70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Franklin Gimson's attempt to put an end to criticism over information he's given to Sir Arthur Blackburn has failed:

Later I heard that some sort of representations were being organised against me in view of the fact that I am supposed to have given through Sir Arthur Blackburn a false impression of the position in Stanley and so am responsible for the failure of the British Government to repatriate us previously. I confess at first I was amused but nothing is further from the truth. I have persistently advocated repatriation, in fact did so at a time when the camp were really not prepared for it. These facts however I cannot communicate and so must await the result of these representations if indeed they are ever forwarded.

Franklin Gimson,  Diary, Weston House, Oxford, p. 72 (recto)

Note: Some commentators have ignored this statement and portrayed Gimson as opposed to a general repatriation on the grounds that this would be tantamount to admitting that the British community were 'birds of passage' in Hong Kong and thus weaken London's claim to re-establishment of sovereignty after the war. It seems Gimson believed that  a British claim could be established by keeping a small nucleus of officials, including himself, in the Colony. He was even willing to return as part of a general repatriation if that was the outcome of negotiations. Of course, we now know that no-one was sent home after the Canadian-American repatriation of September 1943, but business connected with the possibility took up much of the time of Gimson and other officials throughout 1944.