Paper says the Americans have arrived at Lourenco Marques, transhipped and are on their way to America.
Diary pages from this date
John Stericker presents Franklin Gimson with a Union Jack at an emotional moment in the meeting of the British Community Council. It was found hidden in a water tank on a roof and was believed to be the only one in camp. ((It wasn't: http://gwulo.com/node/16146))
(W)ith one long blast on the whistle, we bade farewell to Lourenco Marques..our next stop would be Rio de Janeiro. We all felt a great let down in the tension. We were out from under the Japanese.
Sources:
Union Jack: John Strericker, Captive Colony, 1945, Chapter V1, page 18
Repatriates: Carol Briggs Waite, Taken in Hong Kong, Kindle Edition, Location 3753 et al
We did pull anchor at 7 but only left the wharf and actually sailed at 2:30 this afternoon.
13 planes flew over camp (N.W. Direction)
AA fire reported observed
Today we had bread for breakfast. Rice & veg if you can call it veg – falgrass & bit of turnip and for the first time today we had a sort of pumpkin. Bread for tea – tea as a drink has finished long ago unless you buy your own so we drink very chlorinated water. Yesterday we had a bit of a bombshell dropped. The nips won’t take any HK$ which means that many people now are unable to buy any extras from the store. What the people in town will do goodness knows as the $ for them is now 4 to 1. We have had to prepare for possible air raids – impossible I should say. i.e all stretchered patients to ground floor & so on. The moon is full so I wonder... The news we get might be true & it might not we’ve been done! So many times already, but it seems to have taken a turn for the better. When I started to write I thought I had a lot to say but I must have been mistaken.
Fine day.
(500,000 American troops landed OK in B. Isles. Drusseldorf bombed & we lost 12 planes. German convoy (10,000 troops) sunk on way to Lybia. Stalin asked for 2nd Front. Germans captured Rostov but are being driven back with heavy losses in the North. Heavy fighting around Shanghai & Canton. 7 unidentified planes flew over HK. C. Hall ((Barbara Anslow: This may refer to Cordell Hull, the American statesman.)) states that remnants of Jap will be hunted or sunk in the in the immediate future. 2 high-ranking Jap. M.O.s have committed hare-kari. All this from BBC Sunday pm)