Looks as if the Americans are really going away tomorrow.
Rumours that rations cut by 10% - and we will be repatriated next.
Highbrow concert tonight, Arthur Lay at the piano. Tim Fortescue was good in a play.
Started writing new story 'Balancing Jean' - but only put the title and 'Chapter 1'.
The Kempeitai come to search the Americans' luggage - 'and it was a particularly feverish time for those of us who had concealed anything'. The luggage is placed in the roadway for inspection. Some bags are chalk marked to show they've been inspected but then left unlocked; the owners add any forbidden papers they haven't yet destroyed.
It was a queer last night. We sat on the steps of the house in the moonlight, listening to the beat of the surf which was so near, yet so unreachable, and sang songs of home.
Source:
Gwen Dew, Prisoner of the Japs, 1943, 149-50
(Rose) / Brown
Am. baggage searched + sent on lorries.
Americans all ready to go. Vaccinated & tested for typhoid & heavy luggage in lighters.
Many rumours re moves for the British.
Welfare parcels arriving.
Re-inforcements arrived for Egypt. Second front opened?
US Red Cross re-presentatives arrived.
Our spirits soared when on the 28th of June, 1942, we were told that a Japanese ship, the Asama Maru, would pick us up the next morning.