07 Jul 1943, Diary of George Gerrard in Stanley Internment Camp Hong Kong

Submitted by Alison Gerrard on Sun, 01/20/2019 - 13:05

Another sensation has been caused by the further arrest today of more internees vis Waterton and J.L.Anderson (wireless), J.A.Fraser (Defence Secy) and F.Roberts (Police). Waterton was forced to dig a hole down at block 18 and from this a wireless set was recovered. The lads previously arrested are still away and it doesn't look well for them. We do hope they are not having too rough a time of it.

Alan Taylor has been appointed camp Q'master. ((I see a "Harry Alan Taylor" on the list of internees, and guess it is him.)) With all this bother there has been a great scarcity of news, no bamboo wireless coming in at all and the newspaper giving very little away, altho' we did get part of Churchill’s' speech referring to the Autumn leaves beginning to fall and so from that we infer that big things will happen in Europe soon if they haven't begun already. Then there is activity in the South Seas and we are occupying islands there.

14 more people have come into the camp mostly bankers and are occupying 'E' bungalow and we have been to gleam a little news from them of home and local conditions.

The weather has improved a bit and we were able to play off one of our bowls games last night against MacCleod 'B' and we beat them on two rinks and got four points. My rink won 15-11 against Pengully.

H. Smith is still on his honeymoon but returns back to the room again on Saturday. Restrictions are much higher now with regards to being in our blocks with lights out at 10 o'clock.

I was on duty at the church last Sunday afternoon. I of course go to the morning service, but owing to the rations I have to leave before the sermon. D.B.B. and I go for our usual walk and on Saturday we had a seat on the hillside and J.F. brought a flask of coffee and a biscuit each. We also received a drink out of 6oz of lemonade each from the welfare and for these little luxuries we are always grateful, small tho' they may be they help to make life easier, tho' we would like more.

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