He read economics at University of Oxford and was best known for saving 60 orphaned boys during the Second Sino-Japanese War and leading them 700 miles (1,100 km)[3] through dangerous mountain passes, escaping the approaching Japanese and Chinese Nationalist forces in the Shaanxi area.

In 1937 he sailed on the Queen Mary to New York City, hitchhiked across the United States, and joined his aunt Muriel Lester[1] (a well-known English pacifist and friend of Mahatma Gandhi).

[citation needed] During this, he witnessed first hand the brutality of the Imperial Japanese Army towards the Chinese[1][3] 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.

[1] There have been claims that Hogg was an independent reporter for the Associated Press, supposedly[3] writing on the atrocities which he witnessed during the war.

[4] Hogg started to assist the Gung Ho movement operated by New Zealand-born communist Rewi Alley in Shaanxi.

[3] To get respect and control over the boys, Hogg participated in many activities with them, including singing, swimming, sports and hiking.

[3] The children tended a vegetable garden for food and Hogg made a basketball court for recreation.

Hogg's life is dramatised in the film The Children of Huang Shi (2008), also called Children of the Silk Road or Escape from Huang Shi, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Hogg and Chow Yun-fat as a Chinese communist resistance fighter Chen Hansheng.