70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries
30 Jul 1944, R. E. Jones Wartime diary
Submitted by Admin on Thu, 2014-06-05 10:30Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sun, 30 Jul 1944Fine day. W. wind. Alt.Com. ((Not sure what "Alt.Com." refers to - clouds maybe?))
Ground rice for bread & chopped wood.
News good. Germans evac. Lemberg, Brest, Litovsk, Bialystok & Drinsk & retire in Galicia. US troops making headway. Allies still pushing in Normandy & Italy 27th. Thai Cabinet resigned yesterday. Japs expect attack on Island N. of Japan.
Have developed rotten cold.
Zindel inspected Camp.
30 Jul 1944, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
Submitted by brian edgar on Sat, 2016-05-28 02:18Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sun, 30 Jul 1944Red Cross Delegate Rudolf Zindel visits Stanley. He has discussions with Franklin Gimson, inspects 'various premises' and pays 'Pocket Allowances' to the British and 18 Americans as well as making his usual monthly donation of M.Y.3,000 to the Camp Relief Fund.
This will be the last of his regular monthly visits. From now on he will have to apply to the War Office in Tokyo for permission to inspect the two civilian camps in the same way he's already doing for the POW camps. (See tomorrow's entry).
Source:
General Letter No. 95/44, 16 August 1944 in B G17 07-063, Archives of the International Red Cross (Geneva)
30 Jul 1944, Eric MacNider's wartime diary
Submitted by Admin on Sun, 2016-07-03 12:49Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sun, 30 Jul 1944Brown / Ream
Jenner / Mace
30 Jul 1944, Diary of George Gerrard in Stanley Internment Camp Hong Kong
Submitted by Alison Gerrard on Sun, 2019-06-30 15:36Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sun, 30 Jul 1944I have been very fortunate and lucky this week in receiving loving and glorious letters from you for on Monday 24th July I received your two letters from Montreal when you were on your way home dated 23rd August 1942 and 6th September 1942, both of which were splendid and I am very grateful for them even tho' they were nearly 2 years old. Then on Thursday 27th July I received three more letters from you of more recent dates namely 24th April 1943, 12th July 1943 and 1st August 1943, so five letters in one week is jolly good going and for all your goodness in writing to me every week is bearing fruit and I am reaping the benefits and so Dearest my grateful thanks to you. I am so glad you keep well and that you like your job in Inverness and I trust you will be very happy in it and so help to pass the days until we meet again.
The news continues to be good and our prospects are bright, both in the west and out east. Rumours of course are continuing to be wild but what we receive in the newspaper is good and then we are allowed to receive a Chinese paper which when translated gives us much more information as to what is going on. I give the finishing date about the end of this year, but nevertheless the collapse may come sooner.
Yesterday we received 12.50 Yen being our monthly allowance which owing to the high cost of things will hardly buy us cigarettes that is, four packets a week. This is the first allowance for nearly two months and only half of what we should get.
The weather has now improved being drier and warmer. There is to be a change in administration of the camp the old gang probably having made their pile not only in trading but in doing us out of our legitimate rations which have been fairly foul lately and we therefore hope that the new regime will effect a considerable improvement in everything both food and conditions, we'll see. There is to be a full roll call of the camp tomorrow morning. The new commandant is said to be coming from Sham Shui Po and is named Col Takenada.
30 Jul 1944, John Charter's wartime journal
Submitted by HK Bill on Fri, 2022-01-07 13:19Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sun, 30 Jul 1944Well the typhoon turned up alright on my birthday. It blew up during the night and was going quite hard in the morning, though it had more or less abated by the evening. It was not a severe one as typhoons go, but it played havoc with many of the precious gardens, flattening the sweet corn, blasting the pumpkin creepers and uprooting many plants. Our string beans were blown all of a heap. Fortunately they were nearly finished anyway.
Our pumkins were just coming on marvellously, forming quite a number of female buds which, after fertilisation, would have produced the pumkins. Our pumkin vines had made a slow beginning but they would just have borne fruit nicely by the middle of August which is almost the end of the pumkin season (though there is a minor second season later in Sept and Oct.). But the typhoon blew off half a dozen buds and small fruit – a most serious loss to us. However, four quite big ones remained and a fifth in a sheltered spot managed to survive and is now growing. We cut the first one on the eve of my birthday and it weightd 8 ½ lbs – quite a substantial addition to our larder. Ours are the marrow shaped variety, not the flat round kind. 14 and 18 pounders (and I daresay even more) have been produced in camp, but our first one lasted us 5 days.
We cooked it in different ways: diced it, and with some cooked rice, chopped onion, bean flour and salt, mixed it up, put it into a coffee tin, poured some bean oil over it, put on the lid and had it baked in the bakery; it was delicious. Another way was to use much the same ingredients and fry it in a frying pan (that was when we could not use the bakery and had to manage on the chatty). When we got to the stalk end we cut off thickish discs and fried them in oil. It really has a most delicate and delicious flavour. It will be interesting to try some of these dishes when things have returned to normal again (if we survive) and see if we think them so tasty then, or whether it is because of the poor food we get here that fresh vegetables and our own cooked dishes taste so good by comparison.
We picked the last of our tomatoes in the middle of this month; they lasted marvellously well and saved spreads for our bread. We have had several pounds of sweet potatoes already, though we are keeping them for our standby during August and September when hardly anything else is available from the gardens except summer spinaches.
