70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

It is still raining cats and dogs, but there is still more good news: Admiral Fraser of the Home Fleet is on his way to the Pacific with a battle squadron to join Chester Nimitz and the American fleets. We know that there are already five American fleets in the Pacific and this new British fleet together with Somerville’s fleet in the Indian Ocean brings the total up to seven. Seven fleets against the Japanese!! How I should hate to be a Japanese now.

In his recent visit to Honolulu, Roosevelt is said to have discussed and approved the plans for a new offensive in the Western Pacific. Pray heaven it includes Hong Kong! And how marvellous if the task of retaking Hong Kong is given to the British fleet!!

The British and Americans are now only about 20 miles from Paris – that news is two days old so by now they are probably on the outskirts of Paris. It can’t be much longer now. The Russians are practically onto Prussian soil and there is street fighting in Warsaw.

Someone in camp had a letter from Jack Robinson in which he said that on arrival in Canada he applied to enlist but was not accepted (it is said that he was too late to be of much use) so he was sent back by his firm (Butterfield and Swire) and is now somewhere in Free China – lucky devil!

I must say something in a general way about our food in camp; it is still, as it always has been, the principal problem here. Just at the beginning of the New Year (when we thought our food situation was going to improve) the Japanese informed us that they could no longer supply us with meat of any kind (not even the race horses that they had gradually been killing off!) and that in future we should receive fish only. Well, it was useless protesting, for meat in any quantity was evidently unobtainable. Then, during the middle of February we were suddenly informed that no more wheat flour would be issued to us as the stocks in the HK godowns were exhausted, but that we should have it replaced by an equivalent weight of extra rice – 4 oz per person per day. So now, instead of getting 8 oz of rice and 4 oz of flour we are allowed 12 oz of rice. This was another blow for it meant our precious wheat bread was to cease and the wheat flour was much better for us than 4 more ounces of rice.

However, the bakers set to work and made experiments with rice flour and since that time we have been supplied with 2 ozs of rice bread daily. The other 2 ozs was cooked into congee (a kind of rice porridge) for breakfast in the mornings. Zindel who is in charge of IRC affairs in HK had been sending in bran to camp which he purchased with IRC funds and this was mixed into the bread latterly. After the flour supply ceased he continued to send in bran and soya beans as a supplementary food supply. This amounted to 1 oz bran and ½ oz soya beans (ground into bean flour) per person per day which was divided between and mixed into the bread and congee and very much improved both, as well as increasing the food value enormously. In addition, the IRC supplied soya beans which were boiled and served at the morning meal. These amounted to 1 oz per person daily. We used to periodically run out of this supply and have had none since the end of July, until 12 more days of supply came in a couple of days ago. The price of beans is now so high that Zindel says he can no longer send in large quantities; in fact this last lot are not soya beans but some other more inferior kind, and when they are finished I expect we shall get no more.

In our blocks arrangements were made which enabled people to draw their rice in a variety of ways. In the days of the Civil Administration a person could draw all his rice raw and dispose of it as he liked. Many people, in fact the majority, drew a portion of their quota dry, ground it in the little stone hand mills that the Japanese supplied us with, and used the rice flour for making cakes, scones, ground rice pudding and congee. Y and I used to draw half ours dry, grind it and make yeast buns and, for our supper, ground rice congee into which we mixed bean flour. A number of people were simply unable to eat 12 ozs of rice per day and these proceeded to sell or exchange it for other things. Within reason this was alright, for it meant they could purchase other types of food (bean flour, peanuts etc.) from the canteen which did them much more good than the surplus rice would have done. But, of course, this practice was abused by some people in the camp ‘black market’ and the Japanese discovered that some people were swapping it for cigarettes etc. and so they put a stop to it. They issued a regulation which prohibited people from drawing more than 4 ozs per day raw, and this quota had to be made up into cakes etc. and handed back to the communal kitchens to be cooked. The last part of the regulation was not strictly observed and some people cooked their own pancakes and buns on chatties and a certain amount of trading still goes on.

In our blocks the following arrangements were made: a person could draw 2 ozs bread, 2 ozs congee, 4 ozs boiled rice for the morning and 4 ozs boiled rice for the evening meal; or 4 ozs bread and no congee, or 4 ozs congee and no bread, or no congee or bread but dry rice instead, in which case the bran and bean flour that they were due was issued at the end of ten day periods; or they could draw dry rice at one of the meals and this was also issued in a total of 40 ozs in ten day periods. Of the 4 ozs issued raw, 2 or 4 could be handed back together with the extra bran and beans (which the individual purchased at the canteen) and could have double bread or double congee or double of both. This all sounds terribly complicated but worked very easily, though it meant the Block Representative had, every 10 days, to revise his or her lists, for people were allowed to make changes every 10 days. These 10 day periods were introduced by the Japanese, for they issue us with our dry stores (rice, oil, sugar and salt) in 10 day periods.

Y and I chose the last arrangement. We had double congee in the mornings (half of which we ate for breakfast and the other half of which we ate cold for supper) double bread, then one drew cooked rice for the morning meal and one for the evening and this we shared between us. In addition, I drew extra cooked rice (6 ozs per day) as a heavy worker ( I will explain this later) which gave us a fair amount of boiled rice for our meals ; otherwise I doubt if we could have managed double bread, for rice cooked as bread, though more solid, does not fill you up so much as boiled rice. This arrangement has worked admirably, for it has saved us cooking congee for supper or buns for tea. We now eat half our bread for tea and the other half with our congee for supper. It is all rice, but you imagine you are eating something different! So much for rice!