Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp: View pages

The Hongkong News carries a grim headline:

Hong Kong Prisoners On Torpedoed Vessel

Nearly Half Of Total Lost Through Action Of American Submarine

The article claims that the more than 900 British POWs who survived expressed 'chagrin' that their comrades lives had been lost through the action of an Allied power and 'gratitude' to the Japanese authorities for their treatment.

In reality the submarine Grouper didn't know the Lisbon Maru was carrying prisoners because, contrary to international convention, it wasn't marked as such and the Japanese battened down the hatches and shot prisoners who broke out as the ship slowly sunk. Chinese fishermen saved about 200 men, some swum to safety, while the Japanese eventually rescued the rest.

Barbara Anslow's diary for October 8 shows that the internees had got news of the sinking before they read today's paper.

Emily Hahn notes the reaction of the Allied civilians in town:

Hong Kong when the news came to us was a pit of horrible misery and the Japanese rubbed it in cruelly in the paper

Source:

Pit of misery: Emily Hahn, China To Me, 1986 ed., 409

Note:

For the story of the Lisbon Maru, see the Chronology for September 25, September 27, October 1 and October 6.

Death of Mabel Evelyn Blair, aged 58.

She was the wife of K. Blair and the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. T. Walker of Sydney.

Source:

Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 271

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/92708028

Mr. V. C. Seymour of the Fire Brigade and Mrs K. Seymour have a girl, Maureen Kathleen Seymour..

Sources:

China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3

Stanley Roll

Two bankers, T. J. J. Fenwick and J. A. D. Morrison, make their first contacts with British Army Aid Group agent Lo Hung Sui ('No. 64') at the Sun Wah Hotel where the HKSBC staff are living. They meet again a few hours later at a restaurant in Des Voeux Road. Today has been chosen because it is a Japanese holiday. Tomorrow they will begin their escape.

Source:

Frank H. H. King, The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Volume 111, 1988, 617

The bankers T. J. J. Fenwick and J. A. D. Morrison begin their escape.

At 7.30 p.m. they leave the Sun Wah Hotel 'with a Hong Kong basket containing socks, shaving gear, a spare shirt and a quarter of a bottle of whisky and a bottle of Napoleon brandy'. At 7.45 they board a tram for Saukiwan, now accompanied by two Chinese agents of the BAAG. Opposite the Star Ferry a Japanese petty officer gets on.

Fenwick:

This bloke seemed to be staring at me all the time, you see, and I thought, oh, God, damned at the very beginning. But nothing happened he got off at some place around the naval yards and we went on.

At a signal from Agent Lo they alight from the tram, go down a narrow side-street and board a sampan. They lie down full length as they're conveyed past two Japanese destroyers. On the other side they're met by another BAAG agent. They cross the hills to Junk Bay and some marching and two more journeys by boat take them into the hands of communist guerrillas:

I cannot speak too highly of these guerillas. The care they took and their kindness will always be remembered by me with the deepest gratitude.

They arrive at BAAG advanced H.Q. at Waichow on October 22, and eventually reach Delhi, where they are thoroughly debriefed - one of the main purposes of the escape has been to pass on important information about financial developments since the surrender. One hundred and two days after they set out, they arrive in Britain.

Source:

Frank King, History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Volume 3, 618-621

Death of William Kershaw, aged 45. He was a medical storekeeper.

Sources:

Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 271

Tony Banham: http://www.hongkongwardiary.com/searchgarrison/nonuniformedcivilians.html#_Toc43367490

Death of Alfred Charles Septimus Pike, aged 59. He was married in 1918 and worked as a master mariner.

His widow, Sarah Ann,  was later to state he died of pneumonia, dysentery and beri-beri - adding 'from starvation' (underlined). She herself was treated for colitis and high blood pressure while in Stanley. In the 1950s she received grants from Australian funds set up to help former internees on account of heart and blood pressure problems and other health issues - her physician believed that internment was a factor.

Sources:

Date: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 271

All else: Australian National Archive 510

Note: for some reason the Hongkong News for October 26 has an advert recording Mr Pike's death on page 2. It says it took place on October 24.

The first  American air raid on Hong Kong and parts of it are seen by the internees.

Details of the raid:

CHINA AIR TASK FORCE (CATF): 12 B-25s and 7 P-40s, led by Colonel Merian Cooper, hit Kowloon Docks at Hong Kong; 21 aircraft intercept; 1 B-25 and 1P-40 are shot down; this marks the first loss of a CATF B-25 in combat; the Japanese interceptors are virtually annihilated; during the night of 25/26Oct 6 B-25s, on the first CATF night strike, continue pounding Hong Kong, bombing the North Point power plant which provides electricity for the shipyards; 3 other B-25s bomb the secondary target, the Canton warehouse area, causing several large explosions and fires.

M. L. Bevan reports 'great jubilation'.

Edith Hamson:

I was working in the garden...when a slick-looking American aeroplane with a deep-droning engine swooped low overhead. As I watched it pass, I jumped up and raised my arms high in the sky and cheered. Everyone around me was doing the same, the reaction spreading through the camp. Arthur appeared from nowhere, his excitement overflowing as he screamed out with delight.

The raid prompts Edith and Arthur Hamson to make plans for Christmas in liberated Hong Kong.

The raid highlights the difficult position of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke: a report from a local agent sent to the BAAG hints that he might have warned the Japanese that the planes were coming, while the Japanese themselves seem to hold him personally responsible for the attack and keep him prisoner in his office for a time. In fact, he's furious at the attempt to bomb the power station because of the effect this would have had on Stanley if it had succeeded.

Internee George W. Buchanan dies. He was held at the Mee Chow Hotel before being sent to Stanley. He'd been a consulting engineeer and marine surveyor before the war. His son, Robert, was killed in action on the first day of the hostilities. His daughter, Ina, returned to Hong Kong after the war and became private secretary to Governor Sir Alexander Grantham.

Dr. J. P. Fehily, formerly Senior Health Officer Hong Kong, and his wife, Lydia, also a doctor, leave Hong Kong for Free China via Macao and Kwang Chow Wan. Fehily was not interned as he was Irish, and Selwyn-Clarke told him to work with the Japanese, which he refused to do. He was warned by a Japanese friend that he was 'in their bad books' so planned to get away, first trying to leave as Medical Officer to the American repatriates and then through Russia. Their third attempt is successful and they arrive at Kweilin (Guilin) on November 24.

Sources:

Details of raid: http://www.pacificwrecks.com/60th/1942/10-42.html

Diary of M. L. Bevan: IWM, 523.1 (Bevan)

Edith Hamson: Allana Corbin, Prisoners Of The East, 2002, 187-188

Selwyn-Clarke prisoner: Emily Hahn, China To Me, 1986 ed., 382

Buchanan: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 271; Comendador Arthur E. Gomes, Newsletter, December 11, 2001

Fehily: BAAG document, December 18, 1942

Notes:

1. Lydia Fehily studied medicine in Vienna and Japan.

2. Brief footage of the preparations and the raid itself can be seen at

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675059555_B-24-aircraft_Japanese-headquarters_General-Chennault_briefing-pilots

And this clearer footage shown on British Pathe, January 14, 1943 is presumbaly the same raid:

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/u-s-activities-on-many-fronts-hong-kong/query/raids

The American bombing of Hong Kong continues.

Internee Captain George Andrew Burn, aged 65, formerly a Master Mariner with Harry Wicking and Co. Merchants and Agents, dies at the French Hospital.

The Times (London) carries an optimistic account of conditions in the Hong Kong camps based on the report of International Red Cross delegates Rudolf Zindel and Edward Egle - 'the general state of health of prisoners in Hong Kong is good'.

Sources:

Burn: Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 619

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSob=n&GScid=2179361&GRid=15293606&CScntry=173&

Times: Oliver Lindsay and John Harris, The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945, 2005, 179

Note:

Nevertheless Burn is on the BAAG list In St. Paul's French Hospital in late 1942.

Birth of Rosemary Virginia Mitchell. She's the first baby to be conceived as well as born in Stanley Camp, and her parents were probably the first couple to marry there.

The death from TB of ship's officer Thomas Abedneger (or Abednego) Nicholas, aged 48. He was held at the Kowloon Hotel before being sent to Stanley.

Source:

Birth: China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3

Death: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 2011, 186; Philip Cracknell at http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stanley-military-cemete…

The Maryknoll Fathers have been released from Stanley and are living in Bethany:

(Today) the Japanese government issued orders that all shortwave radio sets must be turned in to be sealed, after which they would be returned to their owners. At that time there was no radio at Bethany, but we listened to a neighbouring one, the owner of which kindly opening his door wide and turning up the radio strong. After the first we still heard the radio news but from other sources.

These 'other sources' might have been short-wave radios kept hidden, or radios that had been 'castrated' (the popular name for being 'sealed' to prevent reception of the BBC or American stations) but whose owners possessed a device for restoring full capacity. Almost everybody in occupied Hong Kong was desperate for accurate news of the war, and the operation of short-wave radios doesn't seem to have been a major issue for the authorities until June, 1944 when some people suffered dreadfully for forbidden listening.

Source:

The Maryknoll Diary, 'November' (1942)

FROM HONGKONG

Eight personal messages from Hongkong— the first to be received —have reached Britain, the Red Cross announced yesterday.

They came via Russia,Turkey and Geneva, were sent off on July 15.

Source:

Daily Express, November 3, 1942, page 4 

Two pieces of news involving the Red Cross today.

Extract from letter home:

...One cheering fact is that the International Red Cross is definitely established at Hong Kong. The man placed in charge I know very well and I have felt far happier and more encouraged ever since I learned of his appointment. He is a Swiss by the name of Zindel and was formerly connected with Arnhold and Company...

Matron Dyson realises that the families of the imprisoned nurses must be suffering great anxiety because they've had no news of them since some time before the surrender, so she writes to the Japanese authorities asking them to inform the International Red Cross of their whereabouts:

By courtesy of the Japanese authorities:

Since our arrival in Stanley on August 10th it is thought that the British Government have no information regarding our transfer to a Civilian Internment  Camp and owing to the recent incidents it is much feared that our relatives will be exceedingly anxious as to our safety and welfare presuming that we are still stationed in Hong Kong.

I respectfully request that in order to alleviate what must be great mental distress that a cable be sent to the Matron-in-Chief, the War Office, London, stating that all eighteen members of the Army, Navy and Canadian Nursing Services are safe and well in Stanley Camp.

Sources:

The Hong Kong Fellowship Newsletter, No. 2, June 1943, 8

Nicola Tyrer, Sisters in Arms, 2008, 66

All the internees are assembled and Yamashita reads out a list consisting of most of the men aged between 18 and 35: they are to sleep from now on in Stanley Prison as the Japanese believe there is a plan for a mass escape linked to the recently begun (October 25) American air raids. The system lasts about three weeks.

Source:

George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 115-116

Sir Vandeleur Grayburn (codename: Night) writes to Douglas Clague of the British Army Aid Group. He describes the situation in the wake of the Fenwick/Morrison escape - the Kempeitai want to intern all bankers, but the Foreign Affairs Office and the Finance Department oppose this, as they still need their help.

He reports that the younger men in Stanley will have to sleep in the prison, even though this was only announced in camp yesterday.

Source:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Letter_from_Grayburn_to_Clague.jpg

The ((Red Cross) parcels have been issued at last, and what a feast we have had. They were not very big, that is the individual ones, but contained just what we were in need of....Tea, sugar, bully beef, tinned stews, fruits etc. are among some of the items...Also, some clothes, khaki shirts, shorts, socks and underclothes have arrived which we are badly in need of.

Source:

Diary of F. H. J. Kelly

The men who have been sent to sleep in Stanley Prison (see November 6, 1942)  hold a service in memory of the dead of both wars. It's conducted by a medical missionary called Dr. Laurie.

The solemn atmosphere built up by the service is soon dispelled; at 8 p.m. a Chinese electrician who'd been mending lights discovered he'd been accidentally locked in, and for the next hour and a half he can be heard screaming and banging on the gates, while the internees jeer at him.

Source:

George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 118

Note:

This seems to contradict Barbara Anslow's and R. E. Jones''s diaries which both state that the men didn't have to sleep in the Prison on November 11. It's possible that Wright-Nooth misdated a ceremony he assumed would have taken place on that date. 

The men sleeping in Stanley Prison hold an impromptu concert. They enter the prison singing, led by an improvised band: a few men have real instruments (an accordion and a mouth organ), others use combs, while Sergeant Kinlock has turned his bedding into a drum.

A furious 'Japanese executioner' (probably Hirano) attacks the accordion player (Geoffrey Watson), who manages to avoid being harmed by his blows. The Japanese examine the accordion, perhaps believing it to be a bomb.

Source:

George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 119

Marine engineer Edward O' Brien marries Lucy Carmen Rozeskwy.

Source:

Greg Leck Captives of Empire, Stanley Camp Roll