10 Sep 1943, John Charter's wartime journal
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Well, I am glad to say that the camp rations have come in every day since the last raid in spite of the gasoline shortage – so perhaps I got all hot under the collar about it for nothing. However, the Japanese did issue the warning. There was a story that Hatori came out to see Gimson the next day and assured him that even if it meant that food had to be brought out here (8 miles) by coolie labour he would see that it arrived. He certainly seems to do his best by this camp.
11.30 am. News! Great News! ‘The HK News’ contained as its principal front page item the marvellous news that:
“The Badoglio Government of Italy has surrendered unconditionally to Britain and the United States and that a Fascist National Government has been formed in the North of Italy by Mussolini who is now raising an army that will continue, with the German army to resist the anti-axis invasion.”
The British forces that invaded the Italian mainland on the 3rd have evidently made rapid progress and the German forces left in the South of Italy will be left in a similar position to that of our BEF when the Belgian and French armies collapsed.
