70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

The news that finds its way into camp seems quite cheerful, both from the Eastern and Western theatres of operations. We have heard rumours that all prisoners of war are to be removed from HK and apparently some of the regulars have definitely left. I don’t know what this may mean; evidently something is afoot, but it seems that my hope of something happening at the end of September is not going to materialise. Now I am inclined to name a possible date as the end of the year and a more probable date as February or March of next year! Another winter here; what an appalling thought!

I hear from a perfectly sure source that the Hon. C.S. has written a letter to Otah (Head of all the Japanese prisoner camps in HK) saying that he (the C.S.) had supplied Mr Otah some time ago with the percentage of persons wishing to remain in HK and the percentage that wished to be repatriated. Since then, the C.S. had found that people had changed their views, due largely to reasons of health during the approaching winter, and that he would be glad if Mr Otah would do the courtesy of seeing him to discuss this question of repatriation. Well!  So the petition has had some effect; and it seems to me that our worthy Mr Gimson was just a little piqued by the voice of the rabble! At all events, it proves he is not just pig headed!

The camp is evidently still in disgrace for we have not yet been allowed to hold another concert. Both Y and I are due to appear in different numbers in this next concert - I’m sure the Japs have not been made aware of this! However, they have extended the date for bathing from the end of September to the end of October. At present the N.E. monsoon seems to be alternating with the S.W. (as it does at this time of the year) and for the last few days we have had cooler weather with winds of gale force and bathing has not attracted many people.

Last Thursday Y and I had yet another pleasant surprise. We hoped Devaux would send in some more of our clothes and sure enough he did. This parcel contained for Y: 3 cotton dresses (which she used to wear to the office) and her grey and chalk striped winter costume!  For me - a whitish or very light brown tropical summer suit and a brown winter suit! We were delighted, particularly with the two winter suits. It now makes us wonder what was in the half filled trunk. I certainly never imagined it contained any winter clothes. My brown suit is about my third best and has arrived without its waist coat, but it is in good condition and has years of hard wear in it. (At least I hope so). I hadn’t a suit before at all. I had two odd coats and two odd and very old pairs of trousers. Now all we need are shoes and some underclothes.