71 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Late November, 1940: tensions were high as war with Japan seemed inevitable. On December 8th, those fears were confirmed when Japanese planes attacked Kai Tak, and Japanese soldiers crossed the border into the New Territories.

For a day-by-day account, sign up for daily extracts from diaries written at the time. Here are some samples:

• 30 Nov 1941: "Topper says we are as near war now as we have ever been, that Japan with her militarist Govt. can't very well back down now."
   
• 1 Dec 1941: "Government advising further evacuation.  Only hope seems to be that Japs now say they will keep on talks with USA in hope that USA will change viewpoint - that isn't thought likely."
   
• 7 Dec 1941: "There must be something in the wind, G.H.Q. staff are preparing to move into Battle HQ, a huge underground structure just behind the Garrison Sgts. Mess."
   
• 8 Dec 1941: "I started my birthday with a war. Kowloon bombed about 8AM."
   
• 10 Dec 1941: "Sid has been wounded.  Bullet through shoulder.  He told Hospital to phone Mum at the Jockey Club and she went to see him."
   
• 13 Dec 1941: "We hear rumours that the Mainland is being evacuated and that the Royal Scots, Middlesex Regt. and the Indian Regts. are fighting a rearguard action back to Kowloon."
   
• 14 - 15 Dec 1941: "Raids most of daylight hours, and shelling day and night.
  Central Police Station bombed badly in afternoon, several killed.  Felt the concussion even in the tunnel."
   
• 16 Dec 1941: "The 9.2 guns at Stanley and Mount Davis have been firing salvoes all day and all through the night, the noise is deafening. It keeps me awake most of the night so I was up at 4.30a.m. and got quite a bit of paperwork completed working behind a blacked out screen."
   
• 17 Dec 1941: "What a contrast from a week ago. Plenty of signs of bombing and shelling. Damaged buildings, wrecked cars and lorries everywhere. The tramline wires are strewn across the road. Some dead bodies lie about on the roadways and not a living soul in sight."
   
• 19 Dec 1941: "Hammond and Tuck stand guard outside while Kingsford and I and the Naval man enter the house. We find about 15 people wounded, mostly Naval men, some civilians, and two women, one a Chinese shot through the chest, the other a European was dead."
   
• 21 Dec 1941: "The Canadians are fighting a losing battle against the Japs on Stanley Mound, and the neighbouring peaks. The Japs have superiority in numbers."
   
• 23 Dec 1941: "We returned to the Exchange Building where Hammond, Edgar and I were joined by a Russian musician. He decided to take over the driving of the big Bedford van. We set off and ran into a series of shell explosions on the way. It was now obvious that the musician could not drive a wheelbarrow not to mind the Bedford, besides he was also shivering with fright. I tried to take over the wheel but he would not move over, and it was too dangerous to stop. However, we reached the Bakery which was up a very narrow passageway. He jammed the van in it so in the end I had to use the butt of my rifle to make him let go."
   
• 24 Dec 1941: "8.50PM heard the rattle of tanks on Island Rd as they approached the village (Jap). 2 knocked out by anti-tank gun & hell broke loose. Everything opened up on them & the Jap troops with them who were urged on  by peculiar cries from their Commander."
   
• 25 Dec 1941: "While I was sitting on floor beside Sid, Mrs Johnson a friend who was helping the wounded, came over to us and said 'I have bad news for you - we've surrendered.' She was half-crying, and wouldn't look at us."
   
• 26 Dec 1941: "Although capitulation is not so good it feels nice to know that the likelihood of being shot or blown apart is gone."
   
• 8 Jan 1942: "Brushwood on hillsides [south] of Prison set alight today. Heard ammunition exploding."
   
• 9 Jan 1942: Captain Tanaka, at the time Japanese head of communications, gives permission to Thomas Edgar and other bakers to start making bread for the hospitals. They open the Chinese-owned Green Dragon (Ching Loong) Bakery in Wanchai. They are also allowed to bake for the Allied civilians in the hotels and later at Stanley. Barbara Anslow's diary establishes that the bread - one slice for each internee - began to arrive on January 12.
   
• 19 Jan 1942: "Fire opposite us in the night - very near thing.  There were just sooty sparks at first, but later the fire really got going.  All the gongs in the neighbourhood were beating as alarms, several huge tongues of fire blew over in our direction."
   
• 21 Jan 1942: "In morning, we were given a quarter of an hour to pack and get out of the hotel, then marched down Des Voeux Road. Then boarded top-heavy Macau steamer and set out for Stanley.  It could have been lovely - such a beautiful day. Our boat too big to go right up to the jetty at Stanley, so we had to clamber over the side of the ferry on to the side of the junk - then jump into the body of the junk.  Poor Mrs Grant who weighed over 15 stone, cried from the side of the ferry that she just couldn't make the transfer, but somehow she did."

This is the second year we've run this project. Here are comments from some of the readers who subscribed last year:

• Barbara Anslow, UK: "I read '70 years ago' every day.  It always pleases me when Mr Jones' diary reports the same event as mine!" (Barbara Anslow was 23 years old in 1941. We quote extensively from her diary, especially during the years in Stanley internment camp.)
   
• Bill Lake, Hong Kong: "I read it every day, to know what they went through, for the personal connection, and to check my facts." (Bill is a military historian, covering the period 1941-1945.)
   
• David Kohl: "I look forward to the daily entries, and find it's fairly easy to follow each story. I initially was interested in the Americans who were repatriated, but having lived near Stanley for 7 years in the 1980's, it's all interesting. I also like the occasional reference to what was going on it the rest of the world." (David is currently finishing a book, part of which refers to Stanley internment camp.)
   
• Don Ady, New Jersey: "I always read it. The daily format means I pick things up I missed in a more read-it-all-the-way-through-at-once.  Also, I missed some sources altogether in the originals. It is educational, whether you were in Stanley or not.  If you were in Stanley, then it is a perception from someone else's eyes." (Don was 10-years old in 1941. He was interned in Stanley Camp, then repatriated with other Americans in 1942.)
   
• Gary Liddell, Australia: "Having grown up in Hong Kong in the fifties & sixties I had many friends whose families had endured internment but it was never openly talked about. The format (daily) is excelent & is always looked forward to. I have revisited hongkong twice in the last two years and spend most of my hiking around the old battlefields as well as spending time at Stanley & Sai Wan cemeteries so in the absence of being there your diaries & Tony Banham's monthly write ups give some connection."
   
• JPF, London: "I read the '70 years ago' with my other e-mails every day. I'm interested as my aunt was in Stanley Camp and Barbara's female point of view helps me to imagine what she was going through as far as daily life and the nitty gritty of eating, sleeping and keeping clean etc. was concerned. Meeting Barbara and hearing first hand accounts of my aunt has made it more vivid. I've already read Barbara's full diary, but the daily account makes it more immediate. There is so much I have already forgotten. Fascinating to read it alongside Jones's diary which is so much more terse and more focused on the political angle and how the war was going in the wider world."
   
• Lee Hunter: "Is it really a whole year since this started? I read the diary mails every day. I find the small day to day details fascinating, food, entertainments, treats, camp politics, everything! We are so very lucky that Barbara in particular has given us such an amazing and vivid record of life in Stanley. I like the ‘once a day’ format, I really look forward to each day's trip into the past."