2 Jan 1942, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

Sergeant Britnell of the R.A.M.C. manages to get to Shaukiwan and bring two stranded British women to the Prince's Building, home to Franklin Gimson and other members of the former Government.

Lois Fearon and Mrs E. H. Tinson were working at the Advanced Dressing Station at the Salesian Mission. The Japanese arrived on the morning of December 19, and they were forced to witness the massacre of the men working there and of some soldiers seeking medical help. After two hours standing in the rain, they were ordered to leave - it seems their age saved them from the fate awaiting the Chinese women. They were sheltered for the night by a Chinese doctor; the next day, they tried to walk into town but lost everything they had on them to armed robbers.

When Sergeant Britnell rescued them, they'd been hiding for several days in a room six feet by six feet in a monastery, sheltered by Chinese nuns.

Attorney-General C. G. Alabaster has the dreadful task of telling Mrs Tinson that her husband had been killed in the battle and her house has been destroyed by mortar fire.

Sources:

Tony Banham, Not the Slightest Chance, 2003, 129

Phyllis Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 1943, 99-100

Note 1: 

About eight Canadians, ten R.A.M.C. men, three St. John's Ambulance men, two wounded Rajput officers and one Volunteer crawling to the station for treatment were murdered at the Salesian Mission on December 19.

Note 2:

Phyllis Harrop's account, based on conversations with Lois Fearon at the time, differs in some details, none of them crucial, from Tony Banham's, based on a conflation of available sources. I've tried to produce a composite account, while assuming Banham's to be more reliable. The details of events on December 19 are largely from him, those of the following period from Harrop.