20 Apr 1942, John Charter's wartime journal

My diary is getting behind hand and I must catch up. Many things seem to have happened since my last entry. Firstly the war news seems very depressing: Penang, Rangoon, The Dutch East Indies, most of the Philippines (including Luzon and Wake Islands) and apparently New Guinea and Borneo have fallen to the Japanese. The northern part of Australia – Port Darwin – has been bombed and so also have Colombo and Trincomale harbours in Ceylon.

There is one encouraging thing about the news which one gathers from the Japanese sponsored ‘Hong Kong News’ and that is the complete lack of and reference to the war in Europe. This must mean that the course of events there is shaping well for the allies and that the Russians must be continuing to push the Germans back, for were this not so – or even if the Germans had merely halted the Russian counter offensive – I am sure headline news would be made of it in the local paper.

From time to time new people arrive here for internment – people who have been left in Hong Kong to carry on some necessary work for the Japanese until they could be replaced - and apparently, the Japanese have made no restrictions on the use of short-wave receiving sets outside the internment camps. Consequently these people are able to obtain BBC and San Francisco news and they confirm that things are going fairly well for the Allies in Europe. From a report in the local paper that the Japanese navy had attacked an American troop transport convoy off Australia it also appears that America is sending reinforcements to Australia. This too is good news! But it all seems to point to a long internment here. What a depressing thought!

It is now just on four months since the surrender of Hong Kong but it seems as though we have been here ages, huddled on top of each other like sheep, with inadequate food, with our few clothes and shoes wearing out and with no indication of how much longer it is to last or what is to become of us. It seems that the whole war has now reached a very crucial stage and the next four or six months will decide the issue one way or the other – and here we are, unable to do anything, unable even to get any really authentic news of what is happening. I have suffered moods of depression here that I have never before experienced in my life and I hope I never shall again.