70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Shows diary entries from seventy-one years ago, using today's date in Hong Kong as the starting point. To see pages from earlier dates (they go back to 1 Dec 1941), choose the date below and click the 'Apply' button.

  • 20 Apr 1945, Barbara Anslow's diary

    Submitted by Barbara Anslow on Fri, 2012-05-11 16:10
    Book / Document: 
    Barbara Anslow's diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Fri, 20 Apr 1945

    Terrific wind and storm in night. Thunder like Nimitz ((Admiral, whom we were always expecting to relieve us))

    Much groaning of lorries, presumably bound for the Fort, in night.

    We all had stew seconds. Had lovely sweet tart and ground rice in afternoon.

    Bridge in evening with Marie, Alec and Gladys.

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  • 20 Apr 1945, R. E. Jones Wartime diary

    Submitted by Admin on Fri, 2015-04-03 11:49
    Book / Document: 
    R. E. Jones Wartime diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Fri, 20 Apr 1945

    Sudden squall, rain & drop in temp. early am. Improved pm.

    Staples in A4 store door.

    16mls from Berlin.

    16th.

    Workers oil & sugar issued.

  • 20 Apr 1945, Harry Ching's wartime diary

    Submitted by Admin on Sat, 2015-05-16 15:34
    Book / Document: 
    Harry Ching's wartime diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Fri, 20 Apr 1945

    ((Following text not dated:))

    Latter half of month almost nightly alerts, but nix. Kept us awake.

  • 20 Apr 1945, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

    Submitted by brian edgar on Thu, 2016-09-22 15:54
    Book / Document: 
    Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Fri, 20 Apr 1945

    In the afternoon Franklin Gimson meets the interpreter who's taking over from Kiyoshi Watanabe. He's impressed. Kochi has a better knowledge of English than his predecessor and seems 'quite a cheery, pleasant fellow'. He believes that the Japanese are generally trying to strengthen the staff at the Camp. John Stericker also notes Kochi's arrival, saying he's replaced 'our nice but ineffectual Mr Watanabe'.

    Sources:

    Gimson: Diary, Weston Library, Oxford, p. 139 (recto)

    Stericker: Captive Colony, Chapter 13, p. 16

    Note:

    A source from the immediate post-war period states that Watanabe had a good command of English but spoke it slowly - he was recommended for employment as an interpreter for the British in any form of work except judicial proceedings.

    His dismissal was not connected with a Japanese desire to provide the camp with a better translator - this was almost certainly the time when Watanabe was summoned by Colonel Tokunaga - the head of all Hong Kong's camps - to be abused, threatened and stripped of his office for the humanitarian assistance he was giving to the prisoners. Lucky to escape with his life and freedom, he returned to Stanley where he was 'thumped and hit and spat on' by the other Japanese who regarded him (wrongly) as a traitor. He seems to have spent the next period  in a state of confusion, ended by the eventual offer of a new job from a Japanese official in the last week or so of the war (See Liam Nolan, Small Man of Nanataki, 1966, 137 ff.)


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