14 Dec 1941, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

The assorted group we've been following around Kowloon are still in the Hing Wah.

It's Gaudete ('rejoice') Sunday, and Father Gallagher preaches a sermon on that theme to his fellow prisoners: 'Rejoice Always!' That's not easy:

The first four days we had nothing to eat, and made a broth out of gold fish, and gold fish water, that the children in the school had left behind them.

Nevertheless, Dr. Newton reports a little food being provided yesterday and in today's diary entry records visits from two Japanese doctors, one of whom brings 'two large tins of army biscuits and two large kettles of boiled water'. He summarises his experiences of the Japanese so far:

Except for the actual rounding-up stage at Kowloon Hospital they've been very polite and pleasant to us.

Japanese shelling of the island begins at daylight and continues late into the night:

And all over Victoria the terrified citizens crouched in corners, waiting for a lull which would enable them to run to a Governmment shelter.

George Wright-Nooth offers a good general description of the experience of the next few days:

Being bombed, shelled or mortared is an extremely frightening experience. You have absolutely no control over the situation. Nothing seems to offer adequate protection; the awful explosions, the unbelievable noise, the violent shock waves and the sickening apprehension as to where the next one will land, can combine to produce terror and inertia in all but the most courageous individuals. A part of the possible solution lies in activity, preferably physical.

Nurse Brenda Morgan is killed by a shell in or close to her station at Rosary Hill. ((See note below.))

Twins Aileen and Doris Woods and their sister Mrs. Winfield are billeted at the house of Sir Vandeleur and Lady Mary Grayburn. The electricity fails so they can't listen to the world news. The strain is getting on their nerves and there are frequent quarrels in the house. In between air raids they look down on the city. They see huge fires at North Point. Food is running short.

Another air raid starts and they run to take shelter in the pantry, where they sit for hours repeating the 91st Psalm.

When the shelling stops, they emerge and inspect the effects: the front of the house has been damaged and the Grayburns' private sitting-room is in ruins.

Sources:

Gaudete: Thomas F. Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire In The Siege of Hong Kong, 1944, 81

Gold fish broth: R. B. Levkovich, Statement, page 5 (from the Ride papers, kindly provided by Elizabeth Ride)

Newton: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 51, 63

Japanese shelling: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 58-59

Wright-Nooth: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner Of The Turnip Heads, 1994, 55

Woods: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 136

Morgan: Susanna Hoe, The Private Life of Old Hong Kong, 1991, 276 and Oliver Lindsay and John Harris, The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945, 2005,

Note: Brenda Morgan

Susannah Hoe states that she was a Canadian military nurse killed by shelling. According to John Harris she was from Nottingham and was killed by bombing. Harris also says that her fiancee, his flatmate Micky Holliday, a sapper, became 'unhinged' as a result and five days later went charging to his death along Wong Nei Chong Road, brandishing a revolver and in the company of several other Sappers.

See also http://gwulo.com/node/13997

This source seems to establish she was in fact from Leeds, and gives a more detailed account of how she died.

See also Chronology, January 13, 1942.