20 Dec 1941, Sheridan's diary of the hostilities

     On reaching Stanley ((Fort)) we settled down on the verandah of one of the married quarters and slept until dawn. As soon as it is daylight, all hands set to issuing tinned rations, etc. which have been stored in the quarter’s, I drive the lorry accompanied by Hammond and Tuck to the WO’s ((Warrant Officer’s)) quarters which overlook the sea, to fetch some cases of tinned rations. As we have no keys we have to break a window to get in and open the front door, but we later find a window broken at the rear and signs that someone else had been in. As we were carting some cases from an upper bedroom I discovered a body in a cupboard at the top of the stairs. He had slumped down with a rifle between his knees and his brains had been shot out. Whether it was an accident or not we could decide. However, Tuck recognised the man as Professor France of Hong Kong University, a member of the H.K.V.D.C. ((Norman Hoole France was noted for his great love of China and before the war was active in the China Defence League which organised relief and aid for those fighting the Japanese. There is a tribute to him in James Bertram’s The Shadow of a War and he’s one of the dedicatees of Israel Epstein’s The Unfinished Revolution in China.)) We reported the facts at the guardroom and our next trip rolled the body up in a blanket and took it to the guardroom. In the afternoon we get some more lorries and some Indian troops to help to transport stores from the concrete food store at Chung-Am-Kok into Stanley Fort. ((Can anyone confirm the location of this food store?))  I drove a lorry until darkness set in. It was evident that stocks of food were to be built up at Stanley, in case of an attack by the Japs.