70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

The New York correspondent of the Canberra Times publishes a report of an interview with journalist Vaughn Meisling who was repatriated on the Gripsholm.

The first thing he mentions is that Meisling saw Dorothy Jenner ('Andrea') in Stanley. She worked as a secretary to the Commissioner of Police during the fighting and a bomb scored  a direct hit on her building but she was unharmed apart from shock. In Stanley she'd lost weight but looked well.

Meisling had also met Richard Cloake, formerly of Brisbane, who worked for the South China Morning Post. He'd been ill with typhoid before the war but had recovered and could do physical work - he was pushing a wheelbarrow around camp as a 'food distributor'.

Other Australians he saw in Stanley were 'reasonably well' and all were cheerful.

Food was the biggest problem in camp, but the situation had improved since April when 'it was very bad'.

Source:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2584921

We arrived in Fort Wayne on Saturday afternoon ((August 29)) where the family and friends met us. Again the photographers were there but this time they were much more polite and did not fight among themselves and push each other as they had in New York.

To say the least, Fort Wayne ((Indiana)) looked mighty good to us and so did the chicken dinner that we had been talking about for months. Lest you get me wrong, we were also very happy to see all the family there, yet: for, not having heard for 8 months, we were not sure what to expect.

((This is the end of Ella's wartime diary.))