70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Edward Reading dies at the age of 61 from angina.

Reginald Camidge and Andrew Leiper are arrested.

They are accused of burning banknotes to keep them out of Japanese hands during the hostilities and of keeping a secret set of accounts during the period - most of 1942 and until summer 1943 - they were kept out of Stanley to help in the liquidation of their bank. Both charges are true. Fellow banker William Cruickshank is  already in custody, probably on the same charges, Camidge and Cruickshank had been arrested and released in November 1943 but nothing is as yet known as to the charges at that time.

When he learns of the arrests, Franklin Gimson is worried they're the start of 'a new era of uncertainty'. John Stericker noted in March 1945 that not even the wives of Camidge and Cruickshank had been told the length of their sentences, 'much less the reason' for them.

Source:

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

March 1945: John Stericker, Captive Colony, Chapter X, p. 5.

Note:

Andrew Leiper's book A Yen For My Thoughts (1983) gives a vivid account of his experiences in Stanley Prison and later in Canton. However, partly to spare the feelings of those related to his colleagues and partly because of memory failures after over 35 years the details of the arrests are unclear. He leaves out the 1943 arreests, for example, so is completely taken by surprise by Cruickshank's arrest in early 1944. 

The Stanley Camp Log (Imperial War Museum) dates Camidge's arrest today but gives no date for Leiper's but Franklin Gimson's diary entry for today confirms he too was arrested.

For more information see here.