Missionaries Robert and Helen Hammond and their family are on board the Asama Maru:
July the twenty-third is another day we shall never forget. The sailors on the Gripsholm, Swedish crew, called to us that they had plenty of good fruit, and to prove it they threw us apples - American apples - also large oranges and pears...
We were exchanged about ten that morning. A long string of boxcars divided the dock. The Japanese with their new suits and happy, smiling, well-dressed children were carrying lovely new leather suitcases. We saw their trunks, new wardrobe trunks, but here were all of us with our dirty rags....
The call to dinner rang. We watched the head steward bring a great, big brown turkey. Our reactions were such that we cannot describe them. Besides there was all the bread and butter we wished, and all the different cold meats, various kinds of salads, potato, macaroni; then fruit and milk. Then, after grace had been said, we began to eat; we ate and ate and ate.
In the afternoon the Americans - who'd been confined to ship by the crew of the Asama Maru - are allowed to look around the town. The first thing Norman Briggs does is get a haircut. Then he heads back to the Gripsholm in plenty of time for the first dinner sitting which starts at 6 p.m.
Samuel Bitting, a repatriated banker with the National City Bank New York, writes from the Hotel Polona (Lourenco Marques) to assure Mr le Cocq d'Armandville that his daughter and son-in-law, Jacobus and Guillaumine van der Laan, are 'both well and as happy as one can be when living in conditions of semi-confinement' ((at the Sun Wah Hotel)).
Back at Stanley the divisions continue:
Murphy starts campaign against council. Set up table with petition.
In Britain the Daily Mirror brings disappointing news for the relatives and friends of those in camp:
AGREEMENT
Japs in exchange
THE Japanese Government has agreed to the exchange of 1,800 British and Allied nationals in the Far East for a similar number of Japanese and Siamese nationals here.
Mr. Eden announced in the Commons yesterday that agreement had been reached after protracted and difficult negotiations.
The Japanese Government, however, have not agreed to include in the exchange British subjects in Hong Kong, Singapore and other British territories occupied by them. (Page 2)
Sources:
Hammonds: Robert Hammond, Bondservants of the Japanese, 1957 (originally 1942), 78-79
Briggs: Carol Briggs Waite, Taken In Hong Kong, 2006, Kindle Edition, Location 3602
Bitting: David Tett, Captives in Cathay, 2007, 325
Murphy: Diary of M. L. Bevan: IWM, 523.1 (Bevan)
Note: there were at least 4 male Murphies in camp at this time. This one probably wasn't Father Murphy, a Canadian Catholic priest, but the other three are all possible.