Rumours that Kai Tak was bombed and working party of our men killed or wounded (down to the name of the officer in charge! - later discounted.)
Diary pages from this date
Professor Robert Cecil Robertson of the Hong Kong University Medical Department is found dead at the foot of a balcony.
He had not been sent to Stanley in January 1942 but kept in university premises and forced to continue his bacteriological research under Japanese supervision. Although his work benefitted the Chinese population as well as the Japanese, he had become depressed by his situation, and suicide is a possibility.
Robertson had won a Military Cross in WW1. One of his Shanghai paintings was hung in the Royal Academy in 1937.
Sources:
Circumstances of death: Charles G. Roland, Long Night's Journey Into Day, 2001, 194
Cross, painting: obituary in British Medical Journal, October 24, 1942
The rough weather continues. This will no doubt delay us and we may not reach Rio by Saturday.
I called on Mrs. Thode this a.m. She just doesn’t get up during these rough days.
Rev. Klein simply stays on deck.
Report on dentures by Digby, Valentine, Lanchester, Shields
Suicide of Prof. R. Cecil Robertson at B.I.
Rained but nice during the afternoon.
Went for swim.
Much local news. Chinese forces coming down from Canton. Kowloon partly evacuated & Jap troops at Castle Peak awaiting transport. Our Prisoners of War now in HK. Kowloon bombed. General outlook seems to be OK.