70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries
31 Oct 1942, Barbara Anslow's diary
Submitted by Barbara Anslow on Sun, 2012-03-04 11:57Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sat, 31 Oct 1942Mabel still has to stay in ((hospital)) quite a time. She is to get about 2 or 3 Yen from VADs.
Mr Thomas Nicolas died this morning ((Ship's Officer)).
Mrs Mitchell had a baby daughter this afternoon - Rosemary. ((The first true Stanley baby, her parents were married at the very start of the camp. Rosemary came to see me in 2010 - we had a wonderful chat. Her father Alec Mitchell was Prison Staff pre-war; after the war the family had a flat in the Married Quarters in Stanley!))
I typed story all afternoon ((on backs of old Hospital returns)).
((NB. After the war was over, we learned that Sid and Arthur indeed had been on the 'Lisbon Maru' when it was torpedoed and sunk. Both were rescued and ended up as pows in Japan and survived the war. Topper was not on the L. Maru, but was taken on a later ship to Japan, where he died.))31 Oct 1942, R. E. Jones Wartime diary
Submitted by Admin on Mon, 2012-10-01 12:05Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sat, 31 Oct 1942Fighting at Tai po.
31 Oct 1942, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
Submitted by brian edgar on Fri, 2012-10-12 16:00Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sat, 31 Oct 1942Birth of Rosemary Virginia Mitchell. She's the first baby to be conceived as well as born in Stanley Camp, and her parents were probably the first couple to marry there.
The death from TB of ship's officer Thomas Abedneger (or Abednego) Nicholas, aged 48. He was held at the Kowloon Hotel before being sent to Stanley.
Source:
Birth: China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3
Death: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 2011, 186; Philip Cracknell at http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stanley-military-cemeter...
31 Oct 1942, Eric MacNider's wartime diary
Submitted by Old Man on Wed, 2014-10-29 21:14Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sat, 31 Oct 1942Death of Mr. T.A. Nicolas (53).
To Mr & Mrs A.M. Mitchell, a daughter (Rosemary Virginia)31 Oct 1942, John Charter's wartime journal
Submitted by HK Bill on Sat, 2021-04-24 11:45Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Sat, 31 Oct 1942The last day of another month - and I have a feeling that we may not be here for so very much longer! The last week has been an exciting one: on the night of Monday 26th at about 1:30 a.m. and by the light of a brilliant full moon there was another raid. Our room slept through it but other people heard it and on looking out saw the flashes of guns beyond the Mount Parker range of hills and saw tracer shells and saw the shells bursting. Next morning the Japanese sent in a notice to Gimson to say that no internee must be seen looking at the sky!!! Did we laugh!! Also, no paper was allowed in that day, so there was no doubt about the veracity of the raids. On the following day there was a great deal of aerial activity but it consisted of Japanese patrols only - as far as we could make out.
On Wednesday morning at about 11:00 a.m. I was in the workshop where I had been making an ash tray for Christine Corra's 21st birthday. There was a considerable amount of noise, hammering etc. as there usually is, but above it, or rather through it, I thought I felt rather than heard a thud. I went to the door and outside, I heard the drone of aeroplanes.
Mr Sharp was standing by and I said, “Are those aeroplanes I hear?”
“Oh yes, “he replied, “They’ve been about all morning”.
“I thought I heard a few thuds just now”, I said.
“So did I”, said he, “But it’s very easy to imagine that, I find”.
“That’s true”, I agreed.
But at that moment there was an increase in the roar of planes and then the sharp cracks of bursting shells. I rushed round the block and there, over the Mount Parker range I saw a cluster of puffs of smoke in the sky and some four or five planes buzzing about. Presently one of them went into a steep dive, its engines roaring and it disappeared behind the crest of the hill; then another dived and another. More puffs of smoke from AA shells; thuds of bursting bombs; the sudden rattle of machine gun fire from the air - there must have been a Japanese fighter up too. The planes seemed to dive with great speed. Then presently two planes appeared above the hill crest, climbing steeply and twisting about so much in their climb that I thought they must have been hit. But they were twisting to make it difficult for the AA guns. They climbed and made off in a N.E. direction.
It was all most exciting. Everyone was out (gazing at the sky I regret to say) including the rice boilers and when one of the kitchen orderlies came running out to say, “More rice,” for the food queue, as lunch was being served, no one paid him the slightest attention! There was a great deal of gossip and speculation during the rest of the day as can be imagined.
