70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

In response to recent escapes the Japanese begin to erect a barbed-wire fence which will eventually run through the garden of Bungalow C and cut it in half. the Bungalow's inhabitants ask the Chinese foreman to approach the Japanese with a view to keeping the garden inside the camp so that they can tend to the graves of the Allied soldiers buried there. He agrees to do so, but the Japanese refuse.

The Hongkong News publishes an article stating that the Japanese loan of $300,000 proves the 'good and fair' treatment being handed out to the internees. It also announces that they have been presented with 100,000 cigarettes and that parcels may now be sent to them by well-wishers in town. On April 14th the first day of the scheme, 300 parcels had been received at the Foreign Affairs Section.

Today the earliest of these parcels arrive in camp.

In town the Norwegian community are called to a meeting and told they can remain uninterned but are all on parole - if one person escapes, the rest will be sent to Stanley.

Sources:

Escapes: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 113

Parcels: Constance Murray Diary, p. 2 (Weston House, Oxford); Hongkong News, April 16th, 1942, p. 3: '$300,000 Loan To Internees'

Norwegians: J. Krogh-Moe, 'A Brief Report of Stanley Internment Camp From A Norwegian Point of View', page 1, in Hong Kong PRO, HKRS163 1-104