70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Last day of another month thank goodness. February has been a good month as far as the weather goes – bright and sunny and invigorating. Today the clouds gathered and we have had a drizzling rain. Usually the fine weather  breaks up somewhere in the middle of February and the monsoon begins to change, bringing with it the awful damp weather; so we have been given two weeks extra fine weather which is something to be thankful for.

We were saddened yesterday by the very sad news that Anne Muir received by cable, via the IRC to say that her only brother had been killed, aged 22, in an accident in England or Scotland. Poor Anne, we do feel most awfully sorry for her. She had lost her father sometime ago and now, during this war, she has lost her husband and brother. She has only her mother left now and is longing to get out of this place and back to her. She certainly has had more than her fair share of bad luck. She is very plucky about it all. One feels so helpless, in these circumstances, to do anything that may help at all.

There has been talk again, and recently, of the Canadians here being repatriated. A ship is supposed to be on the way once more, and this morning numerous people of Canadian nationality, or with Canadian connections and families, have been asked to report at the C.S.O. and give particulars. I gather they have been divided into groups A, B, C, D, and E, though what the differentiation is between the groups, I do not know. I thought of Aunt Bess and Christine, (John’s aunt and first cousin in Canada) but find I haven’t their address, and in any case I couldn’t put their names forward as guarantors. We also hear that a second ship is on the way to take the British women and children and the Norwegians. Whether this is another camp rumour or not, I do not know. There certainly has been a mention of late, in the Japanese paper, of repatriation discussions in progress between Britain and Japan. Anthony Eden is reported to have stated that the internees in Hong Kong are healthy and are being well looked after. This at least will assure our friends at home. I hope, however, it won’t mean we shall be left here indefinitely!

Last Monday (Feb 22nd), 54 Norwegians were interned here. When we first heard they were coming we were quite excited, as we imagined it must mean the Germans had withdrawn from Norway and that the British and American troops must have occupied that country. However, when they arrived we found the reason for their internment had been that two Norwegian HK Volunteers had escaped from Sham Shui Po Camp. Also, a little while before, three Danes (who had been allowed a fair amount of freedom in HK) had been out for a walk in the New Territories and had been spirited away by the guerillas or Chungking agents to Free China! The Japanese stated that it was for their own good that they are being interned. They certainly looked pale and strained compared with the people in camp.

They say that life in town is an awful strain and many people have fallen ill. They had to queue for their issues of rice and flour etc. and were living a very hand to mouth existence. In fact, apart from losing all vestige of freedom by coming in here, they are probably better off now than in town.

They say the news of the Russian front is simply marvellous and this confirms other scraps of news that have found their way into camp recently. About a week ago the Japanese printed in their paper the report of an amazing speech by Goebbles, the German Propaganda  Minister, which seemed to  amount virtually to an appeal to all European states to combine together to stem the advancing tide of Communism which threatens to engulf Europe. The Norwegians said that this report of the speech had been considerably boiled down and that the full speech, a translation of which had been broadcast at midnight on the short wave length from London, had shown it to be nothing more than a cry for help. They seem to think that Germany will crash before next winter. Pray Heaven that this may be so. But generally the war news seems to be very good for us.

To finish the story about the Norwegians; accommodation had to be made for them in the bottom floor of the Dutch block. Up till their arrival this bottom floor had been occupied by about 55 British, while some 56 Dutch occupied the two similar upper floors. When the order came through we of course, said, “Too easy. Squash the Dutch onto one floor and give the 54 Norwegians the other floor!” Nothing doing! The 50 odd British had to be squeezed some how into the other already overcrowded blocks.

There was an article in the paper yesterday which sounded a grave note about the food situation in HK. It stated that HK Territory was greatly over populated as a result of the chaotic policy of the incompetent British Govt, which allowed uncontrolled infiltration of all classes of people from China to the territories of Hong Kong. Of course they omitted to say that this infiltration was caused by the pillage and destruction by the Japanese army just beyond these borders.They have decided to embark upon a further scheme to transport numbers of Chinese over the border and settle them on the land. Poor things; I hope they will have a fair chance. I hope similar scenes to those we witnessed last year in the junks off the Prep School pier will not be re-enacted. Three lorries full of prisoners arrived at the gaol two days ago – I trust this is not a prelude. The Japs issued an order that everyone in HK must be vaccinated before the end of February; we were all done last week. Now we hear everyone has to be inoculated against Cholera.

The Japs have notified the BCC that from March 1st our flour ration will be halved and our rice ration increased by half! So now each person will get 12 oz rice per day and 3 ½ oz of flour. Alas! If it was only the other way round. We have more rice than we can eat already. On Saturday we were given our last full ration of IRC tinned meat – 6 tins each for March. During April we will get three tins each and that is all. The sugar, at 2 lbs each per month, will last until the end of June, I think. The Japanese have stated that the stocks of flour in HK are now exhausted and it is impossible to obtain further supplies. So altogether things don’t look too bright at present. No wonder there is all this talk of repatriation.