70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Maudie Minn’s party for us was most enjoyable. When we arrived she greeted us with the news that she had, that afternoon received a post card from Capt. Minn. She was so excited about it. Three lines had been blacked out by the censor and so far we have not been able to decipher it! But judging by the context it referred to the disposition of his allowance from the Japanese, or rather the balance of it after sending some to Maudie and some to Sophie for parcels. He said he had been able to send one Red Cross card per month to Peggy (his daughter) in England for the past 6 months. Now POW are being allowed to send one card per month to wives or relatives in this camp and he was going to send on alternate months to Peg and Maudie.

That reminds me of an exciting event which happened about a fortnight ago. A batch of letters marked ‘Prisoners of War Post’ and unstamped arrived in camp and amongst them was one for Yvonne from her friend Pat Sennett. Y was very thrilled and so was I, though I have never met Pat. The letter took about 6 ½ months to reach us, but it was the first bit of outside news of a personal kind we have received so far, apart from Ivy Lamberts letter earlier on from Shanghai. Pat writes,

“At last we have some news of you, we have only heard that you are with the Governor’s party. We also heard that John is with you. Your father has been relieved, but I do not know if he is coming home or not.” 

Then news of her family, of her transfer to the East Coast in pursuit of her WRNS duties, and news of a pleasant holiday. If they had not heard of our safety till the end of June, it was a long wait for families. But I believe news in other peoples’ letters mentions March as the month in which they had heard.

Marjorie Fortesque heard from her sister at the same time, and her sister said their mother was worrying her MP friends about food and medical supplies etc! These letters had, apparently been limited to two pages and they have all been very non committal, so evidently when they were told they could write to POW in Hong Kong they were given pretty explicit instructions as to what they could and could not say. Why we were “with the Governor’s Party” goodness knows. Unless it was assumed that the Governor was interned with all the civilian prisoners.

Actually we gather that the Governor, after being kept in Kowloon for some time, was sent to Japan and thence exchanged with other diplomats etc. and sent back to England. It will be interesting to verify these surmises or scraps of news later on. ((In fact Sir Mark Young continued to be held captive in Manchuria until the end of the war and returned to Hong Kong as Governor in 1946.)) I am glad they know Y and I are together. The news of Y’s father was interesting, for if he has been recalled to England, as is quite possible, Chère and David may by now have left Australia for England to join him. It would be grand if they were all together. ((In fact Pop had been posted from Port Said, to Freemantle, Australia, in mid 1942, where he was Base Supply Officer, and Chère and David were able to join him from Sydney after a separation of over 2 years. They then were posted back to England in mid 1943 travelling across the Pacific to the United States, then by train across the continent and in a convoy across the Atlantic, arriving back in Plymouth in November 1943.))

I wonder if Mother and Father are still in Ceylon. I wish a letter from one of the family would get through. There must have been scores of letters which have been written but never got through for one reason or another. Quite often people have heard from a friend, but never a word from their family; and the maddening part is that the friend assuming or knowing the family has written, often says, “You will have heard all about your family directly from them so I won’t bother to repeat any of it.”  This happened to Dinnie Dodwell.

Today we have all received 15 Military Yen from the British Government.