70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

For the last two days we have been suffering from another typhoon. Now the howling and blowing is over but it is still pouring with rain. This has been an incredibly wet summer- already the average rainfall (according to our local statistics) is about 15” above normal. It has been a bad summer for our gardens, which is a pity. Sweet potatoes have gone too much to leaf and not formed big tubers; onions have rotted in the ground; there has not been enough sun for peanuts and pumkins etc.

No rations came in during the last two days although they were due. Fortunately our cooks try and keep a few vegetables in hand and this a.m. we had rice and a very little vegetable stew of sweet potatoes and taros (or yams). But this evening there was simply a dollop of rice. However, the cooks appealed to private gardeners and we all donated what sweet potato tops we could spare. These were fried in oil and made enough for a table spoonful each.

Many private gardens are producing little more than the potato tops just now. One should not cut them too much as it retards the formation of the potatoes. In normal times even the poor Chinese will seldom eat these tops, though they are used quite extensively for feeding the Chinese pigs – however we are glad to eat them here. We have not yet tried grass (a few people have) though I seriously think we may before we are out of here.

Rations came in late this evening for the next two days. The typhoon had made it impossible to get the stuff across the harbour for the previous two days, said the Japanese. 

“When will the lost two days supply be made up?” enquired our Quartermaster.

“They won’t”, replied the Japanese sergeant in control of rations. “You are still alive so you don’t need them”!

Well, I suppose that is one way of looking at it. But why don’t they always keep us supplied two days in advance with say potatoes and taros, vegetables that will keep? The answer obviously is that they simply haven’t got the stuff to send in. I am afraid this is just a precursor of what will happen more and more frequently, typhoon or no typhoon. Incidentally, several blocks who had kept nothing in hand served just rice at both meals today.

In my concern for our food, let me not forget to mention the news: an Anglo–American landing on the South of France at several points, St Tropez, St Raphael and others between Nice and Marseilles! This was grand news to get on a pouring wet day and cheered us up enormously. Our forces in northern France are pushing ahead at an amazing pace now and have almost reached Paris and also have virtually cut off and surrounded the Germans in Brittany. A report states that Churchill has visited Rome where he discussed, amongst other things, the possible invasion of the Balkans. Surely, surely this war cannot last much longer.