26 Aug 1944, John Charter's wartime journal

What a day! King Michael of Romania has ordered his forces to cease fighting against the Russians; the Anglo-American forces have pushed right up the Rhone to within the vicinity of Grenoble (what a stupendous advance!); an American torpedo factory has ceased producing torpedoes as ‘the change in the war situation’ no longer renders their production necessary, and the Russians on the Eastern Front have brought up enormous reserves preparatory to a big offensive against the Germans. The war on the Eastern Front has ‘reached its climax’. The Anglo-American forces have reached the outskirts of Paris.

This morning we heard officially that our IRC parcels are now in Hong Kong and will be delivered as soon as possible. There will be two parcels each for people over 10 and one for children under that age. In addition there are: 14 cases of cream; 10 cases of medicines; 10 cases of foods for children; 7 cases of special infants food; 4 cases orange juice; 4 cases for material for shoe repairs and 3 cases of nurses uniforms. There are 617 cases each containing 8 parcels! We don’t know what is in the parcels; I think these come from Canada this time. We hope we shall see some of the cream and orange juice, but these may be kept for the TB cases. We also hear that home mail has arrived, though this is unofficial and may not be true. Also Zindel can give all internnees a small allowance – our last IRC allowance, which we received at the beginning of June, was MY12.50 each. 12.50 now would buy 1 ½ lb of wong tong or 1 lb dried beans!

Then to crown all we had grouse sent in from the Dairy Farm and tonight we had one bird between two people! It was delicious. Unfortunately, a little of that sort of thing makes you aware of the insipidness of your usual veg stew! But what a day!! Hang the gardens! The war will be over soon!