70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Les Fisher in Shamshsuipo:

We are all feeling weak and 'gutsless' (sic). I cannot even show any interest in the fact that Labour has got in at the election and by an overwhelming majority. It would seem that something has taken place about which we know nothing, beats me. When the belly is empty concentration is not possible.

According to Royal Scots officer Drummond Hunter (who was sympathetic to the new government), the results were a major topic of conversation in Shamshuipo for a number of days, with even politically aware people like him unfamiliar with some of the new ministers.

Sources:

Fisher: Les Fisher, I Will Remember, 1998, 219-220

Hunter:  http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80018267 (Reel 9)

Note:

Barbara Anslow's diary for August 1 records knowledge of Labour's election victory circulating in Stanley 'these days'. R. E. Jones' diary notes 'Attlee Premier' on July 29.

Most British constituencies polled on July 5, but the results weren't declared until July 26 because so many of the voters were servicemen still overseas. So this news travelled into the camps quickly, perhaps through Chinese papers, as the Hong Kong News was no longer being sent in.

Jean Mather, in a semi-fictionalised source, claims that the news came to Stanley from the Japanese headquarters:

Towards the end of July came the stark and numbing notice from Up-The-Hill. It read, in effect, that the British people had turned their backs on their brilliant leader. Churchill had lost the election. He was OUT. There was an addition to the notice issued, which read 'that this was the greatest error amongst the many that the British people had made and would surely lead to the Allies being vanquished.'

Our committee knew the truth of this. The rest of us refused to accept it, believing it was just another piece of vile propaganda to drown our morale.

Twisting the Tail of the Dragon, 1994, 259-260