6 Sep 1945, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
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Russell Clark writes:
By September 6 things {in town} were settling down... {back on the Prince Robert} They were hotly debating the Stanley internees.
It seems that the internees have made a bad impression on some of those who came in with Harcourt's fleet:
'(I)t strikes me they're squandering too much of their own sympathy on themselves.'..
'Some of those bloody internees...are screaming their spoiled heads off - when are they going home; why isn't the Red Cross doing more for them; surely the food could be better; when are they going to be allowed to leave Stanley; how they've suffered; how they're still suffering. Frankly I think a lot of them need a good kick on the stern.'
Another correspondent, Reg Harris, tells Australian readers of the quick action of Dr. Newton, who heard that the Japanese were destroying and looting medical equipment and data from Kowloon Hospital. He alerted three officers, who gathered together a squad of ten Indian soldiers who were still in a Japanese internment camp, and took them straight to the Hospital. They found the operating theatre in appalling condition - 'dry blood staining the floor, which was quarter of an inch thick in dirt and slime'. Fourteen armed Japanese were eventually forced to leave with only their personal belongings.
Sources:
Russell S. Clark, An End To Tears, 1946, 76-78
The (Melbourne) Argus, September 6, 1945, page 3
