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

The flour ration is over, and Thomas Edgar and his fellow bakers make their last bread from flour - except for a Christmas and New Year loaf baked from four year old emergency supplies. From now on, there's even more rice in the internees' diet:

After flour finished in the Camp we made a substitute bread from rice flour (ground in the Camp on Stone Mills). Although not very good it was better than nothing at all.

Edgar also notes that meat deliveries come to an end at this time.

Note:

See also entry for June 16, 1945.

Under the headline BARBARIANS the (London) Daily Mirror publishes an account of Foreign Secretary Eden's January 28 speech on Japanese treatment of POWs and internees (page 5). Talking about Stanley, Shamshuipo and the other camps in the ‘northern’ area, Eden said:

The British Government is reasonably satisfied conditions generally in this area are tolerable, although as the Secretary for War has said on more than one occasion the scale on which food is provided is not adequate for long periods to maintain the health of the prisoners.

I should add that the conditions in Hong Kong appear to be growing worse.

The whole story would appear very bad indeed, but I have worse to come.

We have a growing list (?) of cases of brutal outrage on individuals or groups of individuals.

There’s also an account of the Lisbon Maru sinking that puts the casualties at 800.

Grim reading for friends and relatives.

Update: It's now known that Camidge and probably Leiper were arrested on February 6. I'll leave this entry here until I've established exact dates for the arrests of Foy and Cruickshank.

The final arrests in Stanley Camp (except for matters relating to the black market perhaps) are taking place about this time: exact dates are not currently known, but W. A. Cruickshank was arrested in early January and Gerald Leiper and R. A. Camidge and will be taken some time in the coming month. All three were employees of the Chartered Bank, and it's probable that Hugo Eric Foy of the HSBC was also arrested in this period.

All four men had been kept uninterned at the Sun Wah Hotel to assist in the liquidation of their banks. Foy had been active in raising illegal funds for relief work in Stanley and elsewhere, but the reason for his arrest is not known. It can't have been the same as the others, as they were taken for actions at the Chartered Bank: burning unissued notes during the hostilities to stop them falling into Japanese hands and the keeping of a secret set of accounts of their Bank's activities during the period of liquidation (which ended in the summer of 1943). 

Andrew Leiper describes the effect Cruickshank's arrest (using pseudonyms):

One afternoon early in January 1944 I returned to the bungalow ((E)) from a lecture on astronomy and was brought back to earth very suddenly when I was met at the door by 'Towkay' King ((of the HKSBC)) who tensely blurted out, without preamble, 'Andy, Okamura ((pseudonym for camp official)) has just called and has told me that Walker is under arrest...That night Walker's empty camp-bed stood like a silent threat, more especially to Clarkson ((Camidge)) and myself.

They were right to be worried:

About a month later Helen and I were eating the midday meal in our little room when there was a knock at the door. 'Oh, good,' I said to her, 'that's probably a bit extra on the ration.'

When I opened the door 'Towkay' King was indeed standing there, but there was no sign of the extra spoonful of stew I had been hoping for. Instead he signalled me to come outside.'Andy, Okamura is here and he wants Clarkson and you.'

With the numbing feeling that I was watching someone else acting a part, I told Helen. She rose immediately, picked up a small bundle and said, 'I've prayed that this would not happen. Here's the suit Wong ((a former servant)) gave you back, and some other clothes. I've had them ready.'

My only other recollection of that incident is kissing a sobbing wife goodbye and saying, 'Now don't worry, I'll be back soon.'

The three men are interrogated, tried, sentenced and sent to Stanley Prison. Cruickshank and Camidge get ten years, Leiper eight. They are moved in the last months of the war to Canton. All three survive, Camidge and Cruickshank only just..

Sources:

Walker/Cruickshank: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/stanley_camp/conversations/messages/1812

Description of the arrests: Gerald Leiper, A Yen for my Thoughts, 1983, 190-191

Sentences: Leiper, 205

Birth of Dennis Anthony Clarke to Goscomb Goddard Clarke and Mildred Clarke (née Liu).

The Clarkes' first son in camp, Anthony, had died after 12 days following a premature birth.

Mr Clarke attended the 2015 Stanley Camp Reunion orgainsed by Geoffrey Emerson.

Rudolf Zindel is back in Stanley - he wasn't allowed to visit in January, although he did manage to pay 'pocket allowances'. He interviews a number of internees and holds lengthy discussions with Franklin Gimson.

He reports to the Red Cross that conditions in the camp are unchanged from his previous visits, except that he found military guards for the first time. He notes that he's been told the flour ration has been replaced by an increase in the rice ration - which is also upgraded in quality, and that he hears favourable comments about the quantity of vegetables.

He also tells Geneva  that he paid 2249 British internees their monthly 'pocket allowance' and made his usual monthly grant of M. Y. 3,000 to the Camp Relief Fund. He notes the payment of pocket allowances to 16 American internees - 3 more than last time.

Source:

Zindel to the ICRC, General Letter No. 32/44, 28 March, 1944, Archives of the International Red Cross (Geneva)

Mrs. Doris Groves dies at the age of 27. She falls victim to a haemorrhage after giving birth to a premature baby, Arthur, who also dies.

She leaves a policeman husband and a young daughter, Joyce, in Camp.

Source:

Bernice Archer and Kent Federowich, The Women of Stanley: Internment 1942-1945, 388, 2006

Edward Reading dies at the age of 61 from angina.

Reginald Camidge and Andrew Leiper are arrested.

They are accused of burning banknotes to keep them out of Japanese hands during the hostilities and of keeping a secret set of accounts during the period - most of 1942 and until summer 1943 - they were kept out of Stanley to help in the liquidation of their bank. Both charges are true. Fellow banker William Cruickshank is  already in custody, probably on the same charges, Camidge and Cruickshank had been arrested and released in November 1943 but nothing is as yet known as to the charges at that time.

When he learns of the arrests, Franklin Gimson is worried they're the start of 'a new era of uncertainty'. John Stericker noted in March 1945 that not even the wives of Camidge and Cruickshank had been told the length of their sentences, 'much less the reason' for them.

Source:

Reading: Philip Cracknell at http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stanley-military-cemete…

March 1945: John Stericker, Captive Colony, Chapter X, p. 5.

Note:

Andrew Leiper's book A Yen For My Thoughts (1983) gives a vivid account of his experiences in Stanley Prison and later in Canton. However, partly to spare the feelings of those related to his colleagues and partly because of memory failures after over 35 years the details of the arrests are unclear. He leaves out the 1943 arreests, for example, so is completely taken by surprise by Cruickshank's arrest in early 1944. 

The Stanley Camp Log (Imperial War Museum) dates Camidge's arrest today but gives no date for Leiper's but Franklin Gimson's diary entry for today confirms he too was arrested.

For more information see here.

Birth of Eunice Jean Nance to Elizabeth and Ancil B. W. Nance.

Tha Nances were American missionaries who had declined repatriation to stay and help the British internees. Eunice was their second child born in camp.

Birth of Eunice Jean Nance:

Pregnant women were advised to start sleeping at the hospital when it got close to their due date. I took with me a stack of little garments to finish by hand. When I arrived at the hospital, my baby was born by four the next morning. It was February 9, 1944.

Our fourth child was named Eunice Jean Nance. “Eunice” was the name of Dr. Allister Loan’s fiancée back in New Zealand.

Source:

http://bethnance.com/

Note: Dr. Loan was a Presbyterian medical missionary and family friend.

Death of Master Mariner Edwin Starling, aged 45, from dysentery.

Source:

Philip Cracknell  at http://battleforhongkong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stanley-military-cemete…

Lane Crawford baker Serge Peacock (Bungalow D) is about to receive some bad news. Today the International Red Cross in Hong Kong receive a telegram from his mother through their Shanghai Delegation telling him that his father died on January 19.

Peacock was a naturalised Russian, who'd changed his name from Piankoff. The late Mr. Piankoff had worked alongside his son in the Lane Crawford Bakery on Stubbs Road during the hostilities, but had presumably remained uninterned as Russian or stateless and gone with his wife to Shanghai.

Mrs. Peacock also asks her son about 'Tkachenko' - but, as far as I know, no-one from that family was in Stanley.

Now that Stanley is under the control of the Japanese Military, it is no longer thought appropriate to have democratic mechanisms working in the camp - so the (third) British Community Council is abolished and holds it's final meeting this morning. According to Franklin Gimson, who rarely saw eye-to-eye with the B.C.C., the most noteworthy occurence is a 'long tirade' from L. R. Neilsen on the rations.

Source:

Gimson, Diary, Weston Library, Oxford, p. 53 (verso)

Note: Gimson soon starts recording B.C.C. meetings again - without any comment as to the reason for its re-appearance. I get the impression that it meets rather less often and that some of its power has been lost to a committee of the Chairmen of the elected Block representatives; but it seems that the Japanese went back on their decision to abolish it completely - unless the British revived it in an 'unofficial' capacity.

Franklin Gimson sees Lady Mary Grayburn in the afternoon and is pleased that she is now willing to 'reserve judgment' on 'many incidents' {presumably connected with the death of her husband} until after the war. She is, however, bitterly resentful that some internees believe that the uninterned bankers at the Sun Wah Hotel had lived a life of 'luxury and ease'.

Source:

Gimson Diary, Weston Library, Oxford, p. 53 (verso)

Note:

Lady Grayburn was right to be resentful. Physical conditions at the Sun Wah - where some bankers including her husband had lived with their families until the summer of 1943 - had been roughly comparable to those in Stanley, but in the early months the men were allowed to leave the hotel only to work and the women and children were confined there. The situation eased later, but conditions were just about tolerable rather than luxurious.

Frank 'One Arm' Sutton celebrates his sixtieth birthday.

He writes in his diary:

I am young no longer, ambition to take the world by storm has passed me and gone. I remember my many failures. I flee from life and do not pursue it, as formerly....Enthusiasm in starting each new job and brushing aside all obstacles is not wholehearted. What's the good? comes too easily to my mind.

Source:

Charles Drage, General of Fortune, 1973 ed., 259

Thomas Edgar sends a card to his parents in Windsor:

Dear Mother and All

We are still keeping very fit. Also getting enough food.

Weather has been ideal.

Best regards

Lena and Tom

'Stanley' is crossed out on the front of the card before 'Internment Camp' and 'Military' substituted.

This is the first of Edgar's letters and cards home to be written in pencil; the first was typed, those that followed written in ink. As time goes on, the objects that help the internees with their daily tasks are wearing out, although the Red Cross is doing its best to help with supplies.

'Also getting enough food' is obviously not true - in previous cards Edgar has tried to get his parents to stop sending parcels through the Red Cross as they were never delivered, and this is part of that campaign. He probably suspected, with some reason, that the food was going to the Japanese authorities, so his concern is understandable.

'Weather has been ideal' is also probably not true. We know from the Jones diary that the weather today is 'fine, colder, cloudy' and that it has been cold recently. Either Thomas likes colder weather or he's using up his 25 words with cheerful chit-chat certain to get past the censor - he wouldn't have been the only one to find it surprisingly hard to use his full quota, small as it was. To give any hint of the real conditions in Stanley would have dismayed relatives - even if such a card could somehow have got past the censor.

Source:

For a scan of this card and all the other cards Thomas Edgar sent from Stanley, see

https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/from-the-dark-worlds-…

A poster for the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream", performed today, tomorrow, and the day after. This copy provided by Barbara Anslow.

The poster reads:

A play call'd

A Midsommer Night's Dreame

As it hath been sundry times publickely acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his servants

Written by William Shakespeare

Produced by James Norman

Dances arranged by Carol Bateman

Music Arranged by Elizabeth Drown

Costumes: Christine Corra

Woodland Scenery: E.M.B. Dyson

Stage Manager: Jock Fraser

Lighting Direction: Reg Butler

In the Great Hall of Saint Stephen's upon February 24th (Ye Buff), 25th (Ye Pink), and 26th (Ye Blue)

At 5:45 PM very promptly.

Birth of Christine Stevens, to Mary Stevens and Ernest J. Stevens, a prison officer generally known as 'Steve'.

Birth of Barry Clarke Tanner to Anna Tanner and William Edward Barry Tanner, a health inspector.

Notice outside Kitchen:

This fish is unfit for human consumption. You eat at your own risk.

Wright-Nooth comments in his diary:

As far as I know, not one person refused it. The fish was fried and seemed to taste all right.

Sources:

Fish: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 124

In Shamshuipo telephone engineer Les Fisher hears from two friends:

I got a letter from Bert and Win Cox from Stanley. They are lucky, having an amah's room to themselves, and are also getting food from their garden like we are.

Source:

Les Fisher, I Will Remember, 1996, 109

Elizabeth Tai writes to Hilda Selwyn-Clarke in Bungalow D:

Dear Hilda,

You will be grieved to learn that Rose and Koh passed away December first. We are living at Kennedy Terrace, not so nice, but convenient for auntie who has to get up every morning at five and deliver her food by seven thirty. We think of you and Mary and love you.

Elizabeth Tai

Source:

Selwyn-Clarke Papers, Box 1, File 1, Item 71, Weston Library Oxford