Diary pages from this date

Large crowd of Shamshuipo folk have just come over by launch.

It is Tim Fortescue's birthday as well as Peggy's, she is 22.

We had raw meat issue - a colossal amount, some we fried.

Radio messages say that food and other supplies have been dropped on pow camps in Japan; the pilots report that some of the men were naked  ((they were probably wearing just fandushis)); it's said they are going to be taken by carrier plane to Okinawa first.

Tale that 10% of Shanghai internees have to be hospital cases.

Lord Louis Mountbatten's Order of the Day to troops who have just won back Burma is that they can't be demobilised as so much (territory) has to be occupied in the Pacific so that places can be cleared up for handing over to the civilians.

Bickley, the blind fellow the VADs (and Mabel) nursed at Military Hospital was brought over and came to visit us.

Spoke to a fellow from Middlesex Regiment who said that Winter was killed in the war. ((Can't remember Winter's Christian name: he was a member of the small literary group I joined in 1940, he was so interested in 'writing'))

Pam Pritchard has had a perm and is being married next week.

Mr Gimson is broadcasting Home tonight, and there are to be messages from Home to us.

Peggy and I played bridge with Dick and Philip in evening.

Franklin Gimson broadcasts from a restaurant with a link to the old Z.B.W. radio station on the top of the Gloucester Building

As the chief representative of the British Government now resident in Hong Kong, I have already established an office in the City of Victoria, with the concurrence of the Japanese, and have in preparation the essential steps towards resuming the British administration on the arrival - which I trust will not be much longer deferred - of the British Forces to take the surrender of the Colony.

Notice the careful wording: he is not claiming to have set up an administration, only to be 'in preparation' for one. Nevertheless, the broadcast as a whole, with its congratulations to the British crown on victory in the war and its survey of conditions in Hong Kong, manages to subtly convey British authority. The transmission is a triumph for Gimson's policy of staking a British claim to continued rule over Hong Kong without provoking the Japanese into handing over immediate power, which Gimson knew he was unable to exercise. In fact, no claim will be necessary: the Chinese, in the absence of whole-hearted American support, have reluctantly backed down, and Admiral Harcourt is not far from Hong Kong waters.

Source:

The text of Gimson's broadcast is in the South China Morning Post for September 1st, 1945; see also G. B. Endacott and Alan Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 1978, 230

Wedding - Bruce-Woolley (Dow)

Fine, hot, light SW wind.

G hat smerchen, zu viel essen. ((smerchen most likely is "schmerzen"=pain, so the entry is in English: G has [stomach] pain, has eaten too much.))

Fixed up & painted traffic signs.

Fan for G & V.

Ground coffee beans (3oz each issued)

P of W arrived by launch, other visitors as usual.

Starving villagers being fed from Camp. Coolies employed in kitchens & other jobs. 

On roof with G before & after flag-raising practice. ⨳ blut. [blood] Went down to I.Qs together for radio broadcast but no luck, weary & drawn bless her beautiful heart.