Hunting Horns - Cloud Over Hong Kong

Television (Full Length Episode) – 1976

James Bertram — a journalist, academic and prisoner of war during WWll — talks to fellow writer James McNeash about his experiences in Asia in this interview series. Bertram discusses his work for the China Defence League and why he fought alongside the Chinese during the 1941 Japanese invasion of Hong Kong. He describes meeting other writers and political activists, including the poet WH Auden and ex-pat Kiwi Rewi Alley, who was building Chinese rural co-operatives. Bertram spent nearly four years as a prisoner of war in Hong Kong and Japan. Hunting Horns was directed by Barry Barclay (Tangata Whenua).

Well, who wants to be behind a machine gun? But if you're defending against people like the Japanese you fight, you don't just pack up.
– Journalist and ex POW James Bertram on what compelled him to fight in the 1941 Japanese invasion of Hong Kong