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

Rudolf Zindel, the delegate of the Internantional Red Cross Committee, visits the camp. His report will note an 'increase of restrictions in the early part of 1944' and consequent evidence of avitaminosis (vitamin deficiency problems). Generally he considers the health of the children 'very good', that of the younger and middle-adults 'fair', but that of the old 'somewhat indifferent'. Education is compulsory and the delegate is trying to meet the need for textbooks.

The report's general conclusions when relayed to relatives in the UK though the Red Cross journal, will be, on the whole, reassuring:

The camp authorities are liberal in their treatment of the internees and encourage community work, particularly vegetable cultivation. There is still a need for supplementary food, proteins, fats and vitamins of group B. This need continues to receive the attention of the Hong Kong delegate of the International Red Cross Committee.

Zindel also visits Ma Tau-wai Camp in Kowloon, now led by Dr. Selwyn-Clarke. He considers this and Stanley to be the two sections of what is now the Military Internment Camp - this might well reflect the Japanese classification.

Sources:

Visit to Stanley: The Far East, June 1945, page 5

Ma-Tau-wai (which is called Natauchung): Extract from Revue International de Croix Rouge, 1945, 99-100, in Hong Kong Public Records Office, HKMS100-1-8

It's announced that Governor Isogai Rensuke will stand down. He leaves early in the New Year and is replaced by Lieutenant-General Tanaka Hisakazu.

In February 1945 Isogai's associate Colonel Noma, head of the Kempeitai, will follow Isogai to Japan, to be replaced by Lieutenant-Colonel Kanazawa Asao, who today finds assistant to the Chief of the Staff in the Governor's Office.

This change in personnel at the top probably stems from the fall of Isogai's patron, Premier Tojo Hideki, who lost power on July 18, 1944 as a result of the fall of Saipan to the Americans.

Source:

Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 2003, 210

Note: This source, which includes a reume of his army career, gives December 16 as the date of the end of Isogai's tenure:

http://www.generals.dk/general/Isogai/Rensuke/Japan.html

Thomas Edgar and the other bakers make a Christmas loaf from a four year old reserve of flour. The Camp has not tasted wheat bread since January 29, 1944 - all bread has been made out of rice since the flour issue stopped.

From its last remaining stocks the camp also gave each of us a small loaf of real bread. The flour was pre-war and decidely musty. Even the weevils in it had died of malnutrition, yet it tasted as good as rich plum-pudding. We realized again that the true Christmas is not a matter of commercial enterprise.

Sources:

Unpublished manuscript of We Baked Bread To Japanese Orders! viewable at

http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/thomas-edgar-some-documentation/

William Sewell, Strange Harmony, 1948, 158

Vincent Morrison one of the failed police escapers, marries Marie Francoise Theresa Barton, formerly a stenographer, but in camp one of the people who'd nursed him after his release from prison weighing 80 pounds and suffering from malnutrition.

It was the first wedding Edith Hamson and her family had attended in camp:

For several weeks before the big day, many people made contributions from their personal rations so Marie could have a reception, and those who could manage it even produced a wedding gift, It was a beautiful wedding. The chapel was decorated with wild flowers collected by the children.

Death of Master Mariner Joseph Stuart (or Stewart) Anderson. Captain Anderson was born on September 20, 1894. Before entering Stanley, he was held in the Kowloon Y.M.C.A. and the Tai Koon Hotel. 

Sources:

Wedding: Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 616; Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 241

Anderson: Imperial War Museum, Misc 932; http://www.hongkongwardiary.com/searchgarrison/nonuniformedcivilians.html

Note: see comment after tomorrow's entry for misdating.

Vincent Morrison and Marie Barton hold their delayed reception.

Note:

See Comment below.

Alumni of Stanley camp will always remember 1945 as the year they began to run down, finally, like clocks that have not been wound. Most of them slept a good deal and what weak emotion they felt was of an unpleasant kind.

Source:

Emily Hahn, Miss Jill, 1947, 264

Note:

This is a novel, but I suspect this gets close to the truth, for some internees at least.

Birth of Maureen Patricia Fox.

Her father John Fox has been giving his wife, Barbara, half his daily ration during her pregnancy. This will continue while she is feeding Maureen.

Source:

http://www.derryjournal.com/what-s-on/arts-culture/limavady-rotarian-ma…

Death of Olive Susanna Jeffrey, a 34 year old nurse.

Sources:

Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 2008, 188

The Cathay Lodge (Freemasonry) finally feels that it's safe to hold another meeting.

Source:

http://www2.gol.com/users/lodge1/history-e/papers/washizu.html

Note:

See also August 25, 1942 and June 4, 1943.

Bungalow F, the only one of the three Bungalows at the Stanley Village end of the Camp to have been in continuous use up to today, is closed because of the black market activities that took place over the fence close by:

The unfortunate males who had been residents of this Bungalow for so long, were forced to forego their comparative comfort and privacy, and move into the odd places which were available. It was impossible to find adequate accommodation for all of them, and the Mosque, formerly used by the Indian warders, was taken over.

Source:

John Stericker, Captive Colony, 1945, Chapter Xiii, page 3

Hong Kong University holds the second of two sets of Matriculation Examinations.

Among those who pass is health inspector Leslie Macey, who wasn't in Stanley when the first exams were held on May 5, 1943. Mr. Macey was one of the health workers who stayed uninterned to help Selwyn-Clarke carry out public health measures in town. Selwyn-Clarke and a number of others were arrested on suspicion of spying on May 2, 1943, and on May 5 those left from this group were waiting to be transferred to Stanley (see May 7, 1943).

According to University historian Peter Cunich, one of today's exams is held during an air raid.

A passage in today's talk by G. P. de Martin on 'Words' gives us another glimpse of intellectual life in the Camp:

I have been reading some Niet(z)sche lately and in one of his pungent passages he writes 'Insanity among individuals is rare but with parties and nations it is the rule.'

Sources:

Matriculation: Peter Cunich, A History of the University of Hong Kong, Volume 1, 2012,  409, 540.

Macey: http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/?s=macey

Talk: G. P. de Martin, Told in the Dark, undated but perhaps 1946, 35-36

Note:

For today's lecture see Barbara Anslow's diary entry.

Death of Harry William Page.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists him as 70 at time of death, Barbara Anslow's diary as 71. His wife, Lilian, had pre-deceased him. 

Before being sent to Stanley he was held at the Kowloon Hotel.

Sources:

http://www.hongkongwardiary.com/searchgarrison/nonuniformedcivilians.ht…

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3169577/PAGE,%20HARRY%20WILL…

American planes begin two days of intense bombing of Japanese shipping in Hong Kong. Lieutenant Commander Noriteru Yatsui, in a post-war debriefing, assesses today's raids from a Japanese perspective:

In preparation for the carrier air attack, by the 15th the convoy was disposed as follows: In HONGKONG Harbor, three large tankers moored to buoys in a small group south of HONGKONG Island and surrounded by nine escort vessels in a circle around the tankers. The tankers were moored in a position of a triangle, 300 meters on the side, and the escort vessels circle was about 300 meters outside the tankers. I was in the KANJU, flagship of the Seventh Escort Convoy, anchored in the eastern part of the circle. A fourth large tanker was moored east alongside dock of the ship-building yard at HONGKONG and was protected by two escorts off shore. The fifth tanker, which was the smallest, was moored at a KOWLOON dock approximately north of the main group of tankers and was unprotected. No air cover was available. All tankers were in water ballast hence there were no serious fires. Damage in the three or four attacks on 15 January was not serious. I estimate 4 or 5 planes were shot down. Thirty or forty casualties were suffered. There were no night attacks.

Source:

http://ww2db.com/doc.php?q=203

Note:

This source also includes details of the much more serious damage that will be inflicted tomorrow. As far as I know, the Lieutenant Commander is wrong about the number of American losses, but I'd welcome more knowledgeable comments.

A day of prolonged aerial bombardment, ending in tragedy.

The bombing begins at 8.30 a.m. and goes on for about 4 hours. Then it moves closer to Stanley. Mutal Fielder is walking back from a lecture with her Russian teacher 39 year old Government cadet,  Stephen Balfour; they are continuing the discussion of Pushkin:

The path forked and Stephen turned  to the right, walking towards Bungalow C, where he lived with a group of other internees, and I went to the left towards the Indian quarters. Suddenly there was the roar of aircraft and the sound of explosions as bombs were dropped.

Two American aircraft collide and one pilot parachutes out in full view of the internees. Three bombs drop on Stanley Prison from where a gun's been firing.

George Wright-Nooth:

A fourth bomb landed outside the prison walls. While all this was going on we had a magnificent view of the planes as they dived over. They carried one long bomb underneath.

A bomb hits Bungalow C between the main building and the garage and 14 people are killed. One man, Mr. C. T. Bailey, is talking to one of the victims but survives because he's protected by a pillar.

Edith Hamson:

Agonising screams penetrated the deep rumble of the continuing battle...Men from our bungalow {A} rushed outside in an attempt to save the injured, but they were forced back by gunfire.

Margaret Louisa ('Peggy') Davies, a 35 year old school teacher, lies dead, buried in the rubble with her left arm sticking out and gold wedding ring visible. It's looted, like much else from the Bungalow.

A Japanese guard arrives and makes all present stand in silence while he presents arms.

The other victims were:

Sidney Frank Bishop, aged 51 (Green Island Cement Company)

Oscar Eager, 57 (Hong Kong Land Investment)

Mrs A. T. Shields Guerin, 57 (homemaker)

Adam Morrison Holland, 53 (Public Works Department, Inspector)

Alexander H. Hyde Lay, 51, (merchant)

Elizabeth Fleming ('Betty') Hyde Lay, 51 (home  maker)

Mabel Searle, 40 (home maker)

Edward Valentine Searle, 53 (electrical engineer)

George Gordon Stopani-Thompson, 41 (electrical engineer)

George Willoughby, 46 (Watson's chemist)

Isabelle Johnson, 54

Albert James Dennis, 56 (Dodwell & Co.)

Sources:

Balfour: Derek Round, Barbed Wire Between Us, 2002, 152

Fighting, Davies: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 239-240

Hamson: Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 254

Names of Victims: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1942-1945, Appendix 111.

Note:

Accounts of this day differ in details; I've tried to put together a plausible composite.

In an article in the 2017 edition of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Steven K. Bailey argues that the bombing was not, as usually claimed, accidental, but a deliberate attempt to destroy what were believed to be Japanese installations. The pilots, he suggests, did not know the internment camp was where it was, and their mission reports indicate that they never realised they had dropped bombs on Allied civilians. Bailey makes a powerful case, but there is as yet no positive statement of pilot ignorance to clinch his hypothesis.

The 14 victims of yesterday's bombing are buried in a communal grave.

George Wright-Nooth is on the grave-digging party:

While we were digging news came that two more had died in hospital, so we had to lengthen the grave.

The remains are sewn up in rice sacks, as there are no coffins.

Source:

George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 241

There are two deaths in camp today:

Kathleen Louisa Martin, wife of the Rev. E. Martin, Warden and Chaplain of St. Stephen's College;

Charles Frederick Livesy. Livesey, a marine engineer, was born in Hong Kong in 1885 and had lived at different times in Erith, Kent, and Shanghai. He had a daughter Harriet who lived with him in Shanghai.

Source:

Livesey: http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/ancestors/thread/1326642

A Melbourne paper, The Argus, starts to publish a serialised and illustrated version of Gwen Priestwood's account of her escape. Through Japanese Barbed Wire is described as 'a Personal Account of an Amazing Journey to Chungking by an Englishwoman Who Escaped After the Fall of Hong Kong'. This initial installment takes up the first three pages of the supplementary 'Weekend Magazine'.

For her escape see the entry for March 18, 1942.

The Japanese Red Cross sends the International Committee of the Red Cross a telegram which gives us an idea of the set up in the camp medical facilities in early 1945:

Tweed Bay Hospital containing about seventy patients in six wards attended by ample medical staff and qualified nurses. Latter accommodated top floor hospital...TB Sanatorium in excellent location and presently accommodat(es) ten male and three female patients....

(spelling and punctuation normalised)

Source: Telegram 1673 in B G 17 07-069 Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva)

Journalist Eric MacNider writes in his diary that a woman has been brought before the camp tribunal for requesting a double-decker wooden bed, which she then chopped up to use for firewood.

Source:

Christina Twomey, Australia's Forgotten Prisoners, 2007, 72

There is a service at 9.45 a.m. to mark the third anniversary of the united Protestant celebrations (see Chronology, January 25, 1942).

Frank Short, Chairman Stanley Ministers and Clergy, has previously advertised the service by circulating  'A Message to all Christians in Stanley.' part of which reads:

Many people have had a clearer vision of God and of duty than was theirs before internment.....Many facing the future today are aware of little but the small things of life that will be possible once again. The old round and routine is to be resumed.

Now, unless life has come to mean more to us than it did prior to internment we have not 'redeemed our time,' we have wasted it. Each one must face for himself the question, 'After internment, what?'

God has nothing greater to give to man than the gift of life wih its truly amazing range of opportunity and of service...are you going to give yourself to the battle that will continue ceaselessly after the present battle is over, the achievement of the Kingdom of God upon earth?

Source:

David Faure, A Documentary History of Hong Kong: Society, 1997, Kindle Edition, Location 4752