ABSTRACT
The Methodist missionaries who met a violent death on active service in the twentieth century were all, directly or indirectly, victims of war, rather than martyrs in the classic sense that they were executed for refusing to renounce their faith. In the war years that followed, China and its missionaries had much to endure, and many were interned. Nor were any missionary lives lost in the turbulent period preceding and following China's liberation by Mao Zedong's Red Army, which led to the departure of all missionaries. Eric Moreton was the grandson of Robert Moreton, the pioneer missionary in Portugal; his father was the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) agent in Portugal. His first missionary posting was to Haiti. The Japanese authorities had prescribed that all foreign properties should be identified with a signal clearly visible from the air, and the Methodist mission was marked by a large Union Flag.
