken from the city, then returned there in a couple of days or so. Well, it is a little disturbing to confidence in 'confirmed reports', but a satisfaction to say, that they were not taken from the compound at all - were treated courteously all the last days, as well as earlier - and. were left in tranquil possession of the mission premises when the restrictors of their liberties left. They are telling their own stories, of course,to friends and to the Board. But I pass this along. "Will Topping's cook did a wonderful job of hiding and preserving a considerable share of his personal effects, altho one trunk well packed with valuables and some other things were lost.. Some of my things that I did not expect to see again are there - including the fine enlarged picture of you that was left behind when I bolted I The cook hid and kept it for mo I • He was back and had the terribly messy house mostly cleaned up for us when we got there. "I had a glance around in most of the Foochow College buildings. Buildings are very considerably damaged, but not nearly so stripped of wood work as some reports indicated. Equipment nearly all gone, and initial attempts at finding it not very fruitful. I did not get to Wenshan Middle School, but it evidently suffered worse than F.C. Methodist residences, except the one in which old Miss Little remained, are pitiably wrecked. The excellent plant of Hua Nan College is said to be about the worst wrecked of any of the institutions. One or two other schools fared better under declarations made by gatekeepers or others that they were distinctly Chinese institutions, "Miss Lucy Wang^ Pros* of Hua Nan, plans to go tomorrow personally to Foochow.to work at rounding up college belongings if posssi-ble. She has had representatives there the past few days - not toe successful she hears.. Commencement is scarcely 3 weeks away, so she feels she must not be gone more than two weeks at most, "Tnwy (the internees) do not deny a sense of strain and uncertainty these 7i months - at times more, much of the time not weigh- |