Diary pages from this date

The Band came in from camp to play in two Canadian Battalions which have just arrived on grey ship and another..

Arthur and Sid arrived about noon, and we went to King's - 'Buck Privates'.

Walter Scott, Assistant Commissioner of Police, is hunting in the New Territories with leading surgeon Li Shu-Fan. They hear the sound of a formation of planes: Scott tells Li that they are protecting a transport loaded with Canadian troops.

We climbed to the top of the hill in silence, and looked down upon a huge, three- funnel Canadian Pacific transport steaming toward the entrance of Hong Kong harbor. Walter commented that these would probably be the only reinforcements allotted to us.

Later Scott writes to his wife, an American who's returned to the United States.

Soon after 8 a.m. Kay Christie and Anna May Waters, the two military nurses who've come with the Canadian contingent (just under 2,000 men) are taken to Bowen Road Military Hospital by Matron E. M. Dyson:

All the sisters had a room of their own - quite comfortable. After having breakfast we unpacked what little luggage we had with us.

In the afternoon they're taken for a drive round the island by Miss Thompson {probably Kathleen Thompson}, the senior Sister, and a friend of hers, Colonel Lamb. They're told the island's impregnable.

Sources:

Li Shu-Fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, 1964, 92

Nurses: Report by Miss Anna May Waters Nurse with the Canadian Forces at Hong Kong, as given on board the MS Gripsholm, November 1943,  points 16-17, 19