70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries
11 Feb 1942, R. E. Jones Wartime diary
Submitted by Admin on Sat, 2011-12-31 21:38Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Wed, 11 Feb 1942Jap paper looks bad for us if its report is true. Food rather scarce today. Our Canteen would appear to be a myth. Americans bought Cheng’s stuff & sold it today despite their assurance that they would boycott him.
11 Feb 1942, Barbara Anslow's diary
Submitted by Barbara Anslow on Mon, 2012-01-09 09:54Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Wed, 11 Feb 1942Started working at hospital. Day seemed long. 4 slices thin bread and mincemeat at mid-day. Bitterly cold. ((Non-resident staff like me have meals there.))
Letter from Charles Pike (RAMC in Shamshuipo Camp) and one from Mabel. ((Now I wonder how those letters got into camp, there was no postal service!))
11 Feb 1942, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
Submitted by brian edgar on Sat, 2012-02-25 22:09Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Wed, 11 Feb 1942Morris 'Two-Gun' Cohen is taken to an interrogation room. Already there are an officer, an interpreter and 'two ugly-looking customers'.
Cohen realises that, although they seem to have a lot of information about him, much of it is jumbled and inaccurate, so when they ask him for details of his wartime activities with the Chinese and British, he denies everything. The two 'ugly-looking customers' start to mistreat him:
One of them slashed me across the shoulders with a bamboo. That was too much. I got to my feet and socked him on the jaw. It was a good sock too....but it was the end for me. The officer joined in, and the three of them let me have it with fists, boots and bamboo till they were tired.
Franklin Gimson sacks George Kennedy-Skipton from his post in the Hong Kong Government after the latter refuses to obey Gimson's order to cease his work in Hong Kong. Kennedy-Skipton will remain uninterned by asserting Irish nationality until his escape from Hong Kong on January 24, 1943.
Sources:
Cohen: Charles Drage, The Life And Times Of General Two-Gun Cohen, 1954, 292-293
Kennedy-Skipton: http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/accusations-of-collaboration-1-george-stacy-kennedy-skipton-2/
Note:
I've summarised Cohen's own account, which is accepted by his biographer Daniel Levy, even though Levy recognises that some of Cohen's stories are 'fabrications'.
11 Feb 1942, Harry Ching's wartime diary
Submitted by Admin on Thu, 2013-01-17 17:07Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Wed, 11 Feb 1942((Following text not dated:))
Increasingly subjected to retailers' tricks. We bought bottle of kerosene for small makeshift stove, to find it so loaded with waste oil it would not burn. Neighbours reported purchasing flour partly rice flour, corn flour, and even lime. One shocked to find sugar purchase weighted with crushed glass.
Fuel shortage another difficulty. Saddening to see looted blackwood furniture chopped up. Authorities threaten punishment for selling broken furniture as firewood. Also send police into hills to stop forest raiders.
11 Feb 1942, Eric MacNider's wartime diary
Submitted by Admin on Wed, 2016-03-02 01:4011 Feb 1942, John Charter's wartime journal
Submitted by HK Bill on Tue, 2021-03-09 12:57Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Wed, 11 Feb 1942What a thrill! As I was working today I heard the sound of an electric bell, and running into the building I found the electric current had been switched on! For the last week the Japanese have ordered a practice blackout and we hope that will officially end tomorrow; then we shall be able to have electric light – for the first time since the power station was put out of order in mid December.
