The Asama Maru pulls anchor at 10 a.m. and gets to the mouth of the Mekong at 3 p.m. It's low tide, the ship can't get past a sand bar so turns back upstream and anchors. The passengers are worried: they spend the next few hours debating the situation, and some people fear a return to internment. At 6 p.m., to general relief, the ship pulls anchor, crosses the sand bar, and heads out into the open sea.
So, after a frightening three hours, the Americans resume their progress towards home. Life remains hard in Stanley, although at least there's more space now. But things are getting tougher for the British left behind in town as conditions deteriorate.
The largest uninterned group consists of bankers, and they've been running great risks raising funds to provide medical and welfare provision for the camps but now they too need financial help. Today D. C. Edmondston, Hong Kong Manager of the HKSBC, writes to Lindsay Ride (head of the British Army Aid Group, a resistance organisation):
...18 men, 10 women and 19 children guests in {Sun Wah} hotel. £6,000...should be enough if spread over six monthly payments to look after all Bank people and dependants, further funds required by Government and other internees in Stanley...Food stocks declining, prices high and rising.
Sources:
Asama Maru: Carol Briggs Waite, Taken in Hong Kong, 2006, Kindle Edition, Location 3382 onwards
Edmondston:Frank H. H. King, The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Volume 111, 1988, 615
Note:
See also entry for July 2. By July 1942 the BAAG are in contact both with the internees and the Allied civilians left in Hong Kong.