70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Shows diary entries from seventy-one years ago, using today's date in Hong Kong as the starting point. To see pages from earlier dates (they go back to 1 Dec 1941), choose the date below and click the 'Apply' button.

  • 31 May 1942, Barbara Anslow's diary

    Submitted by Admin on Sat, 2012-02-04 11:57
    Book / Document: 
    Barbara Anslow's diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Sun, 31 May 1942

    Mum getting stronger day by day.

    Photo in newspaper of tiger caught in Stanley; yesterday there were rumours about tigers being loose and being seen - they must have been true.  There are said to be another, and cubs, and a leopard loose - I think from circus.

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  • 31 May 1942, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

    Submitted by brian edgar on Thu, 2012-02-09 19:28
    Book / Document: 
    Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Sun, 31 May 1942

    Death of Frederick Alfred William Fisher, aged 74.

     

    Tiger fever grows:

    Slept very badly owing to stomach trouble. During the night we were woken by three rapid shots and much shouting.

    Soon the Camp can talk of little else.

    The tales grew bigger and bigger, and so did the tiger.

     

    The Reverend Mackenzie Dow  preaches a fiery sermon at the church service. He claims that Hong Kong fell not just because of military shortcomings but also because of lack of 'moral fibre'. He believed that the Europeans had been living on 'the submerged nine tenths' - the Chinese masses - and had now been brought low so as to repent. A week ago the Reverend Frank Short had denounced ' our insolent national arrogance' and attacked the use of derogatory terms for black and Chinese people.

     

    In town Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, living with his wife and about 80 other bankers and family members at the Sun Wah Hotel, tells the unadorned truth in a letter with today's date that will be posted by an American repatriate to his daughter Elizabeth:

    (W)eight dropped from 200 to 160 lbs. Mary is somewhat thinner. Our cubicle is tiny, we sleep on a single mattress. Had no proper bath since December.

    These words are blacked out by the Japanese censor.

    Source:

    Fisher: Philip Cracknell, http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stanley-military-cemeter...

    Tiger: Diary of George Wright-Nooth, cited in Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 97 and Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 184,  182

    Sermons: Eric MacNider, Papers, 'Sermons'/49/Loan/Repatriation

    Grayburn: David Tett, Captives in Cathay, 2007, 291-2.

    Note:

    John Stericker dates these shots to Saturday, May 30, but I think Wright-Nooth's diary is more likely to be correct, as Stericker telescopes the whole incident into one day.

    John Stericker,  A Tear for the Dragon, 1958, 197

  • 31 May 1942, R. E. Jones Wartime diary

    Submitted by Admin on Mon, 2012-04-23 22:01
    Book / Document: 
    R. E. Jones Wartime diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Sun, 31 May 1942

    Hot, breeze from S.W.

    No news.

    Cemetery wall.

  • 31 May 1942, Eric MacNider's wartime diary

    Submitted by Admin on Fri, 2016-05-20 14:37
    Book / Document: 
    Eric MacNider's wartime diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Sun, 31 May 1942

    (Canteen – Salami sausage ¼ lb. portion $1.70)

    Death of Mr. F.A.W. Fisher. (74).

    Very hot.

    H.K. News published picture of tiger (240 lbs. 3 ft. high, 73 ins. Long, tail 19 ins.).

    M.Dow / Johnstone.

     


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