25 Dec 1942, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

The first Christmas in captivity and a year since the surrender - a day of great emotion.

Outdoor carol singing goes ahead (see yesterday's entry). A choir tours the Camp singing close to each block in turn, and also outside the hospital to welcome Janet Carole Sallis, who's born today.

All church services are held outdoors. Catholic mass is celebrated in a large natural grotto between the hospital and the 'American' blocks. There's a small manger  - consisting of an old vegetable basket and a borrowed doll - next to the makeshift altar (a slab of concrete jammed into a natural rock). The familiar scene and the memories of the previous Christmas's fighting move many to tears.

The children get presents:

On the first Christmas in camp the informal welfare committee sent gifts from Hong Kong to all of the children...

Committee chairman Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke also sends Christmas decorations.

Another group sails away to Shanghai. This includes Reuters correspondent Bill O'Neill (G.P. Murphy takes over as head of the Irish Commitee), the Begley family (Australian), the diplomat Sir Arthur Blackburn and his wife - and at least 20 others.

In town prices have been rising rapidly and food is growing scarce. Banker Andrew Leiper reports there's little seasonal spirit in the Sun Wah Hotel: 

In our community there was little heart to celebrate Christmas and the advent of 1943 was marked only by a party given for the half dozen children in the boarding-house. They were each presented with a small packet of home-made toffee, for which we had all contributed a part of our sugar ration.

But Japanese interpreter Kiyoshi Watanabe does his best for the bankers and their families:

I will always remember his visit on Christmas Day, 1942. He joined four of us in singing carols, gave us a solo rendering of 'Holy Night' in Japanese, and contributed to enhancing our meagre diet.

The Hong Kong News publishes a bumper issue to celebrate one year of Japanese rule. But proof is provided that the Chinese population are less than happy to be 'an important part of the Co-prosperity Sphere of Greater East Asia':

Hong Kong might show its appreciation by displaying a more adavnced conception of its political and civic duties, by way of qualifying for graduation as a part of the Japanese Empire'.

Sources:

Carols, choir, services: Mabel Winifred Redwood, It Was Like This, 2001, 148

Birth: China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3

Presents: William Sewell, Strange Harmony, 1948, 124

Decorations: John Stericker, Captive Colony, 1945, Chapter V111, page 9

Shanghai: Tony Banham, We Shall Suffer There, 2009, Kindle, Location 4576

Leiper: Andrew Leiper, A Yen For My Thoughts, 1982, 164

Watanabe at the Sun Wah: H. Hawkins, former Mercantile Bank manager, quoted in Liam Nolan, Small Man Of Nanataki, 1966, 74-75

Hong Kong News: pages 2,13