Death of M. J. Flaherty of the Hong Kong Police from Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Source:
Barbara Anslow Diary entry June 22, 1944
George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 214-215.
Note:
Wright-Nooth, supported by Eric MacNider's diary, places the death on June 23. However, I have followed Barbara Redwood's dating, as she was working at Tweed Bay Hospital, and because R. E. Jones's diary tells us that Flaherty was buried on June 23, and, given the fuss about his coffin referred to by Barbara, it seems certain he died the day before.
Wright-Nooth tells us that Flaherty was unwilling to be buried in the usual Stanley way: wrapped in a sack and placed in a coffin with a re-usable sliding bottom to avoid wasting precious wood. His wife got L. R. Nielson to go round the camp buying up doors with money she'd made from the black market. He bought more doors than necessary and kept the surplus for firewood. A special coffin was made, Flaherty's stiffening body was forced into his best suit and placed in it for several hours for friends to pay their respects. All this seems to have been done during June 22, and the burial took place on the 23rd.
As doors were deemed communal property and not therefore sellable, Nielson appeared before a camp tribunal. I read about his case in HKRS163 1-303, and, because I didn't at that time understand the background, failed to make a note of the verdict. But I think he was acquitted.