24 Jul 1944, John Charter's wartime journal

Still good news coming in. The attempted assasination of Hitler by a hand grenade (a persistent rumour is going round that he really has been killed but I think that is wishful thinking - however it all seems a bit fishy); the Americans have now landed 2 divisions on Guam; in the North the Russians are N.W. of Grodno – they must be very close to the East Prussian frontier; the Anglo–American forces have taken St Lo. Altogether things are going pretty well.

I had a very enjoyable birthday. Y gave me a very smart, short sleeved, navy-blue tunic shirt which she had made from a pair of summer slacks – her only pair. I was thrilled with it because my other shirts are nearly all worn out and I felt such a scare-crow, though most other men are in the same plight. Maudie and Vera and Phil each gave me one of their precious packets of cigarettes, although “no presents” is the order of the day. The rest of our room gave me some home made biscuits and three brinjals from their garden which was awfully kind of them.

On the morning of my birthday, Isa brought the news that there were two parcels for us! It was nice that the weekly parcels arrived on my birthday. Usually their arrival does not interest us at all, except to hear what Sophie O’Dell has sent Maudie – Maudie has been wonderfully fortunate in this way, for Sophie has never once missed a possible parcel delivery since they started right at the beginning of camp. I am glad of this because Maudie does not eat much of the camp food and parcels keep her going.

Of course one of our parcels came from Yvonne Ho (who after the war married Eric Cummine of Eric Cummine and Associates, a well known Hong Kong architectural firm). She really has been marvellous, never missing the special occasions – Christmas, Easter and our birthdays. This was a wonderful parcel, a joint birthday present for us both. It contained a 2 lb tin of syrup, 1 lb of soya bean flower, ½ lb of pork fat and a lb of potatoes. Syrup and pork fat are almost unheard of luxuries in camp these days. We heard that somone the other day sold a 2 lb tin of syrup for Y135, £8 -10-0 ! At the local rate of exchange, Y1 = $4 it would be £34 (pdv £1530). We are wondering if we really ought to eat £8-10-00 worth of syrup (which has comparatively little food value) or whether we ought to try and sell it and buy egg powder or soya bean flour which have high protein values or even wong tong, for we should be able to buy about 20 lbs of wong tong (sugar residue) as that commodity costs only 8/- per lb at present! At all events we shall eat the pork fat as that is so good for us.

The other parcel was from R.E. Devaux and contained some more of our own clothes. It really is amazing what a thrill one gets at receiving one’s old clothes in this place. Y had two dresses which she was very fond of, a white linen jacket and a bright blue skirt of which, the last article does not belong to her. My portion consisted of another tropical suit (somewhat ancient) and a white shark-skin dinner jacket of mine! We wonder how Devaux managed to hit our birthday dates, and guess that Yvonne Ho must have told him. We gather that Devaux does not like having Japanese attention drawn to him in the matter of sending parcels here, so we shall have to write a non committal card of thanks if we write at all. Even to Yvonne we write carefully and guardedly.

Dear old Bunny Browne (John’s best man) has now on three occasions sent us Y5. Officers in Argyle Street Camp (and the men in Sham Shui Po too if they have the money) are allowed to send money to people in this camp once a month to the value of Y25. Just at Easter time Bunny sent us his first present, then a similar one the next month and a third on the next month but one. It really is most kind of him and we appreciate it a lot for, if conditions in their camps are anything like ours, they can do with all the extra food they are able to buy, and so it is most kind of him to spare us this from his lieutenant’s pay.