70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

What is perhaps the longest period spent under Japanese control of any 'European' civilians comes to an end today.

Missionaries Mildred Dibden and Ruth Little (an Australian with some nursing skills) were amongst the first civilians to encounter Japanese troops as their Fanling Babies Home is close to the border (see December 8, 1941). Through hard work, courage, dedicaton and good luck, they managed to keep the Home going throughout the occupation.

The Japanese were still responsible for the administration of the New Territories after the surrender, and in late August the Home was granted five months supply of rice.

Today two Allied planes salute the Home and soon after a car with a large Union Jack spread over the bonnet pulls up. It contains British officers who have come to escort the exhausted women to the Peninsula Hotel where they will spend the night before boarding the Empress of Australia for repatriation.

Today's South China Morning Post (page 2) gives a comprehensive list of the personnel and working location of the new administration. Franklin Gimson, now the Lieutenant Governor, is on the first floor of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Building (north side), as is the Colonial Secretariat under R. A. C. North. Selwyn-Clarke is heading up Medical Services from the south side of the same building. F. C. Barry of Lane, Crawford  has returned to his post as Rice Controller, but there's a new overall Food Controller - Eric Himsworth - they're based at the Mercantile Bank Buidling. Director of Information is University Vice-Chancellor Duncan Sloss at the Gloucester Building. W. J. Anderson, not long returned from his ordeal in a prison on Canton, is the Stores Controller working at the Hong Kong Cricket Club.

A number of accounts suggest that the ex-internees - including these senior ones - are often marked by mental uncertainty and lassitude. But the full list of 'departments' and offices is impressive and it suggests that the will to work is stil there. Nevertheless, the days of this determined team are coming to an end.

The advance guard of the Civil Affairs Organisation, which is to take over the tasks Gimson's administration, arrives in Hong Kong. It's headed by David MacDougall, a former Hong Kong Cadet, who at the end of the hostilities took part in the dramatic Christmas Day escape led by Admiral Chan Chak. 

Sources:

Dibden: Jill Doggett, The Yip Family of Amah Rock, 1982 ed, 196

McDougall: Nicholas Tarling ed., Studying Singapore's Past, 2012, 186

Note: Doggett gives the date of these events as September 7, and her source is clearly Miss Dibden herself. She also had access to her wartime diary. However, she only mentions one night at the Peninsula and the Empress of Australia didn't sail until September 12 due to delays. It's possible the period the missionaries spent under Japanese control was a little longer still.