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06 Dec 1943, Eric MacNider's wartime diary

B.O.

6 Dec 1943, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

The Ottawa Evening Citizen publishes (page 3) an article on three employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company repatriated on the Gripsholm. One Basil G. Ryan, has been interned in the Phillipines, while the other two - George E. Costello and Charles W. Skeet - were at Stanley.

Costello (formerly CPR general passenger agent for the Orient) and Skeet (an accountant) tell the reporter that the food they relished most in their first meal on the Gripsholm was simple bread and butter. Skeet shows the reporter a blue granite mug and says that he used to put an entire meal into it - 'cooked rice, a ladle of soup, spinach water, a piece of water buffalo meat that was very tough and which measured one and a half by two inches and a small piece of fish'.

They reveal an aspect of life at Stanley that's not well documented elsewhere:

Busloads of Jap sailors were brought once to Stanley Camp...to walk through and soldiers used to cycle out to watch the internees.

They discuss a number of aspects of camp life, including the way in which the Japanese managed news of the war, and they mention a 'general demonstration' when the Hong Kong News announced Mussolini's resignation.

Costello became custodian of the camp library (most of which came from the former American Club) after 'the last American had been repatriated'. All three men agree that books made life tolerable for all.

The article ends by mentioning other CPR employees still in Hong Kong; Dave Drummond, Oriental manager, and his family and L. E. N. Ryan, Hong Kong agent.

Notes:

It is not clear from the article if Basil G. Ryan and his wife, a former American newspaperwoman, were in Hong Kong until early January 1942 or were always in the Phillipines.

After the war, Mr. Costello also gave news of CPR manager and BAAG agent Thomas Monaghan (executed on October 29, 1943) to the Canadian press:

https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/thomas-christopher-mo…

(Appendix 2)

6 Dec 1943, R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Fine, cold.

Repat. Comm. having meetings but no news yet.

Black-out. 

With Steve pm.