Donald of China

William Henry Donald (1875 - 1946) was an Australian journalist who worked in China from 1903 until World War II. He had considerable direct and indirect influence on events in China during that period. He befriended Charlie Soong, the wealthy publisher and father of the Soong sisters, and had known "the present Mesdames Kung, Sun and Chiang [when they] were small children." He became a friend and advisor to Sun Yat-Sen and to Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek. The Japanese invaders in China dubbed Donald "the evil spirit of China" for his role in advising the Chinese government in their efforts against the invasion. They had offered growing rewards for his capture, dead or alive. Once they had almost got him, when Zero fighters attacked his plane over China but his pilot escaped into a cloud bank. In February 1945, it turned out that they had held him for more than three years, without knowing it was him, in one of the Manila prison camps. Donald had been a prisoner since February 1942, when the Japanese arrested him at Manila when he was on his way back to China from New Zealand via the Philippines. During his captivity, he had used a false name. After a brief visit to New York City in 1945, Donald returned to Shanghai, where he died in 1946. He was farewelled in a state funeral by the government of the Republic of China. As he lay dying in 1946, Donald dictated his recollections to Earl Albert Selle, who produced this biography.