70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

((More about Yvonne's birthday party on the 6th ...)) The candles all lit, I’m glad to say, but Yvonne failed decidedly in her effort to blow them all out in one blow. Maudie presented her with the key - as her mother by proxy - and thereafter she asked everyone to sign their name on it as she apparently intends to keep it. Of course, we all sang, “She’s twenty one today……” after the key had been presented. Altogether it was a most successful party.

We went for a short stroll in the evening and ended our party meals that day by frying the remainder of the baked beans with some rice, tomato sauce and garlic and eating it on toast. This was accompanied by a mixture of lacovo-malt and cocoa.

After tea, Yvonne had spent some time taking round pieces of her cake to friends whom we had not been able to invite to the party (through lack of space). We had reached the Corra’s room and were standing talking to them, when someone knocked at their door and in walked Yamashita. He enquired if Mrs Charter were there, which surprised us quite a lot. Later Harold told us that he had come seeking her in our room, but hearing she was with the Corra’s he declined Harold’s offer to go and call her and said he would go himself as he knew where they lived. It was quite difficult to understand what he said as his English is limited (actually I believe it is far less limited than he cares to make out). He mentioned the words, “Letter from Miss Ho,” and, “Birthday,” and, “Telephone,” and presented Yvonne with a letter and a small package and asked her to sign the receipt.

These both came from Yvonne Ho with good wishes to Y and saying that she and Herbert would toast Y at 9 p.m. that evening. The package contained a small bottle of curry powder, though a much bigger parcel arrived next day. It really was sweet of Yvonne Ho; she and Herbert have been kindness itself; Y was very pleased. Yamashita allowed Y to scribble a short note in reply, which he undertook to deliver to Yvonne H., which was most kind of him. We concluded that Yvonne (who, we have found out, works in the parcels and letter department of the Japanese Internees Section, censoring them, we assume, before they are sent here) knew that the parcels would arrive in camp on August 6th but would not be delivered until the next day. We guess that she must have sent a small package and the note and telephoned Mr Yamashita to ask if they could be delivered that day. (I daresay she and Yam. have met at the HK Bank, where she works). At all events, Yam came in person, which was most flattering.

As a matter of fact, Yamashita really does seem to be doing his best for the internees here, and most people realise that. I think that before the war he must have worked in the HK Hotel hairdressing saloon for political reasons. All the staff there were Japanese - where most European men went for a haircut, including Army and Naval officers - and there they remained till the outbreak of war. Good old British! Still, I suppose they could not just have been turned out of the Colony before war was declared.

Next morning we went up the hill to collect the other parcel from ‘Yvonne and Mac’. It had on it ‘Many Happy Returns of the Day’.  It really was a lovely parcel. It contained: a Chinese dress for Y, which really suits her awfully well and which, she says is very cool to wear; (she has only worn it inside the building so far but with a little persuasion I think she will venture out in it), another delicious cake in a tin - like mine ; a tin of sugar (most welcome); a tin of ‘Jacobs Malt’ (which is something like Ovaltine); a tin of ‘white bean cheese’; a Chinese product which we have not yet sampled; a bag of soya beans and a big chunk of washing soap. Really a most well thought out and most generous parcel, especially in view of the depreciation of the HK dollar.

The Japanese suddenly announced, about a fortnight ago that the rate of exchange between the HK dollar and the Japanese Military yen was to be changed from 2:1 to 4:1. The Military yen (or ‘Black Yen’) is the currency introduced by the Japanese into conquered territory and is the currency in which their troops are paid. It has a purely ficticious value and is worth nothing at all in the world market (it will be worth nothing when the Japanese withdraw from here), but it is circulated in conquered territory at a fixed rate of exchange with the existing currency. Initially, the Japanese fixed this rate at 1 yen = 2 dollars. Now they have suddenly changed it to 1 yen = 4 dollars. Unfortunately Y and I have $30 left, all in HK currency, so its value was promptly reduced to $15! In some ways we were luckier than some people who had one or two hundred dollars. This has meant that although the high prices of goods in town have remained the same in yen, they have doubled themselves in dollars. 

The reason for this change is one for conjecture. If the Japanese hoped to lower the price of goods in yen to make their own living cheaper, they must be disappointed. Some suggest they are doing it to collect as many of the old HK notes as possible (which will be valid after the war) before retiring from HK so they can change them after the war!

Anyway, the price of things is now fabulous. A 2 lb tin of syrup costs 10/6 (pdv £23) for example. But I expect Yvonne and Herbert are being paid in yen, so they should not be so badly off. Quite a few people here have exchanged all their remaining dollars for yen in case the exchange jumps to 1:6 or 1:8; others who believe the Nips will be leaving HK soon are getting rid of all their yen notes which will be valueless when the Nips go. Y and I have so little money anyway that we don’t worry much! Money has really quite lost its value to us. If you really want a thing and have enough notes to buy it, well you do (more or less).

I have traced out this sketch plan of our Internment Camp ((the journal included a copy of the map)) from a plan that Dicky Richardson and Ray Hughes produced. It is very approximate and has no scale as they paced out the distances between buildings (where possible) and lined through two points onto some feature to get approximate positions. It really is quite an achievement. A rough scale could easily be calculated. This was the last of a series of 10 plans they prepared, indicating the positions of all the war graves in the internment camp (for future reference) and marking the position and identity of the dead. These include HK Volunteers; men from the Middlesex Regiment; the Royal Rifles of Canada; Indian and Chinese Volunteers and (I think) two Portuguese: civilians killed here during the fighting; V.A.D. nurses and medical staff (ruthlessly killed by Japanese soldiers); and some of the first internees to die in camp.

There are also three Japanese Regimental memorials. People who were here during the fighting say that attacking Japanese lost very heavily here indeed. They estimate their losses at something like 3,000 which would about equal the total British losses during the war here. Still, their losses generally are not nearly as heavy as they should have been - due, almost solely, to the incompetence of the Army HQ staff. There will have to be an enquiry into the conduct of this war here when all is over.

The other nine maps are to a larger scale and show the position of the graves and the names of the dead. The numbers of these maps are marked on this site plan, but I have omitted them here.

I was asked by Neilson ((maybe L R Nielson)) to make four copies of each map - which I did with a steel knitting needle and four sheets of carbon paper.