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

 Madeline Jeanette Owens born to Reginald Owens and Allison J. Owens. Mrs Owens is British and her husband is American.

Two notices appear in camp: one announces that facilities are available for the painless destruction of dogs, the other that 'heavy' kitchen workers are entitled to extra rations - it seems they can get more rice and choose two other items, although not special ones like bread, eggs, tinned goods etc. MacNider notes that on April 25 extra rations, on differing scales and with a limit on the number of 'extras' in some cases, were extended to other kitchen workers, heavy manual labourers, and all other workers, with effect from the next day. This was decided at the Committee meeting of April 24. In September 1942 the Committee decided that too many people were claiming the privilege - some fraudulently - and the conditions under which it was granted had to be revised.

The British Government act on information received about conditions in Stanley - today the Legation in Berne delivers a note to the Foreign Interests Division of the Swiss Foreign Office:

The unpalatable rations issued provide a mere 900 calories per head and they are likely to be reduced. Uneatable rations are not replaced. For five days no milk at all was issued, and the small milk ration allowed is often soured before delivery. The basic rations are small amounts of rice, flour and salt....The first meal is half a slice of bread, the other two meals one small bowl of poor quality broken rice or watery soup. Beri Beri has broken out, and when, as seems inevitable in summer, tropical disease appears, the gravest epidemics are to be feared...Owing to lack of fuel the boiling of water, which might serve to avert epidemics is extremely difficult.

The British note that a similar message has been sent to the International Committee of the Red Cross but they don't seem certain about what they want the Swiss to do:

His Majesty's Government leave it to the Swiss authorities to decide what use they make of this information.

For the Swiss reply, see the entry for April 17.

Sources:

Owens: See below

Notices: MacNider Papers, 'Easter/Loan/14/Dogs/Workers'; 'Labour',19

British note: Note from the British Legation (official translation from French original) to the Foreign Interests Division, April 14, 1942 in Swiss Federal Archives (Berne)

Note:

According to a record cited by Cindy Yik-yi Chu this girl, who weighed seven and a half pounds, was the first American born in Stanley (Foreign Communities in Hong Kong, 2005, 146.)

The Swiss have been considering the British request of April 14 and today sees an interdepartmental memo that makes their impotence clear:

It is necessary to remember that a note from the British Government of 21 December 1941 asked us to take on the the task of representing British interests in Hong Kong. The Japanese Government, when presented with this request, replied (in) a telegram of January 30 that they could not agree.

The reason for Tokyo's refusal was that the Japanese, in imitation of the Germans, had abolished all consular representation in the territories it had occupied, and decreed that the neutral country whose ambassador represented the enemy country's interests in Tokyo should extend his responsibility to the whole Japanese empire. In Britain's case, this made the 'Protecting Power' Argentina. 

All the Swiss could do in this case was tell the British their Government would lend its support to the Red Cross in a request to be allowed to help British nationals in Hong Kong.

Source:

Letter from The Federal Political Department to Federal Councillor Pilet-Golaz, 17 April 1942 in Swiss Federal Archives (Berne)

Note: Not long after this letter, Switzerland replaced Argentina as the 'Protecting Power' for Britain in Tokyo. However, it was obviously difficult for the Swiss Ambassador, Camille Gorgé, to intervene effectively in Hong Kong. On June 27, 1942 Rudolf Zindel became the Red Cross representative (later the full Delegate) in Hong Kong, and, took on some of the functions of the representative of the Protecting Power, proving a valuable aid to the Tokyo Embassy until the Red Cross insisted he stop because the role of Delegate was incompatible with such activity.

Death of Alexander Ogilvie, aged 66.

The American community hold their monthly meeting and discuss the loan (see April 13) and repatriation.

A few Norwegians and two American women are allowed to leave for town under the 'guaranteeing out' system.

Sources:

Death: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 271

Meeting, leaving camp: Maryknoll Diary, April 20

Maryknoll Sisters Mary Paul, Anne, Ann Mary and Maria Regis are released from camp because, although American, they've established Irish descent.

The London Daily Express publishes this article on page 4: 

REMEMBER HONGKONG

Starvation threat to prisoners

Express Correspondent FRANCIS LEE

CHUNGKING, Monday.

 COMPLAINTS by the British and Americans interned at Stanley Camp, Hongkong, against their meagre food allowances led to a demand by their Japanese jailers for £5,000 to cover the cost of extra rations, according to authoritative reports reaching Chungking.

 Although protests were made that the demand was illegal, the money had to be paid out of personal bank accounts, as the Japs threatened to starve out the Camp if it was not forthcoming.

 ‘EXTRAS’

 The internees now receive infinitesimal "extras," including an ounce of fish daily, with their tiny quota of rice. The original rations provided only 900 calories daily instead of the 2,400 required.

The internees are dreading the summer, as the Japanese have not given them any mosquito nets, and malaria is inevitable. They are unable to get clothes, shoes or soap they left behind in the city.

They have no bedding beyond what was brought in when they were rounded up. They are herded in quarters in which six to eight men, women and children are given one room.

The British internees total 2,500, but most of the able-bodied men are in a military camp. The others include older people and women and children.

The internees, lacking outside news, console themselves with reports of the imminent arrival of food ships, or the release of American Red Cross wheat supplies, of which the Japs seized 2,000 tons.

Source:

Maryknoll: Cindy Yik-yi Chu, The Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 2004, 56

A special notice is posted in camp about the '$300,000 loan': every internee is to submit a list of requirements to the value of $75 to their block representative.

Dr. Nicol C. Macleod also posts a notice: notes on the prevention of dysentery.

Source:

MacNider Papers: 'Roll Call, Church 13', '$300,000 Dollar Loan', untitled

As a result of recent escapes, a barbed wire fence is completed around the whole camp. Electric lights are also being put up around the borders, and a new masonry gateway with a guard post opposite is being built across the main road leading into Camp: 'We lose a little more of our freedom and are now quite interned'.

Source:

Maryknoll Diary, April 25

The Japanese finally grant permission for a small number of internees to go to the French Hospital (aka St. Paul's) in Causeway Bay for X-rays. They go in the Red Cross truck and are only allowed to stay a few days.

While they're there, Dr. Selwyn-Clarke does his best to give them as good a time as possible. They're allowed to take a certain amount of supplies back into Stanley, so Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, assisted by her friend the writer Emily Hahn, becomes a 'shopper for Stanley camp's three thousand plus', scouring the streets for bargains to make the funds 'mysteriously' produced by Selwyn-Clarke go as far as possible.

Sources:

Maryknoll Diary, April 30

Emily Hahn: China To Me, 1986 ed (1944) 359

Note:

Writing during the war, Hahn had to keep the source of funds for these supplies 'mysterious'. In fact the money was either given to Selwyn-Clarke or to the uninterned bankers by friendly Chinese, Indians or neutrals, or raised by the bankers through secret loans. All of these people ran huge risks to carry out this relief work.

At 10.30 a.m. William Hunt says goodbye to his fellow internees. The 'genial and efficient' Council chairman is due to leave for Shanghai with the Kadourie Family at 4.30 p.m.

Source:

Maryknoll Diary, May 2

Note:

Bill Hunt was a controversial figure, but undeniably effective as leader of the Americans. Wenzell Brown (Hong Kong Aftermath) portrays him as a gangster, while the Maryknollers, Emily Hahn, and British sources like George Wright-Nooth are much more positive. American oilman Norman Briggs (Taken In Hong Kong) calls him The Brain and seems equally admiring and disapproving.

He seems to have managed to get repatriated from Shanghai as Gwen Priestwood's Through Japanese Barbed Wire, published in 1944, contains statements he made about the events the day after her escape, and he provided information about radios in camp to the British Army Aid Group.

Death of Arthur Groves, one day old.

Death of John Blyth.

Source:

China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3