29 Jul 1945, Diary of George Gerrard in Stanley Internment Camp Hong Kong

This has been an exciting week. On Wednesday 25th at noon a large plane passed over St Stephens and dropped a large parcel of bombs or depth charges or what have you. I heard the plane and rushed out to the veranda but on looking up to see I was blinded by the sun and then suddenly there was a terrific Swish as if bombs were falling, actually one went through' the roof of Block 8 and landed on Henderson, Keen and Goodwins room but didn't go off. Another on the road which slid under the --- and 2 went through' the roof of Bungalow A and some landed over onto the bank but strangely enough not one exploded, altho' there were a few causalities though none very serious. May Call, girl Woods and Ewan Houston were the worst. ((Probably Rev. Myhill, Leilah Wood, and Mavis Hamson, based on other reports of the incident.))

We were then ordered out of the buildings and told to go to block 10 where we spent the afternoon. Poor homeless victims but W Fyffe and I went to Dow Houston and so were made welcome with plenty of tea. Then we had a chow on the Tennis court with borrowed utensils and later we were allowed to go back to our own block (9) but the people in Block 8 had to park themselves all over the place. We took Waters and Mitchelson into our room. It is all a mystery as to whose plane it was and why out of about a dozen bombs not one exploded otherwise the casualty list would have been tremendous. The conjecture is that the plane was in difficulties and jettisoned his cargo so that they accidentally fell out of the bomb rack.