Diary pages from this date

On Wednesday ((August 26)) morning at 9 o’clock the “B’s were told to get off and have their baggage inspected by customs. This took almost two hours but they were very kind. After that we had to go back on the ship and be questioned by the F.B.I. That took fully two more hours. Finally, we had to get a certain card signed yet and then we were free to get off.

By 2 o’clock we walked off the gang plank, had a baggage man take our things out to where we could check them over to the Pennsy R.R. Station and get our few baskets and walk to where they had the mail and where the people were waiting for their husbands and friends. Many an anxious wife was standing there for the second day already and some I know had to wait until late the following day before their loved ones came off. We had messages for some of them and several were friends from Hong Kong who had come all the way from California to meet their husbands.

One lady, Mrs. Burnside, whom we knew well on Cheung Chau ((Island)), practically loved me to pieces when I told her that she could expect her “Mac” any minute. Just about that time Dr. Brandt ((Director of Foreign Missions for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod)) grabbed me and greeted us all most heartily. Rev. Kleps, one of the New York pastors, was there also.

Oh, yes, there were also many newspaper reporters there and we now know what it means to be grabbed by photographers. We were about the first with smaller children to leave the ship, surely they must have been the attraction. Certainly our old tacky looking clothing and worn out luggage was not.

We were put into a taxi and Rev. Kleps went with us to the hotel where they had arranged for our rooms. We had from Wednesday to Friday ((August 26-28)) evening there. We enjoyed going shopping. Our hotel was right in Times Square and all very handy. We saw quite a bit of the city, Wall Street, and other spots.

Lovely meat cake at tiffin.

Did more writing during the rest hour.  ((Camp concensus decided that  the hours between noon and 2pm should be kept as far as possible as 'quiet hours', i.e. the time immediately after the 11am meal finished)).

Went to see Mary (Taylor) in hospital, she's not to come out for about a week.

Vaughn Meisling, former Associated Press Correspondent in Hong Kong,  and Stanley repatriate, has an article in the Billings Gazette (page 2) today. It’s about the bad treatment meted out to the American bankers.

Meisling lists the bankers, and describes their squalid home (the Sun Wah Hotel) – ‘a fire trap well-stocked with vermin’. He says that the30 or so women and children weren’t allowed out of the hotel until late May, when they received a pass that allowed them an hour’s walk morning and afternoon. Many of them needed treatment for dysentery, malnutrition and insect bites.

 The bankers were paid $100 (US) from late February on and had to buy their own ‘meagre supplies’. They were marched a mile and a half to their work every day.

 They were often slapped and humiliated by their captors, the worst of whom they called ‘Slaphappy Joe’ because he was never happy except when hitting someone. At afternoon roll call he would box their ears until they learnt to answer in Japanese.

There were also a few slappings inside the National City Bank, as the Gendarmes had taken over the ground floor and resented the Americans on the floor above looking down on them.

The bankers often felt they were being sniped at as bullets hit or entered the hotel.

10 p.m. roll call

Trouble at main road gate (Croucher taken to station for few minutes)

European news very good.

Battle going on 70 mls away.

Lined up on deck the next morning ((ie the 26th)), our belongings were checked by customs officials. After taking our passport, they also took a résumé or diary which they returned to us some months later. I think they were looking for helpful information such as maps, etc.

Leaving the ship was a frightening experience, especially for the children. Dr. Brand and Rev. Kleps were there which helped a bit, but the news and camera men almost pulled us apart. When we later saw our pictures in the New York paper, we looked like frightened rabbits.