26 - 28 Aug 1942, Ella Buuck's wartime diary

On Wednesday ((August 26)) morning at 9 o’clock the “B’s were told to get off and have their baggage inspected by customs. This took almost two hours but they were very kind. After that we had to go back on the ship and be questioned by the F.B.I. That took fully two more hours. Finally, we had to get a certain card signed yet and then we were free to get off.

By 2 o’clock we walked off the gang plank, had a baggage man take our things out to where we could check them over to the Pennsy R.R. Station and get our few baskets and walk to where they had the mail and where the people were waiting for their husbands and friends. Many an anxious wife was standing there for the second day already and some I know had to wait until late the following day before their loved ones came off. We had messages for some of them and several were friends from Hong Kong who had come all the way from California to meet their husbands.

One lady, Mrs. Burnside, whom we knew well on Cheung Chau ((Island)), practically loved me to pieces when I told her that she could expect her “Mac” any minute. Just about that time Dr. Brandt ((Director of Foreign Missions for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod)) grabbed me and greeted us all most heartily. Rev. Kleps, one of the New York pastors, was there also.

Oh, yes, there were also many newspaper reporters there and we now know what it means to be grabbed by photographers. We were about the first with smaller children to leave the ship, surely they must have been the attraction. Certainly our old tacky looking clothing and worn out luggage was not.

We were put into a taxi and Rev. Kleps went with us to the hotel where they had arranged for our rooms. We had from Wednesday to Friday ((August 26-28)) evening there. We enjoyed going shopping. Our hotel was right in Times Square and all very handy. We saw quite a bit of the city, Wall Street, and other spots.