Today's date is given by some sources for the arrest of Thomas Monaghan, Patrick Joy and Gerald Casey. See May 24, 1943 for an account of these arrests - I believe the weight of evdience suggests that was the correct date.
Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp: View pages
Dr. Harry Talbot, caught smuggling money into Stanley in early February but later released back into Camp, is re-arrested and sent to join Grayburn and Streatfield in Stanley Prison.
Source:
Frank H. H. King, The History of the Honkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Volume 111, 627
Dr Harry Talbot is re-arrested in Stanley for his role in trying to smuggle money into the camp.
Source:
M L. Bevan Diary, entry for April 29, 1943
Extract from a letter with today's date from Stanley Camp. The name of the sender is not given. [Later identified as R G Ward]
I have been head baker for about 800 people for just over a year. Our food is as what we can expect, and we collect it in billy-cans. We all received a fine food parcel from the Red Cross and also a sum of money, which went into food and clothes for us. We are extremely lucky to have a small room to ourselves. Camp work is done by those who are fit, that is cooking, sanitation and general.
A layout of things made in camp was held; some articles were vey well made - most of the tools had to be made first.
I miss my radio but we have a Hong Kong paper that gives us news of outside. Douglas gets soya milk from a baby clinic and Francis gets schooling; There are about a dozen doctors, hospital, dental clinic, cemetery and jail in camp and a Social Hall, so we want for little. We even get cigarettes issued for cash.
Source:
The Prisoner of War - Special Monthly Edition, April 1944
Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, who has remained uninterned to carry on his work as Medical Officer, is arrested early in the morning by the Kempeitai, who believe he is the head of British espionage in Hong Kong.
The arrest is the beginning of a long ordeal for Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, who, despite prolonged torture, refuses to incriminate himself or name a single one of the many associates in his real work, which is not spying but organising 'illegal' relief for the camps and the dependants of Volunteers left without any means of support in occupied Hong Kong.
The French Hospital is 'locked down' after his arrest and thoroughly searched for evidence of espionage. Dr. Frederick Bunje, a well-known Hong Kong physician, is taken into custody, probably at the same time as Selwyn-Clarke. Public Health official Alexander Christie Sinton is arrested about midday. Accounts of these events are understandably confused, and different sources list other arrests although none can be regarded as certain: Dr. Murdo Nicholson, Dr. Mackie (probably living in Robinson Rd. at the time) and Selwyn-Clarke's assistant Mr. Frank Angus. Anyone who is arrested, other than Selwyn-Clarke, Bunje and Sinton, is soon released.
A number of Selwyn-Clarke's Chinese or Eurasian colleagues and helpers are also held, for example, Dr. Arthur Woo, a radium expert, Helen Ho, organiser of much of the relief into Bowen Road Hospital and Constance Lam, whose persistence in sending him extra food while in prison will later be credited by Selwyn-Clarke with saving his life.
As May 2 comes to an end, most of those arrested are in the Kempeitai headquarters at the Supreme Court, their colleagues, friends and families at the French Hospital are in an agony of worry, and everyone is wondering who will be the next to be arrested.
All over town, in the bankers' hotel as well as in my house, in a hundred hovels and tenement rooms, were people holding their breath, terrified for Selwyn's safety and for their own.
Sources:
https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-french-hospital-a…
All over town: Emily Hahn, China To Me, 1986 ed., 405
For Hahn's account of Hilda Selwyn-Clarke's behaviour at this time see
https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/emily-hahn-as-source-…
Note: see entry for May 7. The fact that Angus, Nicholson and Mackie were sent to Stanley with those definitely not arrested casts a question mark over the BAAG reports that they were taken into custody.
There are more arrests in the wake of yesterday's taking of Selwyn-Clarke. Many of Selwyn-Clarke's Chinese and Eurasian associates are arrested around this time, but in most cases the exact details are not known.
The British citizens living at the French Hospital and not under arrest are summoned to the Foreign Affairs Department and told they are to enter Stanley on May 6. (They end up going on May 7.)
Sources:
Arrests: Ride Papers, NA, NA/343/1/72, sheet 4.
British citizens: Ride Papers, Waichow Intelligence Summary 30
(both kindly supplied by Elizabeth Ride)
Note:
For a discussion of these reports and their interpretation see
http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-french-hospital-arrests-a-synthesis-of-sources/
The Ride Papers are held at the Hong Kong Heritage Project:
https://www.hongkongheritage.org/html/eng/index.html
There's a St George's Day concert and God Save the King is played publicly for the first time in Stanley. The audience stands.
This is presumably with Japanese permission, as there are officials present.
Louis Hillesden Oatway dies at the French Hospital. The Hospital was locked down on May 2 and the food supply was disrupted in the wake of the arrests of that day, but as Mr. Oatway's died of cancer of the tongue this is unlikely to have been a significant contributory factor. He was born on March 11, 1893 and his home base was Plymouth in Devon. He was held in the Mee Chow Hotel before being sent to Stanley.
Sources:
Concert: Diary of F. H. J. Kelly, May 5, 1943
Oatway: Stanley Camp Log (Imperial War Museum); http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=15293829
In January 1943 the Senate of Hong Kong University had decided to hold matriculation examinations in approved subjects. These exams begin today.
Source:
Lindsay Ride, in Clifford Matthews and Oswald Cheung (eds.), Hong Kong University During The War Years: Dispersal and Renewal, 1998, 18.
Dorothy Lee is re-arrested and questioned about Selwyn-Clarke.
This time she is not mistreated, and is released on May 14.
Source:
China Mail, January 7, 1947, page 2.
Note: see also the entry for February 11, 1943
Note: for more information see
https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/the-reign-of-terror-3…
18 people (and one child and one baby), the main body of those living at the French Hospital, are sent into Stanley today, arriving at 2 p. m. They are assigned to Bungalow D. ((R. E. Jones records 5 more arriving on May 19.)).
The new arrivals include Hilda Selwyn-Clarke and her daughter Mary. They move into D6, a tiny amah's room, with their friend Margaret Watson, who's been in Stanley from the start (it was Watson who was Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke's main informant as to the needs of the Camp in its early period).
Thomas and Evelina Edgar are in Room D1. Thomas is able to take advantage of a scheme described by George Gerrard and immediately sends home a letter pre-dated to April 30 announcing his arrival in Camp - internees who do this will be allowed to send home another card at the end of May. It is the first time his parents, brothers and sisters have heard directly from him since the start of the war, as none of his previous cards arrived.
Another couple who take advantage of the pre-dating scheme is Mr. E. Gelling and his wife, who write to their daughter in Barrow-on-Furness:
Daddy is secretary in the Camp Hospital, is also a keen gardener, studying Chinese language and now has joined a mixed choir. I spend my time cooking, mending and doing other chores in the room where Camerons and two friends live. We keep fairly well but weights could be improved.
Mrs. Cameron passed away in March, after an operation. It was a terrific shock. Moira is well looked after by her Auntie and Daddy.
Love to all, Dearest love to you.
MUMMY AND DADDY
Of course, 'gardener' has a special meaning in Stanley Camp - a cultivator of a vegetable patch for extra food.
A third 'April 30' message goes back to Chesterfield in Derbyshire from Frederick Ivan Hall. It gives them an important update: they know he's engaged to Phyllis Bliss, the daughter of a retired army officer, who's he met in camp, but he now tells them they're married.
It will be the last message they receive ever from their son.
Note:
Gerrard describes the 'misdating' plan, which enables another letter to be sent out in late May, towards the end of his weekly 'retrospective' entry on May 8, which probably means it began to be put into effect May 6/7/8.
Sources:
https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/note-on-date-of-arriv…
Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, Footprints, 1975, 73, 92
Imperial War Museum, Private Papers Mrs. E. Gelling, Documents 9610
Hall: Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 14 September 1945, 5
Bird's Eye View:
Who Came In Today?
Ten names (marked *) are provided by an internee diary; the same diary lists those who came in on May 19 (see that day's entry). I've added the names of those recorded by the Red Cross delegate Rudolf Zindel and conveyed to Geneva on May 10.
Most of these people went to live in Bungalow 'D'; I've recorded the room number where I know it (thanks to Philip Cracknell.)
Hilda Selwyn-Clarke* (D6)
Mary Selwyn-Clarke (D6)
Thomas Edgar (D1)
Evelina Edgar (D1)
Serge Peacock (D9)
John Fox (D1)
Barbara Bridget Fox (D1)
Leslie William Robert Macey* (D3)
Molly Churn* (later Mrs. Mackie)
Dr. Philip Francis Shelsey Court*
The Red Cross document describes John Fox as 'Assistant Malariologist', so presumably he was helping Dr. Mackie. Edward Kerrison is described as 'Officer in charge of Sea Transport' - probably because he had been forced to help collect the corpses of those the Japanese packed on to boats and murdered.
This makes twenty people, not the 18 given in the diaries: but that's easily explained by the assumption that people = adults!
Death of Elizabeth Agnes Humphreys, aged 54.
Before the war she'd lived in Chatham Path (May Road). Her husband was Alfred David Humphreys.
Ronald Charles Fitzgerald, a Prison Officer, marries Irene Elizabeth Hicks, a stenographer.
Sources:
Humphreys: http://www.roll-of-honour.org.uk/civilians/html/h_database_64.htm
Fitzgerald: Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 626
The International Red Cross Delegate in Hong Kong visited Stanley Camp on 13 May 1943. He reports the opening of the bathing beach with large attendances. He further reports that the composition of rations has recently improved. The authorities are giving sympathetic consideration to this problem and there is, therefore, no immediate cause for anxiety.
Source:
The Prisoner of War, July 1943
Jacobus Van der Laan, a Dutch banker living at the Sun Wah Hotel, sends a message to his parents-in-law (who are looking after his young daughter):
Since September 1941 no news telegraphed different times. Hope you can manage otherwise apply Headoffice. We both good health no reply Sourabaya.
lovekisses
(punctuation and spacing sic; Van der Laan had been trying unsuccessfully to contact relatives in another camp, Soerabaja)
Source:
David Tett, Captives in Cathay, 2007, 318
Lady Mary Grayburn, Mr. and Mrs Compton, Mrs Eva Pearce, Mrs Eileen Hyde and her son Michael (4) are sent to Stanley from the Sun Wah or the French Hospital. They are all billetted in Bungalow D.
Source:
David Tett, Captives of Cathay, 2007, 297
Note:
According to Emily Hahn (China To Me, 1986 ed., 390) this was a voluntary move consequent on her husband's arrest:
Lady Grayburn went out at once to Stanley, at her own request. From there she pelted the Foreign Affairs people with letters, her own and the Colonial Secretary's.
However, Sir Vandeleur was arrested on March 17 (see that day's entry) and the two month gap casts doubt on Hahn's account, although I don't doubt the frequent letters (the Colonial Secretary was Franklin Gimson).
The banker D. C. Edmondston is arrested, probably because of his contacts with Consul Reeves in Macao.
The Gendarmes go to Wah Yan College and at about 6.30 a.m. arrest Canadian (claiming Irish nationality) Thomas Monaghan for his role in organising escapes.
Jesuit Father Bourke is in the Wah Yan College chapel during morning prayers when he sees six Gendarmes, looking 'tense and grim' arrive. One is left on guard while the others go upstairs. Half an hour later Bourke watches Mongahan being led to the prison van - he smiles as he passes, and that's the last Bourke will ever see of him.
Then two of the Jesuits themselves - Father Patrick Joy and Father Gerard Casey - are taken a little later on less serious charges.
Mr. Hattori, Chief of Foreign Affairs, visits Stanley and says that repatriation of women, children and the sick will take place in the summer.
Source
Edmondston: Affidavit of Kathleen Helen Edmondston, reported in the China Mail, April 9, 1947, page 2
Wah Yan arrests: Hong Kong Public Records Office, HKMS100-1-6, 'Steering Neutral In Troubled Waters', typescript by Father Bourke
Hattori: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 68.
Note: Bourke gives April 24 as the day of the arrests. However, after studying sources in the National Archive of Canada I believe that the correct date is today and that the three were arrested, like Edmondston, because of their contacts with the British Embasy in Macao.
The Canberra Times picks up a report on conditions in Stanley:
Conditions In War Prison Camp At Hongkong
LONDON, Monday.
The "Daily Mail'' has published details of the Stanley prison camp, Hongkong, which were given by Sir Arthur Blackburn, the former British Counsellor at Chungking, who has been repatriated.
Stanley camp contains 3,000 prisoners, including 2,600 British. The rest are American and Dutch. It has its own court. Sir Athol((l)) MacGregor, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who was among the leading officials in Hongkong interned, presides over the High Court. He hears civil cases and has made a decree nisi in divorce proceedings.
Magistrates preside over the camp police courts, which pass sentences for theft. The clergy hold services and solemnise weddings. There is a school and a hospital, and cooking teams provide hot meals twice a day.
Labour parties do wood-cutting, building, scavenging and road repairs and distribute food.
Over-crowding and shortage of food were the first big problems. Nine persons, including Sir Athol(l) MacGregor and his wife, shared one large room. Food rations were increased to seven ounces of rice, seven ounces of bread and a few ounces of meat a day. Sugar allowance was one and a half ounces a week.
Whenever Japanese officers visited the camp the internees were expected to bow. There had been several cases of men and women having their faces slapped because their attitude was considered disrespectful.
//
Police officer Harold Matches writes home:
Dear Dad,
Mail is coming into Camp every day but I have not received any. How are you keeping? You and mother are always in my thoughts...I am keeping very fit and doing a lot of swimming.
Thomas Edgar has been a little luckier:
Dear Mum and All,
Was very worried about you all as I had not heard from anybody for two years until your letter dated October just received. So glad to know everybody alright. Lena and I are keeping very fit. Hoping to see you all soon.
Lady Mary Grayburn, recently arrived in camp from the Sun Wah Hotel, has also had long-awaited news. She writes to her step-daughter:
Elizabeth darling,
So glad to hear from you this week first time since October 1941. Been here since May 19. So far all fairly well. Have had news of you through others...Long for all family news...
Police Officer Charles Leslie Smith's card will arrive at Christmas and provide his parents with the first proof that he's still alive. And he passes on good news for another family - 'Tom Hemsley is o.k.'
In town the Kempeitai 'strike back' against the resistance continues.
David Loie (Loie Fook Wing), the British Army Aid Group's leading agent in Hong Kong, is arrested. As the gendarmes are taking him to be tortured, he jumps to his death from the balcony of their headquarters in the Supreme Court building, thus avoiding the possibility of betraying his fellow agents.
Loie, a former officer of the Police Reserve, was posthumously awarded the King's Colonial Police Medal for gallantry.
Sources:
Matches: Full text of card and much other material from the Matches archive viewable at: http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.hk/2013/11/harold-thomas-matches-police-officer-in.htmhttp://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/from-the-dark-worlds-fire-thomass-cards-from-stanley-camp/l
Grayburn: David Tett, Captives in Cathay, 2007, 297
Smith: Kent and Sussex Courier, 31 December 1943, 5
Loie: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 145, 152; Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 2003, 186
Note:
Diarist George Gerrard tells us that towards the end of the first week in May the Japanese authorities allowed the internees to send home a card pre-dated April 30. They would then be allowed to send a second card in late May. The Edgar and Grayburn card are simply dated 'May' but the Matches card has 'May 31' which I've taken as the real or notional date for all of them.
Robert John Minnitt, third assistant colonial secretary with the Hong Kong Colonial Secretariat, marries Peggy Christine Sharp, a stenographer.
Source:
Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 639
Captain William Roy Worrall, a master mariner, marries Mrs. Raquel Bonner. The bride, whose husband was killed during the hostilities, has two children also in Camp.
Source:
Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 618
Franklin Gimson confides to his diary that the camp 'abounds with rumours on the question of repatriation'. Many of them are said to emanate from Japanese headquarters and seem to him have the 'marks of veracity' - although he will soon find they are all false. But he's worried about the apparent leakage of information, especially because there are known to be internees who will pass on information to the Japanese.
In the morning he has a long interview with Hilda Selwyn-Clarke who seems glad to receive his assurance that he had always greed with her husband - now a prisoner - that he should never take part in political activities but confine himself to humanitarian relief work. But he feels that his statement is of little value, and that some of his friends had been less discreet in advising the former Director of Medical Services.
Source:
Franklin Gimson Diary, p. 12 (recto), Weston Library, Oxford