70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Today has been a good day: Y had a 25 word letter from Pop saying they are well and had been delighted to hear from Dodds (Frances Dodds), that we were well. They had a new home. The Old Vicarage, Upwalkham, Horrabridge, S. Devon, which was awaiting our return. This was dated April 1944.

I had two from Father, one dated June 1944 and the other 23rd July 1944. They too are well and had heard from Frances, bless her. He wished us happy birthdays; said he had received my July ’42 letter (2 ½ years old); in the first letter, that Betty was doing special work abroad.   (I, of course, guessed France forgetting that it was before the invasion of France) and in his second letter, that she was enjoying her time in Malta! Good for Betty; she must have been there at about the time of the invasion of Sicily. And all this time I have known nothing about it. What a lot we have to catch up on.

((Betty, John’s sister, served as a nurse in Malta for awhile. Whilst flying into Malta the aircraft she was in was attacked by a fighter whose bullets punctured the fuselage and caused the inflatable dinghy in the door to ignite, but caused no casualties. The crew managed to open the door and ditch the dinghy, but could not then close the door, but they managed to land safely.))

Father also said Graham had spent a fortnight in Colombo! The last I had heard of Graham was in 1940 when he was in Palestine. I hope he is still safe. I wonder if he is taking a part in the Burma Campaign. And lastly, Father said the canteen was progressing satisfactorily. I wonder if that means the Baptist Missionary Society have opened a canteen for servicemen or whether Mother and Father have joined some organisation (Red Cross or such, that endeavours to cater for the troops in Colombo). How nice it would be to get a real newsy letter; it won’t be half such fun hearing about it when it is all over.

((During the war Howard was the minister at Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church in Colombo. Howard wrote later:” We were surrounded by servicemen and turned our Sunday-School hall into a canteen for them. It was open every night, with refreshments, till 10 p.m., and was run by the ladies of the Church, splendidly helped by a number of servicemen themselves. There were 100 men in uniform at every Sunday evening service, which was a glad sight for a preacher, and we had a two hours sing-song after the Service. To carry this on without a hitch for over 3 years meant much willing service by our people. While we were trying to provide a spiritual home for these young men and women I want to say their presence and help greatly stimulated the Church. I had the joy of baptising several on a profession of repentance and faith. Our Sunday collections were often doubled and trebled, and I could tell many stories of generous giving. The climax was one Sunday when we had special collections and gifts to help starving Baptists in the Bengal famine.))

Father also said, “Expecting to see Crowley’s soon”.  I wonder if they have met yet! 

My third letter (and latest) was from Betty, dated 3.3.44 saying they had been delighted to hear from repatriated Canadians that we were well. I hear that Jack Robinson had reached London and, that he had spoken at one of these meetings. I suppose it is just possible that Betty or Aunt Ethelwyne have met him, though it is unlikely. If they have met him they will certainly have got the ‘low down’ about us. Betty said she had heard from the Crowley’s “in this country”. So Betty is back in England again with Aunt E.  I wonder what Aunt E did when Betty went to Malta. Perhaps she joined forces with Mrs Gilson. It was lovely getting all their news. We hadn’t heard for ages from any one.

Maudie had three letters from Peg ((her daughter)) and one from Pop (Minhinnick). Phil and I brought her out of hospital today after a 5 weeks innings. Her foot had recovered pretty well, when she developed a streptococci throat and had to undergo a course of strepticide which put her back a week. She is very glad to be out. The enforced rest has probably been good for her heart and she certainly looks pretty well. 

The other good thing is that, having had only grass to cook with for the last few days, 18,000 catties of firewood have come into camp today. That is about 7 or 8 days supply for the camp. The Japs have been having difficulty in getting Chinese coolie labour in town and have again taken in squads of men from this camp to shift rice for Stanley and Bowen Road Hospital. They have now asked for squads to load firewood and the various squads of wood cutters are being sent in (if they want to). So I shall probably have a trip to town soon. It will be quite an adventure and a marvellous change of scenery. This Chinese coolie trouble seems to be a sign of the times. I imagine it is not that the Japs cannot get Chinese coolies to do the work but that, directly the coolies get into these rice and firewood godowns there is so much pilfering etc. and perhaps fifth column sabotage that the Japs find it necessary not to employ them. That is what happened here (only the other way round).

We also hear that no more salt fish will be sent into camp because the Japs are having trouble with the Chinese fishing syndicate. This, however, is only rumour and may not be true. The last lot of salt fish came in two days ago. The Japanese started to send us in salt fish when the electricity supply failed and presumably, the refrigeration plants in the Colony ceased to function. At first the stuff simply revolted us. Much of it was salted sprats which, when boiled, disintegrated into a mush of grey pulp and bones and when fried, were so hard and salty that they were almost uneatable. Then someone in St Stephen’s thought of the idea of installing pressure boilers in the kitchens and these have proved a great success. Fish boiled for 10 or 15 minutes at a pressure of about 20 lbs become edible all through – fins, bones, tails and all, and in this way, no doubt we have absorbed some very necessary calcium. Now I know the cause of the all prevailing smell of Chinese coolie quarters! It is salt fish being cooked!

It took some time to get used to it but now most of us have acquired quite a taste for it and I, for one shall be sorry if the supply is stopped. True, we had a piece only about the size of a matchbox every two or three days, but it made a change from the everlasting vegetable stews. Sometimes, when the fish was a little high it had quite a cheesy flavour!

These pressure boilers have proved an economy in the matter of fuel consumption for, in addition to the fish, such foods as peas and beans, which are purchased from time to time for the camp by Zindle, with I.R.C. funds, can be boiled (or steamed) to an edible consistency in a comparatively short time now, and for very much less firewood than before when they needed about 6 hours boiling (beans at any rate). Another advantage that salt fish has is that your food needs no more salt added to it as the fish itself is so salty. There is a great salt shortage in HK now and the situation has been quite acute.

The last time the canteen opened was early in January and since that time, and especially after the heavy bombing, no canteen supplies have been sent into camp at all. The Japanese declare it is because of transport difficulties, but as, on occasion, the camp lorry returns to camp completely empty, except for a few Formosan guards who have had their afternoon leave in town, it is evident that this is not the real cause. The unofficial reason is that the Chinese have shut up their shops as a result of the heavy bombing. They did this during the Japanese attack on HK and those that did open carried only a very small stock of goods, which they sold at greatly enhanced prices. That was in the days when the HK dollar, based on gold, was still in circulation and when the Chinese probably had large stocks in their godowns. Now they are dealing (officially) with the valueless Military Yen and their stocks must be exceedingly low. Consequently, whenever anything happens that makes the re-occupation of HK by British or American forces look imminent, the Chinese naturally wish to be possessed of as little of this entirely worthless money as possible and accordingly shut up shop until things quieten down again.

Fortunately for the Charters, Y and I have always attempted to build up reserves of wong tong, egg yolk, salt etc. and, so far, we have been able to live on our hump; but many people have been quite without these canteen commodities for the last few weeks and have had to subsist merely on Japanese rations of rice, vegetable oil and very little sugar. Now our salt is almost exhausted and nothing can be more tasteless than vegetable stews and rice without salt. At the last canteen we could buy ½ lb of salt (coarse rock salt) for Y2.60, but our supply is now nearly finished. So now we cook our garden vegetables and the ground rice puddings and scones with sea water and we even pour cold sea water onto the camp food! It certainly makes a difference.

The kitchen food is cooked with sea water too, but as, apparently, this sea water upsets some peoples’ tummies, it has to be used sparingly. It has a slightly bitter flavour when cooked with vegetables but we soon became accustomed to that and, I believe, it contains other salts which are good for us. Any way, I hope the canteen goods will come in soon.