70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

From today's Daily Mirror:

Pilgrims at grave of nurse who died for patients

NURSES interned in Hong Kong have visited the grave in a monastery garden of their colleague, Miss Irene Brenda Morgan, of Leeds, who was killed in action.

Her name heads the War Office casualty list published today.

Miss Morgan was one of eleven members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service who stayed with their patients when Hong Kong fell,

All swore they would take their own lives rather than be outraged by the Japanese infidels, and all carried loaded revolvers. Brenda Morgan died like a heroine. Shepherding her patients to safety from bombs, she was killed by a shell just outside her Quarters.

Her home is at Wayside, Horsforth, near Leeds.

Last November her only brother, Lieutenant Brian Morgan, R.A., was killed.

Source:

Daily Mirror, January 27, 1943, page 2

Note:

This is an interesting and rather puzzling story. As far as I know, after some doubt as to their civilian status, the military nurses were sent into Stanley in the summer of 1942. I’m not aware of any other cases of internees being allowed out to visit graves even of family members, and I’m not sure how the paper would have found out about it if it had happened. Either the family or the War Office seem to be the source of the story. My guess is that it came originally from an escaper and that the visit took place before the nurses were sent to Stanley.

For other accounts of the death of Brenda Morgan see: http://gwulo.com/node/10235