A day of bright sunshine. Many of the HKVDC leave their offices to take part in weekend exercises.
Crowds flock to Happy Valley for the races.
Barbara Redwood is taken to the cinema to see 'My Life With Caroline' by her boyfriend Arthur Alsey a bandsman with the Royal Scots who has a day's leave. They watch a newsreel with comforting images of US planes 'in formidable formation'.
In the evening a Grand Fancy Dress Ball organised by the Hong Kong Chinese Women's Club is held at the Peninsula Hotel. At about noon, as the guests are enjoying a performance of Chinese singing and dancing featuring Mabel Yen, the music suddenly stops and American businessman T. B. Wilson appears on a balcony above the dance floor with a megaphone and announces that all men connected with ships in the harbour must report for duty at once.
Sources:
HKVDC: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 14
Ball: LOOKING AHEAD, South China Morning Post, 12 Nov 1941, p. 5.; Gwen Priesthood, Through Japanese Barbed Wire, pp. 7-8.
Races, Cinema: Mabel Winifred Redwood, It Was Like This..., 2001, 68-69