70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Edward Reed escapes from arrest - he's accused of stealing 300 lbs of sugar from the godown ration store to sell on the black market - and creates a furore in camp that lasts until tomorrow.

While he's being beaten by Formosan guards - his screams can be heard throughout the camp - it begins to rain, the guards go inside and Reed siezes his chance and runs off in the direction of Bungalow C. Leon Blumenthal finds him hiding nearby and tells him to give himself up; while he goes to alert the guards, Reed runs again. The entire camp has to parade for an emergency roll call which lasts for 90 minutes. Reed is eventually found in No 10 Block, sheltering with his mother and younger brother.

Reed is taken to Japanese headquarters ('up the hill'), brutally questioned about the sugar, but manages to escape again at about midnight. The camp is searched again but it's several hours before Reed is found 'crouching in a garden close to the prison walls'. He's questioned again, this time by the Gendarmes in Stanley Village. He survives and ends up in hospital. The full truth about the sugar theft, which almost certainly involved some of the guards, is never known. Wright-Nooth sums up:

Reed was a young man of astonishing physical stamina.

Source:

George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 235

Note:

Reed or Manwaring - see http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/stanley_camp/conversations/topics/1318))