70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Dr. Selwyn-Clarke is about to embark for a lengthy and much needed period of recuperation leave, but he's finding time to write to those who've helped him. Today he sends his thanks to J. I. Barnes:

...I attribute in no little measure, the smoothness with which the medical defence scheme for the colony was brought into operation to the pains which you had taken in working out administrative details. During hostilities, I felt that I could rely on you absolutely to ensure the continuance as far as possible of departmental routine and of the additional intelligence work.

He also thanks Barnes for his work during the re-occupation, which has included going with the colony's 'only qualified pharmacist' (perhaps Arthur Rowan) to dispose of mysterious stores of abandoned chemicals, some of them poisonous.

But, in a very different development, two doctors are settling scores from the occupation. Gustav and Helen Canaval produce and circulate a document with today's date providing a detailed critique of the way Rudolf Zindel ran Rosary Hill Red Cross Home. They accuse Zindel of wastefulness, failure to control the residents and of setting up an Administrative Council that did little more than provide jobs for his fellow Swiss. Zindel will claim the report is full of half truths and direct mis-statements - while accepting that his  stewardship was open to criticism at some points - but the 'Report' harms the Red Cross whose actions during the war have already become controversial.

Source:

Barnes: J. L. Barnes, Hong Kong World War Two and Other Stories, 2005, 44, 43 (Imperial War Museum)