Diary pages from this date

[Left page] Was carried down in a chair by Captain Basham, Mr Crofton [?] and his [?] son. They said I looked like the Queen of Sheba. Met with very kind people and settled in comfort. Thank God for that.

[Right page] 8th October 194[2]

Food very tight. My weight has gone down to 114 pounds.

Here are a few of the prices:

Duck eggs $2.00 [illegible]
Sugar $4.00 a [pound?]
Margarine$8.60 per [illegible]
Tea $10.00 per pound
/XL Jam 12 ozs $7.20
Butter $
No fat at all to be got Dripping $16.00 per [packet?]

Stop Press - Latest bed bug news! This morning Tim and I took our beds to pieces and carted them out onto the lawn by the tool store shed. Here we unscrewed still more nuts and bolts (I don’t think Tim will ever assemble his again!) untill all cracks and joints were fairly well accessible. Tim then had to depart to work at the C.S.O. and Marjorie took over. Marjorie is swift but, I am bound to add, somewhat slap dash. She brought some hot water, soap and a scrubbing brush and scrubbed pretty vigorously round the end of their rattan straw mattress. I think she got rid of most of the eggs and the bugs that were not quick enough off the mark to dive inside the mattress before her scrubbing brush reached them. I’m afraid there is only one way of getting rid of the bugs from the mattress and that is to burn it. However the Fortescues are evidently determined not to do this until another mattress is forthcoming or until they get a couple of camp beds, and as I hear there are still people sleeping on the floor in some of the buildings, it seems unlikely that they will speedily acquire any additional sleeping material. So I fear this looks like another bone of contention in our room!

It is hard luck on the Fortescues, for it means they have to choose between sleeping on a bed bug infested mattress or the wire springs of their bed. I should prefer the wire, which is the old fashioned type of fine wire mesh stretched over a frame: but to each one, his own choice I suppose. I shall be most annoyed if our bed becomes again infested from this wretched mattress!

I spent all morning scrubbing with soap and water, the rectangular wooden frame on which our wire springs are stretched. I removed scores of little white eggs and several smallish bugs. After lunch I obtained two big enamel mugs full of boiling water and poured it carefully all over the wooden frame, douching thoroughly all the cracks and pouring water between the eased joints. I think that has settled the hash of any remaining bugs and eggs as hot water quickly kills insects. Unfortunately there is no disinfectant or paraffin available in the camp. Tomorrow I will turn my attention to the supporting teak bedstead and treat it similarly. Teak is excellent wood and seldom harbours insects, so I don’t anticipate much trouble here. We shall leave the whole bed out in the wind and the sun for about three days during which time we shall have to revert to our old custom of sleeping on the floor. So much for bed bugs!

The ‘Hong Kong News’ reported that the Japanese ship Lisbon Maru, while transporting 1,800 British troops from a southern port to a destination in Japan, was torpedoed and sunk by an American submarine. Apparently the ship was near some islands or hugging the coast, for it said that some of the survivors swam ashore. A later report states that many of the prisoners and crew were rescued but that about 1,000 perished. That sort of thing is appalling to hear of, when allies of a cause unwittingly destroy one another. To make things locally worse, we heard news to the effect that 1,700 of the Canadian military prisoners in HK had embarked for transhipment to Japan, and the fear is that it was this luckless contingent that has suffered. Poor Canadians - if so - they have had a rotten deal in Hong Kong.

However, we have also heard another rumour (some weeks ago) that an advance guard of the British prisoners in Singapore were being taken to Formosa or Korea to form a labour squad with the object of building a prisoner of war camp for all British war prisoners taken by the Japanese during this war. If this is true, the men on the ill fated Lisbon Maru may quite well have been some of these British troops from Singapore (re-christened by the Japanese ‘Shonan’). The only cheerful part of it is that we know American submarines are operating along this coast and must be taking a toll of Japanese transports and supplies en route to the Solomon Islands and New Guinea which are apparently, the present scenes of operations between American, British (largely Australian) and Japanese forces.

The day following the announcement in the Japanese paper of the sinking of the Lisbon Maru, the paper made the further report that the British prisoners of war aboard the ill fated ship had all come from Hong Kong. This was a horrible piece of news for us in this camp, especially for the many wives, sisters and mothers here of HK war prisoners, for no less than 900 are reported lost (just half the number). We hear it was not the Canadian contingent and the guess is that it consisted chiefly of the regular British troops here - the Middlesex and the Royal Scots plus (probably) all British Sappers. The C.S. applied immediately for particulars and Yamashita forwarded them straight away. Up to date no details have been returned.

The Japanese are rather extraordinary in this respect. I consider that, in the main, their conduct of the war against the British has been very fair, but I criticise the harsh way in which they refuse to allow any communication whatever between prisoners of war out here and their wives in this camp. It seems odd that they should allow people here, with next of kin in England, to write to them (by Red X) and yet not allow a person like Isa to write to her husband not more than 10 miles distant in Argyle Street Camp. And it seems a long time now since the news of the Lisbon Maru. 

Worrying news that a ship 'Lisbon Maru' carrying  British and Australian prisoners of war had left a southern  port, and was torpedoed by American subs.  Some were able to swim to a nearby island, others were rescued and a few drowned.   Every one here worried about their men, but rumour is that Nakazawa has given his word that no soldiers have left Hong Kong yet.

((The Lisbon Maru was torpedoed on 1st of October and sank on the 2nd of October, see http://gwulo.com/node/10823 and http://gwulo.com/node/9993 for details.))

Two Canadian missionaries who have been effectively confined to a flat in Kowloon's Taam Kung Road since the surrender are finally allowed some freedom of movement.

Harold Fetherstonhaugh Collier and his wife Frances Dorothy Collier missed internment in January by chance - a letter they sent to the Japanese authorities asking to be transported to the Island to join those destined for Stanley was not delivered. They stayed in Kowloon, keeping a low profile and being fed from a ration card arranged by a sympathetic Chinese functionary (who'd grown up in Trinidad) and with the general help of a Chinese Christian, Jimmy. In June they were discovered by the Kempeitai, who believed at first Mr. Collier was an escaper from Shamshuipo; after questioning at the Kowloon Gendarmerie, they were allowed to go, but told they would be shot if they left home. In September a Norwegian missionary sent them food and told them about Dr. Selwyn-Clarke. They made contact and Miss L. - almost certainly Dorothy Lee - was sent to assess their situation. In early October they went to the doctor's office, first meeting his assistant (almost certainly Frank Angus) and then the 'kind and solicitous' doctor himself; through him put in an application for a pass.

The passes arrive today and each contains the information that the bearer is 'an enemy (but) of good behaviour and therefore permitted to go about on the streets'.

Source:

F. D. and H. F. Collier, Covered Up in Kowloon, 1947:

undelivered letter: 43

ration card: 44

Kempeitai: 47-49

Selwyn-Clarke: 67-70

Note:

The Colliers are eventually given permission to move to a flat in Homuntin. They are late to register their names with the Swiss Consul for the September 1943 Canadian repatriation, and told that there are no places for them. Nevertheless, after a chance meeting with an Austrian friend of the Colliers, the Consul decides to add them after all, and they duly sail home.

((I discovered that I had a forgotten transcription of a letter I wrote in October 1942 to an acquaintance, having left Stanley Internment Camp at the end of June. At the time of the writing I had very recently become 10 years old. DeKalb, Illinois was our town of residence for six months, then it was on to Omaha, Nebraska.

Having posted on the events earlier, it is interesting for me to now see some forgotten details, and an item or two that may have been remembered wrongly in 1942.

The mentioned Phillips House, not far off Nathan Road in Kowloon, was a hotel converted into a few offices and a number or flats rented by American Protestant missionary families. It was used by more than one denomination. The Zieglers were also there, though Laura and I do not recall seeing one another at that place.

According to my current recollection, the Adys did not stay overnight at the Church Guest House in Hong Kong, but went directly in the dark uphill on a slope to the building where we sheltered.

If it had been a "hostel" then I can not recall that definition now. It was in any event the home of an HKVDC officer who was away.

Regards, Don Ady))

__________________________________________________________

303 South 4th St.
DeKalb, Illinois

October 8th, 1942

Now I guess I'll start telling you about the siege. In Hong Kong it broke out on Monday and the fighting began about 8 AM. But hardly anybody knew it. I was going to school on a bus. And after we had gone a few blocks, the driver stopped to listen to something, then he went on and repeated it twice, but the second time somebody got up and jumped off the bus. And soon the rest followed. I was sort of scared, because I didn't know what on earth had happened. So I asked one of the schoolboys if he knew what had happened, and he said "the Japs have come!" (Although there were quite a lot of kids in their teens, I didn't know any. In fact I don't think I ever saw anybody I knew personally!) At the time we were living on which is located at the end of Blendheim Ave which is the little street which if you are looking across the street from the Phillips House is on the left side. And at the end is Minden Ave. And at the other end of it, on the same side as Phillips House. Upstairs in the right flat, and our address was No. 1. Minden Ave.

And now I guess I'll go back to the bus. Well, we happened to be just opposite the Majestic Theater, and I ran all the way home! Mom and Dad told me the boy must have been mistaken, because they thought it must be a practice air raid. But Mom was teaching on the Hong Kong side, and she couldn't get across on the Star Ferry because it wasn't running. About ten o'clock they started shelling, so we knew that the Japs had really come.

Tuesday we went out to see some of our friends in Kowloon Tong on a bus, but we walked back in spite of the air raid overhead. On the way home we passed an air raid siren that went off about the reached it. Ane we hadn't gone more than a few blocks, when some friendly people invited us inside until it was over. But once the planes started to fly away, and the all clear sounded, but no sooner had it sounded than the mean things turned around and flew back. But pretty soon the all clear sounded again and we went home.

Then we went through shot and shell until Thursday evening when we had just started to set the table for supper. When Mr. Pommerenke came over all excited saying that there was going to be a couple of barges, something of that sort, to evacuate a few people from Kowloon (Mr. Steiner had gotten the information) So I hurried up and drank my milk while Dad spent about two minutes throwing some various articles in a suitcase which was already mostly packed. While Mom talked to our servants because no Chinese were allowed to cross on the barg. And luckily we got across without interference from the Japs. (The barge we went in went to go about 6:30 PM and the other one went two or three hours later, but was machine gunned.)

That night we slept in the Church Guest House. But the next morning we moved to the Saint Paul's College Hostel, just up the hill form the Church Guest House.

We lived with the Shoops, the Rebers, the Pommerenkes, Avis Thompson, and several that you didn't know, which we didn't know before the war.

We had some close misses as far as shells and bombs are concerned, but the only casualties were a couple of scratches I received, when I was out picking up shrapnel in an areaway with the road up above. But not knowing there were any planes overhead I quite surprised to hear a plane diving quite close. So I dashed for a hallway because I was nearer to it than was to the door. But being used to planes diving just as and hearing heavy guns of some kind going off and thinking they were the bombs, I made a dash for the door, and the real bomb went off on the road just above, and a rain of glass fell on me (not mentioning some pieces of window frames although none hit me) and you should have seen me leap inside. And so we went through shot and shell, although Dad and Mr. Pommerenke probably got the worst of it because they worked up at the hospital filling sand bags, and wore A.R.P. helmets.

And I was glad I didn't have to go through any more fighting Christmas day because probably I had eaten something that upset me, and had a trifle of a fever. But almost everybody had bad digestion on account of the fighting.

January 5th the Japs posted notice in town that all enemy aliens were to register at the Murray Parade Grounds, but some people didn't think that there was any thing funny in the air and just went to see what they were supposed to do and got slapped into some of the Chinese hotels, with just what they had on for the internment. And their folks or friend that were living with them during the siege didn't know where they were unless they managed smuggling letters out most likely.

The internment in the hotels lasted from the 5th to the 22 of Jan and if we had stayed there all the time we probably would have been either dead or insane by the time repatriation came along. (We lived in the New Asian Hotel, which was the smallest and one of the best of the hotels, and was on the street and almost opposite the Sun Company.)

On the 22nd we were marched down the bund to a dock where we got on a launch and went to Stanley on it.

At first we were billeted with the Pommerenkes, and later the Lynns lived with us, so there were seven of us in the room.

The worst treatment we received from the Japanese was when the whole camp of about three thousand (these were about 2500 British, about 50 to 60 Dutch and about 350 Americans) and took us out to a big playing ground for several hours, while they searched for radios, firearms, ammunition, spy glasses, and etc., in our quarters.

I rather think that we weren't fed as well as self respecting dog, usually in many ways.

But I think I'll bring the letter to a close now and tell more about the internment in the next letter.

Donald W. Ady 

46 people accepted by Japs for Shanghai, date of sailing unknown.

Got 8Y for £1.