Dr. Edward William Ronald Hackett and Mrs. Kathleen Rosalie Hackett have a boy, Conner Hackett.
Source:
China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3
Stanley Roll
Note:
Mr. Hackett attended the Stanley Camp Gathering/Reunion organised by Geoffrey Emerson in November-December 2011.
It's announced in camp that an Informal Welfare Group/Committee has been set up in town. This is another initiative of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, and it seems it alrready has a scheme to get supplies into Stanley - but it's stipulated first there must be a survey to establish the needs of every internee, adult and child.
John Stericker considers that this group did some 'very excellent work' but its activities were limited and it wasn't allowed to carry on for long.
Source:
John Stericker, Captive Colony, 1945, Chapter VII, page 3
Chester Bennett goes into Hong Kong to make arrangements for food to be purchased with the loan money. On his return he announces he's got married (to Elsa Soares).
Source:
Maryknoll Diary, May 10
Russel Engdahl, a member of the American Consular staff, dies at the age of 34 after falling in his quarters in the Preparatory School.
Source:
Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 165
Note: Engdahl worked in Shanghai but was trapped in Hong Kong while on courier duty.
http://lifeafterjerusalem.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/foreign-affairs-day-and...
A fine and very warm day.
The Japanese place restrictions on those allowed to attend Russell Engdahl's funeral, but Gwen Dew, an old friend of his wife, and who had visited Engdahl many times in Shanghai, gets special permission to go.
There is a brief service in the camp cemetery.
Several weeks later permission is given for a service with full Catholic rites, presided over by Bishop O'Gara.
There have been rumours in Stanley to the effect that the four escapers - Bidmead, Fay, Morrison and Randall - have been caught. Today these rumours are confirmed as the four are seen brought into Camp on a lorry {or a black prison van} on their way to Stanley Prison. They are 'a mass of skin and bones' and also show the signs of a tough interrogation.
Sources:
Engdahl: Gwen Dew, Prisoner of The Japs, 1944, 142-143
Escapers: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 113; Wenzell Brown, Hong Kong Aftermath, 1943, 236
Death of Ethel Green Mitchell.
She left a son, daughter-in-law and two children in camp.
Source:
Philip Cracknell at http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stanley-military-cemeter...
A British Communal Council meeting notes that Dr Selwyn-Clarke is making arrangements for the care of the (largely Chinese) dependants of the Prisoners of War and the internees.
This might be the first the internees hear of the scheme, but it's likely that Selwyn-Clarke's been helping long before today. The Japanese refuse to give any assistance at all to the uninterned wives and families of the Volunteers and regular soldiers, and Selwyn-Clarke stepped into the breach. Funds were scarce though and he insisted that every dependent submit a monthly 'expenses claim', which was a problem for some of the Chinese wives who couldn't write English.
In early 1943 this task will be taken over by the International Committee of the Red Cross who acquire funds for this purpose. Eventually they'll open Rosary Hill as a home primarily for the dependants.
Sources:
Meeting, Red Cross: John Stericker, 1945, Captive Colony, Chapter V1, page 7-8
Expenses: Statement of Cedric Salter to the British Army Aid Group
An internee doctor examines Bidmead, Fay, Morrison and Randall, the four unsuccessful escapers, and finds signs of undernourishment and dirty conditions but not of violence.
Source:
Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 237
Note:
Those who saw them on their way to Stanley Prison and at their release believed they showed marks of torture or beating. But my own guess is that the doctor was right.
Mrs. Davies (Block 3, Room 14) writes to her brother-in-law, the Rev Jock Davies, in New Zealand:
Internment Camp, Stanley, Hong Kong, May 20th 1942.
Dear Jock,
You will be wondering what has happened to us during the six months we have been interned on Kowloon and here. At first I was very unwell, but have improved in health after recovering from that malignant malaria. It was found that the common form persisted, quinine now keeps that in check.
Time passes quickly: washing, mending, making garments from odds and ends, reading. Many old friends are here. Frances, Alistair, Jack, very good to me. Exceptionally cool season. Food sufficient for my appetite. Occasional parcel from kind Hong Kong friends welcome treat.
Haven't heard of Dad since February. Had been taken home after short internment Shameen. Was well, busy. May have been sent Shanghai. Probably still Canton, with Red Cross people.Cheung-Chau trees gone, home uninhabitable. Wish we could hear from you and Pamela; both are in our thoughts daily.
Cheerio! Keep smiling, pray on. Greet relatives and friends. Best love.
(Mrs. H. ) M. T. Davies
The International Welfare Association/Committee hands out khaki shirts, handkerchiefs, tennis shoes, soap, porcelain cups and toilet paper 'in very limited quantities'.
Father Allie, of the Maryknoll Order, suddenly gets permission to go to the French Hospital (St. Paul's) for X-Ray treatment.
Sources:
Letter: http://www.cnac.org/emilscott/davies01.htm
Comments and a very clear scan of the original can be seen at this site.
Welfare, Allie: Maryknoll Diary, May 20
Father Allie (see May 20) returns from the French Hospital with such 'disconcerting' news of the conditions in town that five of those Maryknollers who had previously opted to decline repatriation change their minds.
Source:
Maryknoll Diary, May 22
The Rev. Frank Short preaches against 'our insolent national arrogance'. He instances the use of insulting terms for black people and the Chinese.
Next Sunday the Rev. Mackenzie Dow will deplore the 'lack of moral fibre' in pre-war Hong Kong, and suggest that they were living on the 'submerged' nine tenths of the population. He will claim that the community has been brought low to be 'chastened' and call on his congregation to 'repent' - to adopt new ways of thinking, a different view.
It seems that new attitudes to race and social responsibility are being promoted by Stanley's clergy, pondering on the lessons of defeat and deprivation.
Source:
Sermon notes in the MacNider Papers, 'Sermons, Loans, Repatriation', 49
A crowd gathers to see off Bishop Valtorta and Father Chaye (Belgian) who have got permission to leave camp.
Life Magazine publishes a letter by a 'reputable American businessman' who escaped from Kong Kong in mid-February and is indignant at accounts of the good treatment of Japanese diplomats in the USA. He describes conditions in the waterfront hotels at length, and also those at Stanley. He contrasts the fate of the American consular staff with that of their Japanese counterparts at the Homestead (Hotel):
(They were) herded into two small houses, without water, electricity or primitive comforts.
Sources:
Bishop: Maryknoll Diary, May 25
Policeman I. Jack and Mrs. A. Jack have a boy, David Ross Jack.
Bishop Cuthbert O'Gara is allowed to leave Stanley.
Sources:
Birth: China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3; Stanley Roll
O'Gara: MacNider Diary, May 26, 20
Margaret Watson, Deputy Chairman of the International Welfare Committee, issues a notice confirming that the recent margarine issue was communal not individual. The IWC is clearly having problems: two days ago it posted a notice complaining that some internees had sold products issued to them as welfare - only 'one or two' cases had been reported, but 'anything of the kind cannot be too strongly deprecated'.
Source;
MacNider Papers, 'Court/I.W,C./Rumours', 45
Last night Langston and Dalziel who were sleeping outside at the back of the bungalow, were woken up at about 5.00 a.m. by snarls and growls. Langston...got up to have a look. He went to the edge of the garden and looked down the slope to the wire fence. There Dalziel saw him leap in the air and fly back into the boiler room shouting 'There's a tiger down there'...
Next morning he's laughed at by other Bungalow C residents.
The Stanley tiger has arrived. None of the bungalows has any doors or windows, and soon laughter changes to fear.
Source:
George Wright-Nooth's diary cited in Prisoner Of The Turnip Heads, 1994, 97
Stanley Tiger: The Hunt For The Truth
Tigers are not indigenous to Hong Kong and from the start there were two main theories about the origins of this one:
1) it was one of those south China tigers who 'every decade or two' swam across from the mainland;
2) it had escaped or been released from a circus, perhaps one 'located in Causeway Bay'.
Surgeon Li Shu-Fan records that a tiger, which he believed to be a swimmer, 'joined the party by leaping down the terrace' at the Cheiyo Hotel. This tiger, which from the context seems to have appeared in 1942 (and in any case before summer of 1943 when Li escaped to Free China), was shot by an Indian after several days of hunting.
Recently a new twist has been added to the 'circus' theory: perhaps the Japanese deliberately released it. Some Chinese people had the idea that the sudden appearance of a tiger in a region marked the end of the old and the start of a new political order - in this case the end of the British Empire and the beginning of Japanese rule over Hong Kong and beyond.
But Bertram Bradbury, the butcher who skinned the Stanley tiger after it was shot, stated that he had no doubt the animal was wild.
Sources:
Causeway Bay: Wright-Nooth, 98
Li Shu-Fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, 1964, 119
http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2011/11/1942-hong-kong-tiger-new-twist.html
Death of Frederick Alfred William Fisher, aged 74.
Tiger fever grows:
Slept very badly owing to stomach trouble. During the night we were woken by three rapid shots and much shouting.
Soon the Camp can talk of little else.
The tales grew bigger and bigger, and so did the tiger.
The Reverend Mackenzie Dow preaches a fiery sermon at the church service. He claims that Hong Kong fell not just because of military shortcomings but also because of lack of 'moral fibre'. He believed that the Europeans had been living on 'the submerged nine tenths' - the Chinese masses - and had now been brought low so as to repent. A week ago the Reverend Frank Short had denounced ' our insolent national arrogance' and attacked the use of derogatory terms for black and Chinese people.
In town Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, living with his wife and about 80 other bankers and family members at the Sun Wah Hotel, tells the unadorned truth in a letter with today's date that will be posted by an American repatriate to his daughter Elizabeth:
(W)eight dropped from 200 to 160 lbs. Mary is somewhat thinner. Our cubicle is tiny, we sleep on a single mattress. Had no proper bath since December.
These words are blacked out by the Japanese censor.
Source:
Fisher: Philip Cracknell, http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stanley-military-cemeter...
Tiger: Diary of George Wright-Nooth, cited in Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 97 and Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 184, 182
Sermons: Eric MacNider, Papers, 'Sermons'/49/Loan/Repatriation
Grayburn: David Tett, Captives in Cathay, 2007, 291-2.
Note:
John Stericker dates these shots to Saturday, May 30, but I think Wright-Nooth's diary is more likely to be correct, as Stericker telescopes the whole incident into one day.
John Stericker, A Tear for the Dragon, 1958, 197
Early in the morning Chinese and Indian policemen, with Japanese supervisors, search the hill behind the Camp. George Wright-Nooth is told that one of the Indian policemen was mauled by a tiger at about 2 a.m.
Two Salesians, Father Haughey and Brother Bernard Tohill, are allowed to leave camp.
Sources:
Tiger: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 97
Salesians: Maryknoll Diary, June 1
In view of the coming repatriation and the fact that about 40 Americans are choosing to stay, new officers are elected: Chester Bennett becomes Chairman of the Council, Father Meyer Vice Chairman, Mr. Gregory, Secretary and Mr. Kiley, Treasurer.
The first parcels of the food and other items each internee has chosen to buy with his share of the loan are starting to come in.
In town, missionaries Alice Lan and Betty Hu read newspaper reports of the forthcoming American repatriation. They want to say goodbye to friends but aren't sure how, so they decide to have 'a few notes smuggled in and out'.
Sources:
Elections, parcels: Maryknoll Diary, June 2
Lan/Hu: Alice Y Lan and Betty Hu, We Flee From Hong Kong, 2000 ed. (1944), 62
James J. Ferguson, a POW who will later be drafted to Japan, and Mrs. P. L. O. Ferguson have a girl, Heather Carol Ogilvie Ferguson.
Dr. Selwyn-Clarke comes to Stanley trying to recruit nurses for Kowloon. It seems that it's still possible to be allowed out of camp.
American forces make initial contact with the Japanese fleet sent to attack the base at Midway Island. The internees' fate is about to be decided in one of the most important sea battles in history, taking place over 4000 miles from Hong Kong.
The Americans have broken the Japanese codes and the attacking ships are sailing into a trap.
Sources:
Birth: China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3; Dundee Courier, 30 January 1951, 2
Selwyn-Clarke: Tony Banham, We Shall Suffer There, 2009, Wednesday, June 3, 1942
The crucial day in the Battle of Midway:
Beginning about 9:30, torpedo planes from the U.S. carriers Hornet, Enterprise, and Yorktown made a series of attacks that, despite nearly total losses, made no hits. Then, about 10:25, everything changed. Three squadrons of dive bombers, two from Enterprise and one from Yorktown, almost simultaneously dove on three of the four Japanese carriers, whose decks were crowded with fully armed and fueled planes. By 10:30, Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu were ablaze and out of action.
The decisive period lasted for little more than 5 minutes. At the end of it, the Japanese dream of destroying the American navy in the Pacific and forcing Washington to make a peace that would leave them in possession of most of their conquests was over.
From the internees' point of view, although there's a long way to go, the days of the 'Captured Territory of Hong Kong' are numbered. But how many of them will survive until liberation?
In Hong Kong City RASC Staff-Sergeant Patrick Sheridan begins his escape. Sheridan was sent to help the civilian bakers on December 19, and after the surrender he and his fellow RASC man Sergeant James Hammond were interned with them in Exchange House. When they were sent from there to the French Hospital on February 8, Captain Tanaka ordered them to leave behind all their army kit. Now effectively a civilian, Sheridan claimed Irish nationality, was granted a neutral's pass and then asked for permission to seek work as a baker in the French enclave of Kwong Chow Wan. This was granted on June 3, and, wasting no time, he sets sail today.
Sources:
Midway: http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/90midway/90facts2.htm
Sheridan: Sheridan's escape statements BAAG files
Note:
News of the Battle of Midway starts to get around Stanley within a few days, although few if any could have realised its significance: see the Jones diary for June 8 and the days following.
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