23 Jul 1944, Diary of George Gerrard in Stanley Internment Camp Hong Kong

On Thursday 13th July I received two Red Cross 25 word letters from you dated 8th December '43 and 23rd December '43, so that brings us much closer in the matter of time than we have ever been. Then on Thursday 18th July I received your letter 8th June '43 and for all these glorious and loving letters Dear I am most grateful. Tho' the receiving of these letters has been most irregular. I feel so bucked to know that you have written to me faithfully every week, what I feel tho' is most unfair that I have received so many from you and you have received none from me, but I still hope that someday I will have news from you of receipt of some of mine, tho' latterly we have only been allowed to send one 25 word postcard per month. I wrote this months one to you on the 12th inst.

Things are stirring up all over in fact the post is nearly boiling with all the good news and the latest one of the resignation of the Tojo Cabinet is just great and shows a how state of affairs in Japan is. The military and navy are at last being found out, they must have taken a terrific knock at Saipan, Not arf. We are now all full of hope and conjecture as to what is going to happen next. Is Nimitz coming to Hong Kong next or going to make a landing somewhere in China or is Japan going to cave in and try and save something from the wreck. The Russians are moving so fast that the European affair should be all over this year as promised by Churchill. 

We had a typhoon in the early hours of yesterday Saturday morning and tho' quite severe we managed to weather the storm quite well in our poor conditions. I mean living conditions.

Then on Thursday and Friday we have been in quarantine that is in our blocks 8 and 9 due to the death of H.C. MacNamara whom the Japs say died of typhoid and we all therefore had to have T.A.B. injections which fortunately didn't upset me at all. We have had a lot of deaths lately from typhus, typhoid, cerebro-malaria etc. All due on the whole to malnutrition, the death of some people being very low due to the want of beef and other fats. There is no use in flogging a dead horse, but really the rations are deplorable.

I managed to get 40 Yen a few days ago from C.C.Roberts in lieu of a share in a cheque, the amount I took being £10. It is still marvellous how money can be got, of course there are still people in this camp who have plenty of Yen in their possession due to selling and trading with the guards, that is selling watches, gold and jewellery so that a good solid cheque is worth more than Yen to them who have too much. Also these people with plenty do well and don't suffer from the want of things like others, plenty of money can work wonders. I don't grumble tho' as I keep very fit and on the whole haven't done badly.