70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Yesterday we spent a most unpleasant morning. I had just had my turn in the bathroom and was recovering from a cold wash when Nielson, our chairman, hurried in to say that everyone had been ordered to parade on the open space beside the prison. It was a dismally cold and rainy morning and everyone felt rather miserable, no one knowing the reason for the order. People turned up in all sorts of queer apparel; some wrapped up in bits of canvas or blankets, a few well equipped people with umbrellas. Yvonne and I were well clad, each wearing a mackintosh over our overcoats. Even so we felt cold and our feet were icy. After standing about for half an hour we were arranged in groups according to the blocks of buildings that we lived in. We wondered if the new Civil Administration, whom we had heard were taking over control of the civilian population of the Colony, and the internees, were going to inspect us. However, after another half hour, the whole 3,000 of us had to file past Japanese soldiers or Gendarmes, Sikh and Chinese police who were under Japanese command, and we were all searched for fire-arms. The rain had been intermittent all this time. I must have looked like an apostle with my beard and moustache and a white scarf over my head! After that we were told to proceed to St Stephens School where we stood around for another hour.

We heard then that the Japanese authorities were searching all our rooms and luggage for fire arms, ammunition, wireless sets or any other instruments that could be used against the Japanese. I heard of nothing of that sort that had been discovered. Tim had not been feeling well and he stayed at home, in bed, to look after Adrian. He told us that Chinese constables searched our belongings. One of them took my precious last half packet of cigarettes, but Tim spoke up and demanded them back and the constable meekly gave them back again!  One of them found the leather holster of little John’s toy pistol and this caused a great deal of suspicion and excitement!  Fortunately, Tim can speak some Cantonese and was able to convince them of its innocence.

So altogether we stood about from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m. in the raw cold weather for nothing. I felt very sorry for some of the old people. Fortunately some of our cooks had stayed behind and started cooking the first meal, and our chow was ready by 12:30. In the evening the cooks surpassed themselves; they had been issued with a ration of flour instead of rice and that evening we had some meat and vegetable soup with a little rice for thickening and two meat and pastry patties fried in peanut oil. They were marvellous. The pastry was so heavy and leathery that I felt really full. We also had our bread ration too, of a slice of bread and that with a scraping of jam finished off the meal.

The Japanese authorities have allowed the Red Cross lorries to bring in parcels of foodstuffs for people, which neutrals and some of the Chinese friends outside have been able to purchase. The price of goods is exorbitant but by contributing about $5 (present day value £14) per head we have been able to get a few tins of pilchards, bully beef, syrup, cocoa, butter and some Chinese sauce which helps flavour our otherwise rather tasteless food. I fear our money will not last long and I sincerely hope the Japanese will allow us to draw a little money from our banks as they promised to do over a month ago. We hope a canteen of sorts will be opened here.

The official Japanese rations for us per person per day are: 8 ounces (226 grams) rice (dry); 3/7 ounce (12 grams) sugar; 3/7 ounce (12 grams) salt. It is found by weighing that we seldom get more than 7 ounces of rice per day. In addition we obtain soya beans, lettuce (enough for a ladle full of soup per meal) and between 7 and 2 ounces of meat or fish per day, and also our slice of bread, and the community has arranged amongst itself that manual labourers get an extra half slice per day. It can be seen that on these rations we are perpetually hungry.

During the first two weeks here the men doing manual work began to feel really weak. I was (like most of them) attacked in the thighs and knees with a feeling of weakness and impotence that one often feels in horrible dreams, when your legs just won’t move. Now I do not get this I am glad to say. I expect my constitution has adjusted itself to the chiefly vegetarian diet to some extent; also we are getting a little more food than at first and finally, the little extra that we did manage to provide ourselves must make a difference.

The communal kitchens I have been working on are now nearing completion. When they are finished the cooking for our blocks is to be completely reorganised and the meals should improve. As a first step in this direction, 20 cents per head was levied the other day for the purpose of buying condiments such as curry, pepper, baking powder and some of the cheaper Chinese sauces. With these prerequisites it will be possible to serve the same food with a greater variety of flavours and in different forms.

The cooking is at present done by seamen cooks whose real knowledge of cooking is very limited. They are a cheery and very hard working crowd, but they do not appreciate suggestions and are not prepared to accept advice from other experienced cooks and dieticians (mostly women) with which our section of the community seems well supplied.

The other day some malcontents circulated a letter they had jointly written in which they styled the cooks ‘inexperienced’ and gave them no word of thanks for all the hard work they had done. They then went on to make some really useful suggestions, such as: having shifts of cooks who would work by rote; a storekeeper who would issue all stores (thus eliminating any suspicion of pilfering by the cooks); and using the knowledge of the dieticians and experienced cooks in preparing the meals. Unfortunately, many people signed it, which we in our room thought was wrong of them, for any good suggestions should have been made to the committee and not done in this rather back door manner, which was very unkind and hurtful  to the cooks. The signed paper was presented to Nielson (who, incidentally shares a room with some of the cooks, and was suspected by some of benefitting by this in the matter of a little extra food – this further complicated matters). 

A meeting of the blocks was convened (which I missed) and a stormy meeting, apparently, it proved to be. The circular was read aloud and there was much back chat etc. and Nielson, the Chairman rather lost control of the meeting – which was held in the open air and therefore difficult to manage in any case. The integrity of the temporary committee somehow became involved and a vote of confidence was asked for and accorded. Then the issue became unclear and a vote that the cooks should ‘carry on’ was taken to mean ‘carry on permanently’ and was defeated. The cooks promptly declared they were ‘through’ which left everyone wondering where the next meal was coming from. However, Neilson persuaded everyone to let the matter rest for 3 days and managed to persuade the cooks to carry on for the time being.  That was about a week ago and things are still the same!

This evening’s meal has again been very satisfying: rice, soya bean and pork stew in really liberal quantities. Some of the cubes of meat in the stew were pure pork fat, which would normally make me retch, but which I ate with relish on this occasion, in spite of the somewhat seering burnt fat taste it left at the back of my throat. But our food is so deficient in fats that we readily eat all we can when it comes along.