George Hogg (adventurer)

George Aylwin Hogg (1915 – 22 July 1945) was a British adventurer. He was a graduate of Oxford University in economics. He is known as a hero in China for saving 60 orphaned boys during the Second Sino-Japanese War, including leading them 700 miles (1,100 km) through dangerous mountain passes, escaping the approaching Japanese secret police in the Shaanxi area.

George Aylwin Hogg was the son of Robert Hogg a merchant tailor from Belfast, Co. Antrim & his wife Kathleen née Lester. Hogg grew up in the small town of Harpenden in United Kingdom. He attended St. George's School, Harpenden, where he was head boy. Afterwards, he went to Wadham College in Oxford, obtaining a degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then became a journalist for the Manchester Guardian.

In 1937 he sailed on the Queen Mary to New York City, hitchhiked across the United States, and joined his aunt Muriel Lester (a well-known English pacifist and friend of Gandhi). They continued their trip to Japan.

Hogg was an independent reporter for the Associated Press. In January 1938, during the undeclared war between China and Japan, he left Japan to visit Shanghai, China for two days. He helped Kathleen Hall, a nurse from New Zealand, smuggle food and medicine to the communists. During this, he witnessed first hand the brutality of the Imperial Japanese Army towards the Chinese and chose to stay in China. In Shaanxi Province, Hogg befriended communist General Nie Rongzhen and participated with the Eighth Route Army in guerrilla raids against the Japanese. While on the front lines, he wrote the book "I See a New China".

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