Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp: View pages

Matron E. M. B. Dyson sends a letter home:

Dearest Mother,

Glad to tell you that all members of the unit are fit and fairly well, but in excellent spirits, facing this life with cheerful courage, making full use of this enforced holiday by language courses, lectures, commercial and art classes, camp fatigues, all types of housework from laundry to kitchen, walking, the more robust swim, but games definitely too strenuous nowadays....Weight now nine and a half stones...

Uninterned American writer Emily Hahn and Yvonne Ho are dining with General Suginamini. The General assures them that the Americans are in no position to bomb Hong Kong - they have plenty of planes in Chungking, but not enough petrol.

Sources:

Dyson: Nicola Tyrer, Sisters In Arms, 2008, 66

Hahn: Emily Hahn, China To Me, 1986 ed., 412

Leading Hong Kong surgeon and Nationalist Li Shu-fan begins his escape.  Because of his prominence he was courted by the Japanese and then watched carefully because of his steadfast refusal to co-operate with them. His departure follows a long campaign to convince the authorities that he's given up politics for a life of pleasure so that they'll relax their vigilance and allow him to prepare for and execute his escape.

Dr. Li had sent help to John Fraser and other interned  friends until it became too dangerous to do so. But he continued to take an interest in Stanley:

I used to go down to Stanley Beach, a few hundred yards from the camp, to observe what I could of the inmates. They kept the place orderly, and conducted themselves well. In course of time I noticed that their outdoor games slackened off, no doubt from loss of energy through lack of food.

Sources:

Escape: Li Shu-fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, 1964, 165-180; Stanley conditions: 144

Former Prison Officer Leon Blumenthal claims that some sweet potatoes are stolen from his 'garden' outside Bungalow 'C'.

The three accused are all teenagers, but the case is taken seriously by the camp's legal system and a search warrant is issued. I have not been able to find if the case actually came before Sir Atholl MacGregor, who ran the Stanley court, and, if it did, what the verdict was.

Vandeleur Grayburn, Edward Streatfield and Dr. Harry Talbot receive Bibles sent in from Stanley Camp. On August 23, two days after Grayburn's death, the two survivors have their Bibles taken from them without explantion. They are never returned.

Source:

Blumenthal: Undated statement of complaint in HPRO, HKRS163-1-303

Bibles: E. P. Streatfield, Statement, in HK Public Records Office, HKMS100-1-6, 11

Franklin Gimson notes in his diary that repatriation of all the British would mean willingness to surrender the Colony to the Chinese or the Americans.

Source:

Franklin Gimson, Internment in Hong-Kong March 1942- August 1945, 21b

The fourth draft of Prisoners of War sent to labour in Japan leaves Hong Kong today when 470 men sail off on the Manryu Maru.

The only officer in the draft is former Stanley internee Lewis Bush. Bush has a Japanese wife and speaks the language fluently. He's allowed special privileges and uses his position to do as much as he can for the rest of the draft.

The men end up in Oeyama and Niigata-Rinko, two of the camps with the worst survival rates.

Source:

Tony Banham, We Shall Suffer There, Kindle Edition, Locations 1928-1953

Note: for more on Bush see:

http://gwulo.com/node/9858

http://gwulo.com/node/14388

Birth of Norval Leslie James Willerton. His father was a sergeant in the Hong Kong police.

Sir Vandeleur Grayburn is taken to the Stanley Prison 'Hospital' - a place where there's almost no medical treatment and the rations are even lower than in the cells to discourage would-be patients. The only advantage to being here is that you're allowed to lie down all day and don't have to spend most of your waking hours staring cross-legged at the wall.

He's not put on one of the two twenty-bed wards but into a two-person hospital cell, which he shares with policeman Vincent Morrison, who's serving two years for trying to escape from Stanley. Morrison notices that Grayburn has boils all over his right leg and learns that his temperature is 103.

Sources:

Birth: China Mail, September 15, 1945, 3

Sergeant: http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/HK/HKGS/21019063.pdf

E. P. Streatfield, Statement, in HK Public Records Office, HKMS100-1-6, 10-11

Boils and temperature: Morrison's evidence to war crimes trial, China Mail, April 4, 1947, 2

Sir Vandeleur Grayburn is serving the second half of his three month sentence in Stanley Prison. He's been in poor health, suffering from fever and outbreaks of boils, but has received no treatment from the Japanese.

In the morning, Sir Vandeleur feels better. After the evening meal he talks to Police Sergeant Vincent Morrison about his travels in Norway and his brother's time as a tea planter in India. He interrupts the conversation to try and urinate into a tin, but fails twice to do so. He drops the tin and collapses. Sergeant Morrison, himself weak, helps him to bed as best he can. Grayburn apologises - 'That was very remiss of me' - and sinks into a coma.

Morrison spends the night by his side.

Sources:

George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 175

Morrison's evidence to war crimes trial, China Mail, April 4, 1947, 2

Note: Wright-Nooth misdates Grayburn's last illness and death to August 6/7, perhaps following Morrison's misdating of Grayburn's transfer to the hospital to 'the first Wednesday in August'. For more information see

http://brianwedgar.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/wystan-auden-christopher-isherwood-and_4.html

The Hong Kong News announces that the Hong Kong Branch of the International Red Cross will stop making cash payments to dependents of Prisoners of war and civilian internees. Instead a home will be established for them at St. Albert's Convent at 43, Stubbs Rd. The home will be called Rosary Hill, and be under the direction of a Swiss national, Mr. Suter.

Source:

Tony Banham, We Shall Suffer There, Kindle Edition, Location 1966

Mrs. S. Mason (Block 4, Room 25P) writes a card to Miss Isobel Wavell in Farnham Common (Buckinghamshire):

Darlings,

We are very anxious for news of you both as we have not had a line up to date.

We are all very well and do hope you are. It's all very worrying, isn't it? Still we are making the most of this extraordinary life. We only hope the fashions are streamlined when we meet again, which we hope will be soon.

You are constantly in our minds, as are also the old times we spent together.

Source:
David Tett, Captives In Cathay, 2007, 149