December 1940 – Evacuating American Kids from Shanghai

As tensions escalated in and around Shanghai in late 1940 the US State Department ordered children (and suggested wives) be evacuated aboard refugee ships back to America. Here then, from December 1940, are the children of George Monk, an American businessman in Shanghai, being waved off as they board a lighter in Shanghai to get them to the refugee ship moored down at Woosong (Wusung).

I think George Monk, was George B. Monk, who was in charge of the Shanghai branch of A.C. Monk & Co., a wholesaler of tobacco based in Farmville, North Carolina. Monk received the shipments of tobacco from the United States, stored them in the China warehouses and hired an office force of between ten and twelve people (including presumably Mr Clem Breen pictured below). Monk returned to the US in 1941.