I am a British subject domiciled in Hong Kong, and am the wife of Robert Paterson Dunlop.

I was a passenger aboard the S. S. President Hoover when she stranded at Hoisho To Island on the night of December 10th-11th.

We

The day we arrived on the island I saw one of the crew, when he came up from the ship, throw open his jacket and there were six bottles of liquor tucked under his belt around his waist. It was practically dark and they were giving us our billets for the night. First of all we were allocated to a house in the village. weren't keen to go there and we heard whoever was allocating billets say that if we stayed at the school house, which was for married people and unaccompanied women, there would be a guard maintained there and we would be quite safe. We decided to go into the school house.

That night there were disturbances, fights, and swearing all around the place. Some time during the night a woman, whom I believe was a stewardess, came running to the door of our building and said, "Is there an officer here?" "Come at once, they are breaking into the hospital." There was an officer there who had been on guard, and he and several others went out. We, ourselves, were told by this officer not to go outside for at least an hour because it was not safe. In the early morning, before dawn, a Japanese naval officer from H. I. J. M. S. Asigara (?) arrived and asked for the officers who were in our building. He told them that the Japanese cruiser had arrived and that the two American destroyers were coming. A Japanese naval landing party came up after daylight and was greeted with applause by the passengers who were outside. We felt relieved that they were there. They posted guards at various places. Later in the morning

we saw two of the crew of the President Hoover lying face downward in a cabbage patch and drunk to the point of unconsciousness. A Japanese sentry kicked one of them and he sat up. When I passed by a few minutes later he was drinking

from a bottle.

In the evening, when the crew had returned from the ship, a first class deck steward came and sat along side of me and opened his bag which I saw contained clothing and at least two bottles of liquor. One of the crew nearby asked when he was going to open his bottle and the steward intimated that he wasn't going to open it for this man's benefit because he knew that this man had had liquor the night before and hadn't given him any. The second man said, "Why didn't you ask me for some last night," "I had six bottles of champagne left over and didn't know whom to give them to."

I am unable to identify the members of the crew referred to above, but I was told that in the school house where we spent the night the two men who stood guard were the second and fourth officers, one of whose names began with the sound "Sch." Their actions were very commendable and they worked very hard. And further deponent saith not.

EDITH FRIDA DUNLOP.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 23rd day of December 1937.

[SEAL]

JOHN C. POOL,

American Vice Consul.

(Service No. 4771, no fee prescribed)

COLONY OF HONG KONG,

City of Victoria,

Consulate General of the United States of America, ss:

Before me, John C. Pool, vice consul of the United States of America in and for the consular district of Hong Kong, duly commissioned and qualified, personally appeared Harry E. Stevens, who being duly sworn according to law, deposes and saith:

I was a passenger on board the S. S. President Hoover which stranded about midnight, December 10, 1937, on the coral shore of Hoisho To Island some fifteen or twenty miles off the southeastern coast of Formosa.

In regard to the behaviour of the officers and members of the Hoover's crew while ashore on Hoisho To Island the following are circumstances of my personal observation:

So far as I was able to observe, no member of the Hoover's crew assisted or offered to assist the disembarked passengers in solving the following difficulties which confronted them during the first eighteen or twenty hours ashore:

(a) In passing through the oil-covered water which surrounded the lifeboats on reaching the shore.

(b) In proceeding over the two-mile stretch from the landing place to the village school premises which the natives had made available as shelter for the passengers.

(c) In carrying from the landing place to the camp at the school such provisions as had been brought ashore, and in collecting and preserving these provisions from the frequent pilfering or carrying away thereof by some of the less responsible Filipino passengers and members of the crew.

(d) In obtaining drinking water.

(e) In improving the extremely unsatisfactory lavatory and other sanitary facilities at the camp.

(f) In providing light for use in the overcrowded buildings after nightfall. (g) In finding resting places on the floors and benches for the women and children.

(h) In preventing members of the crew from appropriating to their own use a supply of blankets which had been sent ashore for the use of passengers.

(i) In effectively cooperating with the ship's officers in the latter's feeble attempts to provide food and enforce discipline.

I heard a member of the steward's department, who styled himself the chief cook or chef (a large proportioned man), object to offers of assistance, made by a group of first-class passengers, in guarding, preparing, and distributing the food, all of which he stated was under his charge and care. I heard this man refuse the requests of several hungry women passengers to obtain a share of the food which I saw was then being cooked and distributed, with his knowledge, to a group of ship's officers and about fifteen or twenty members of the crew. He endeavored to explain his refusal on the ground that the crew had worked harder and were more in need of food than the passengers.

I passed the first night ashore in a school room together with about thirty other passengers and four or five of the ship's officers, including the purser, a steward, and the second officer. Throughout the night I heard members of the crew singing, joking about the passengers, cursing, and fighting among themselves in the adjacent courtyard; and while most of the women present remained awake in fear of being molested, at least five members of the crew, who gave unmistakable evidence of being intoxicated, came across the courtyard and attempted to force their way into the room we occupied. These attempts were frustrated by the second officer who stood guard at the door with a pistol and who, on one occasion, threatened to use force against one member of the crew who insisted that he had a right to share the room with the passengers. I consider this night vigil by the second officer commendable as it appeared to me to be the most effective and outstanding assistance given by any of the officers in protecting the passengers from a very real physical danger.

Officers of the engineer's department and some members of the crew were quiet and well-behaved, and I believe that they would have assisted the passengers had the responsible ship's officers done more to assert their authority and maintain order.

I was present when a committee of male passengers offered assistance to the second officer, purser, and the chief steward and heard these officers inform the committee that they had done and would continue to do all they could to remedy the situation but that they were up against a "labor råcket" and were more or less powerless to interfere with the crew who belonged to a strong labor union and who took the view that when ashore under such circumstances they were no longer in the employ of the Dollar Company and were, therefore, not obliged to work for the passengers or to obey anyone's orders.

After the arrival in the morning, December 12, of a detachment of Japanese sailors from the Japanese cruiser Asigara, rowdyism in the camp soon disappeared; and after the arrival the same afternoon of American bluejackets from the destroyers Barker and Alden until we were taken aboard the S. S. President McKinley on December 13th, the ship's officers, and members of the steward's department in particular, did good work in providing an ample supply of food for most of the passengers.

And further deponent saith not.

(Signed) HARRY E. STEVENS.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 23rd day of December 1937. [SEAL]

JOHN C. POOL, American Vice Consul.

COLONY OF HONG KONG, CITY OF VICTORIA,

Consulate General of the United States of America, ss:

Before me, John C. Pool, vice consul of the United States of America, in and for the consular district of Hong Kong, duly commissioned and qualified, personally appeared Mrs. Maud Corbett, who being duly sworn according to law, deposes and saith:

I am a British subject and a justice of the peace for the county of Sussex, England.

I was a special class passenger on board the S. S. President Hoover when she stranded at Hoisho To Island on the night of December 10th-11th.

There was no one in authority on the shore after we left the ship except during the first part of the landing when the first officer was there. The seamen and sailors did not seem to know how to manage the boats. In the camp there were two junior officers, the fourth and, I think, the second, who worked hard, but had, apparently, no authority over anybody. The reason for this apparently was the current belief expressed by the seamen and stewards that their pay ceased when they left the ship and that they were no longer in the service of the company.

The first night on shore one of the junior officers came to us and said that the situation was getting serious but if the women would go in a certain room he would try to guard them. I did not know then why the situation was serious and I did not go into the room indicated. Instead my husband and I remained in the infants' school along with forty or fifty passengers, mostly third class and principally Filipinos and Chinese.

During the night a very tall, fair, and smooth-shaven sailor, on whom a torch was flashed, came in and sat down on a table in front of me. He was incapably drunk. Someone must have hit him for he fell down on the floor flat just before me. He lay there a while than [then] sat up, turned round and stared at me, then put his hand out and touched me. I called out. He did this again several times. My husband then came and sat in front of me; the man got up and went and sat where my husband had been sitting. There was a lady on the other side of the bench. She suddenly screamed and told me afterwards that he had put his hand down the back of her neck. Then the man collapsed and lay on the floor. After a time he got up and went out.

The next day I said to an officer that I supposed after they had slept it off they would be better and he said, "They won't be any better until they have got the last drop of liquor out of the bar."

A friend told us of a Japanese We went over to look at it drunken people sleeping.

We

That day we looked for another place to sleep. hut nearby which he said was fairly comfortable. and to his and our horror found the floor half full of came back later, about six o'clock, and found a woman alone and dressed as a stewardess just recovering from a drunken sleep. And further deponent saith not.

MAUD CORBETT.

JOHN C. POOL,

American Vice Consul.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 24th day of December 1937. [SEAL)

Service No. 4782. No fee prescribed.

COLONY OF HONG KONG, CITY OF VICTORIA,

Consulate General of the United States of America, ss:

Before me, John C. Pool, vice consul of the United States of America in and for the consular district of Hong Kong, duly commissioned and qualified, personally appeared Rachel Leanore Beatrice Drummond, who being duly sworn according to law, deposes and saith:

I am a British subject domiciled in Hong Kong.

I was a special class passenger aboard the S. S. President Hoover when she stranded at Hoisho To Island on the night of December 10-11.

The

There appeared to be lack of organization in getting people ashore, considering that there was plenty of time and no immediate danger. Little was appeared to be made of materials and facilities on the ship to make the landing easier. shore was extremely rough coral rock, slimy with fuel oil, and the sea was rather heavy. The lifeboats were very heavy and there seemed to be too few men to handle each one of them. Our lifeboat was bumped against the preceding one

1

and against the shore for some time before it was possible to get the boat into such a position as to permit the passengers to be landed. The natives carried us ashore as best they could under the circumstances, which were very difficult, as they were mostly barefoot on the sharp and slimy rocks.

I spent the night in the school building along with Mr. and Mrs. R. P. Dunlop. During the night one of the officers kept guard. We were asked to keep in doors for the first few hours as they were having trouble with some members of the crew who were drunk. There was loud talking and swearing on the veranda outside the school house and the officer who kept guard frequently spoke from the door to those making the noise and endeavored to quiet them. During the night a woman with a child came into our place as she said it was impossible to remain with the baby in the room where she had been. It should be mentioned also that I saw some of the passengers under the influence of liquor.

When we arrived on shore we were sent to the schoolhouse and particularly instructed to leave our baggage in a pile at the shore. My blue coat, which I left with my little case, was never seen again by me though some one else afterward said she had seen it disappearing in to the village with one of the natives. Lack of proper supervision of the baggage was probably responsible for the loss of this coat.

When I arrived in Hong Kong I found that a trunk and a suitcase from my cabin had arrived on the President Pierce. The trunk was all right, but the suitcase had been rifled and all the jewelry, which was in two small boxes, had been removed; the empty boxes remained. The locks of the suitcase had not been broken, but I feel sure that I locked the case before I left the ship, as I did my trunk which was not disturbed. However, when I opened the case the things in it were in great disorder and other small boxes, besides those containing jewelry, had also been opened, but the contents, which were dolls, left in them. Apparently the person who rifled the case was only looking for jewelry. And further deponent saith not.

RACHEL LEONORE BEATRICE DRUMMOND.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 24th day of December, 1937. [SEAL]

Service No. 4786. No fee prescribed.

COLONY OF HONG KONG,

City of Victoria,

JOHN C. POOL,

American Vice Consul.

Consulate General of the United States of America, ss:

Before me, John C. Pool, vice consul of the United States of America in and for the consular district of Hong Kong, duly commissioned and qualified, personally appeared Robert Paterson Dunlop, who, being duly sworn according to law, deposes and saith:

I am a British subject domiciled in Hong Kong, where I am tests engineer for the Hong Kong Electric Company, Limited.

I was a passenger aboard the S. S. President Hoover when she stranded at Hoisho To on the night of December 10th-11th.

The crew did not appear to be skilled in the use of the life boats; there seemed to be a maximum of four men in each boat, of whom only one appeared to know anything about the handling of the boat; that I was disappointed that more use was not made of the ship's mechanical gear in pulling the boats ashore through the surf and back to the ship, since the ship was only about two hundred yards from the shore. For lack of this assistance several boats had to be abandoned. On the ship there had been complete order and discipline from the time it gounded until I left the ship. The only criticism I had to make was that I thought the passengers might have been kept informed as to what was happening or what was expected of them. During breakfast the ship's loud speaker gave instructions for the landing of the passengers and said that each passenger might take one small hand package, not a suitcase. This was the first and last official announcement that I, personally, received during the whole period.

When I arrived on shore my wife and I were checked off the passenger list, but there appeared to be no one in effective command of the shore camp.

At the school house the ship's doctor had organized a hospital where minor injuries were treated and where women with children could pass the night. Credit for the finding of accommodations for the passengers at night is due a Japanese lady passenger, Miss Kye Koyama, who acted as interpreter and arranged matters with the village authorities.

When the crew landed in the late afternoon, just before dusk, a number of them were carrying bottles of liquor and a great many of them had their pockets stuffed with cigars. I was offered cigars by some of them and saw one member of the crew trying to persuade the ship's doctor to have a drink from a bottle which looked like a champagne bottle. They lit a fire outside and sat around the fire drinking until a late hour, when it appeared from the noise that they were fighting among themselves. Later on they attempted to enter the school buildings in which women and children and one or two married couples were attempting to sleep. In the building in which I was they were prevented from entering by one of the ship's officers (I believe he was the second or third officer), who remained on guard at the door all night. They were very disorderly and used very bad language, indeed, in front of the ladies. I heard numbers of the passengers complaining next morning that these men had entered their rooms and had either assaulted them or attempted to do so. The following day I saw more liquor brought in. One member of the ship's company produced a brown leather bag from which he removed in my presence two bottles of whisky and one bottle of gin.

That during the following morning a number of the crew gathered in the school room where I was setting, and in discussing the situation informed me that they were no longer members of the crew; that their pay had stopped when they left the ship. When called on to provide a work party by the officers certain men volunteered at once, others did so when called on to "behave like men” by the officers, while a third group called a committee meeting, produced books of union rules, and finally decided to assist.

While I was awaiting the sampans to take me off to the McKinley a quantity of passengers' baggage was carried down to the landing place and I noticed several pieces of rather good-looking rawhide luggage the locks of which had quite evidently been forcibly broken open and the cases were tied up with pieces of ship's rope.

The handling of the motor launches from the American destroyers, in which I was taken out to the President McKinley was a fine example of seamanship, in very definite contrast with the landing from the Hoover.

I should like to emphasize that the disorderly behavior was only on the part of a relatively small section of the crew. Some members worked hard during the whole period and were of great assistance. Other passengers have mentioned members who assisted them, but the two known to me who were outstanding in helpfulness and cheerfulness were Jerry Bergman, the special class deck steward, and David, a first class bell boy.

I am unable to identify the members of the crew referred to above, for I did not come into contact with them on the ship. And further deponent saith not.

ROBERT PATTERSON DUNnlop.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 22nd day of December 1937. [SEAL]

Service No. 4753.
No fee prescribed.

JOHN C. POOL, American Vice Consul.

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you very much. I think that is all this morning. We are very much obliged to you gentlemen and to the State Department. If you will give our compliments to the Secretary and tell him we appreciate his courtesy, I will thank you. Mr. CAFFEE. Certainly.

Mr. SAUGSTAD. We will be glad to do so.

Senator THOMAS of Utah. Senator Copeland, may I make this one request that they will go over the labor features of this bill and point out for us wherein they are not in harmony with this international agreement, which will probably be made treaties. Of course, I should like for my own information at least to see whether our legislation is written consistently with what will become treaty law, if it does become treaty law.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be very glad to have that information. Along that line may I ask, Admiral Hamlet-you are familiar with