W allis Simpson never intended to go to China. By all accounts, before setting sail across the Pacific in the autumn of 1924, she’d never given the country a second thought. She was then Wallis Spencer, the wife of Earl Winfield “Win” Spencer Jr, a US naval officer assigned to the South China Patrol stationed in Hong Kong.
Win was handsome and could be charming but had a dark side. He was a drunk with a mean temper. Win begged Wallis to come out to Hong Kong and swore he was off the booze.
She agreed to go, hoping for a reconciliation. But their remaining time together would be brief — some weeks spent in Hong Kong, and a visit to the small foreign enclave of Shamian Island in Canton (Guangzhou). When Win fell off the wagon, his violent temper convinced Wallis she had to leave him.
Hearing a rumour that an American could get a divorce in the Shanghai International Settlement, she fled north ...
into mainland China..