Rainy again.
Dr Valentine was pleased with plays.
Mum sold Olive's grey coat for 300 Yen to Betty Twidale.
Mr Sandbach gave end of Yunnan talk in evening.
Catholic Action meeting in afternoon.
Jane/Jean Lyon married to F. S. Chisholm.
We opened last tin of bully.
The dreaded Colonel Noma, head of the Kempeitai (Gendarmes) since the start of the occupation, is recalled to Japan. This seems to have been partly in consequence of the removal from the Governorship of Rensuke Isogai, his patron, partly of disquiet amongst the Japanese authorities at the power and ferocity of the Hong Kong Kempeitai - it seems that his removal was ordered by the Japanese War Office, and that during February 1945 about 150 of the Hong Kong Kempeitai were replaced by personnel moved from Canton.
His replacement, Colonel Kanazawa Asao, is also Commiossioner of Police.
Noma will be brought back from Japan after the war, tried for war crimes, and executed at Stanley Prison. Asoa was also sentenced to death, but the Judge Advocate, on reviewing the case, was unhappy with one of the charges on which he'd been found guilty and recommended a commutation. Nevertheless, he was hung at Stanley Prison in 1948.
Sources:
Date: South China Morning, October 25, 1945, page 2 (I've assumed that the date given here, February 26, is correct but that the year, 1944, is a slip)
War Office: Hong Kong Sunday Herald, December 29, 1946, page 2
150 replacements, Kanazawa: Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 2003, 210-211
Asao: http://hkwctc.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/hkwctc/documents/item/78
Wedding – Francis Sidney Bertram Chisholm, HKFB and Agnes Jan Lyon (at I.H.O., Dow)
For the last month or six weeks an epidemic of a mild kind of chicken-pox has been doing its rounds. Yesterday Yvonne succumbed! She had been feeling a little shivery the day before and when, next morning, she went to the bathroom to wash, she found her chest covered with spots. Dr Smalley soon confirmed our amateur diagnosis. There is nothing we can do about it: I still continue to sleep in the same double bed and the other four, of course, still continue to live in the same room. Dr S has told Y that she can get up and about as soon as she feels like it, for he says, everyone in the camp must have come into contact with the germs by now in one way or another and as there is no chance of isolation here and as the nature of this particular brand of germ is very mild there is no point in sticking in one room all day – the rest of us are carrying the germs all over the place anyway!
Last night, which was a bit finer than most nights of late, I was awakened by heavy machine gun or small canon fire from a plane that was buzzing about. Harold, who is sleeping on the balcony, gave a running commentary and said the plane was firing at something on the small island of Po Toi for it was using tracer shells or bullets which he could see quite clearly. This firing went on and on – I thought for about 20 minutes, but I must have gone to sleep again in the middle of it for Elsie said it continued for about an hour. At all events, I was quite amazed that one plane carried so much ammunition as that. It dropped no bombs, which seemed strange and there appeared to be no retaliatory fire from the small island.
Overcast, drizzly, colder.
Aimless day, nothing accomplished.
Brightened up aft.
Steve having trouble with Joan re Y600. ((Not sure which Joan he is referring to.))
Japs doing lots of blasting locally.
Lorry with veg 6.30pm. No papers.
Jap planes around pm.
¼ lb Bran issued free.