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

Death of Albert Victor Frain, aged 48. Mr. Frain was a marine engineer from Aberdeen, who left £1,230 (net) in his will -presumably to his wife Marguerite who lived in Aberdeen.

According to George Wright-Nooth, he had once been a seaman. He lost his mind - it is not known if before or after the start of the war - and was looked after in a small room of Tweed Bay Hospital by attendants, usually police, who were given two biscuits a day for the mental strain.

Sources:

Will: Aberdeen Journal, May 24, 1947, 6 and 24 January 1946, 3

George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads,1994, 213

Bombs fall on the camp again. There are injuries but no deaths.

Many decades later May (aka Mavis) Hamson, 8 years old in 1945, described the scene in Bungalow A:

The bomb exploded on impact. The bath was positioned against our adjoining wall, and the blast blew straight through the brickwork, showering debris everywhere. The shockwave tore Richard from Grannie's arms, picked him up in its wake and threw him straight out the door onto the ground outside. He just disappeared. I was stunned and disorientated, and apart from a high-pitched ringing in my ears, I could not hear anything. I was still clinging tightly to Leilah, but her body was limp. I looked up at her face and her eyes were open, but she looked like the dead people I had seen. I was crying hysterically and looked across to Grannie, who was covered in blood. The light faded and the ringing in my ears stopped. And that's the last I remembered.

Later I was told that Richard had found himself sitting on his behind in the garden some distance from the bungalow.

Another bomb falls through the roof of St Stephen's College. Noel Croucher was digesting lunch:

On July 25, 1945, a few minutes before noon, I was in my room with Professor Robertson, T. Ramsay, and Hampden Ross, resting after our midday meal of four ounces of rice and soya beans. I was reading a novel when I heard the sound of an approaching plane. Judging from the noise the plane was making, I would suggest that it had engine trouble. Ramsay stretched out to see the plane as it flew overhead. At the same time, I turned over in my bunk to catch a sight of the plane from the hut window. As I did so, the whole world seemed to split in two, and fragments of the roof crashed into the room which became a tangle of plaster work and dust.

The building was quickly evacuated. Croucher was left with an inured shoulder from the flying debris.

Sources:

Hamson: Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 263

Croucher: Vaudine England, The Quest of Noel Croucher, 1998, 149

Noel Croucher is defiant in the aftermath of yesterday's bombing:

The next day, Colonel Nomura ((see note)) ordered a few of us to parade, and he called me out, told me he wanted me to answer some questions, and warned me to speak the truth. He asked, 'Was that an American plane which dropped the bomb on your roof?' I answered 'No,' and he asked me why. I told him that it must have been a Japanese plane because the Japanese had vowed that no American bomber would ever reach Hong Kong.

Source:

Vaudine England, The Quest of Noel Croucher, 1998, 150

Note:

In George Wright-Nooth's telling of this story, the Japanese Colonel is Noma.

Noma Kennosuke was the head of the Kempeitai (Gendarmes) in Hong Kong until February 1945 when he was replaced by Kanazawa Asao - according to Philip Snow, Noma was 'recalled', which suggests he left Hong Kong.

Noel Croucher's still not playing ball. He's brought in for questioning again, this time with Franklin Gimson.  Croucher's asked once more about the bomb's origin, and claims he can't read the markings; he asks Nomura ((see note)) to lend him his. When he does, he inspects the markings and declares that 'it must have been captured from the Americans'.

At this point, Gimson interrupts and says, 'Of course it's an American bomb, Croucher.'

The two men are required to sign a document stating this. As they leave the office, Gimson says to Croucher, 'What's the use of annoying these people? You only make it bad for everyone.'

Source:

Vaudine England, The Quest of Noel Croucher, 1989, 150

Note: In yesterday's entry I pointed out that George Wright-Nooth tells this story with 'Noma' for 'Nomura', which is probaby wrong. Vaudine England says that the 'General' (yesterday Colonel) involved was nicknamed 'the Fat Pig' - that was one of the names given to Colonel Tokunaga, who was head of all camps in Hong Kong, and my guess is that he was the man involved.

The stories were originally recorded by Croucher for John Luff, whose The Hidden Years (221-222) offers no further clues.

Les Fisher in Shamshsuipo:

We are all feeling weak and 'gutsless' (sic). I cannot even show any interest in the fact that Labour has got in at the election and by an overwhelming majority. It would seem that something has taken place about which we know nothing, beats me. When the belly is empty concentration is not possible.

According to Royal Scots officer Drummond Hunter (who was sympathetic to the new government), the results were a major topic of conversation in Shamshuipo for a number of days, with even politically aware people like him unfamiliar with some of the new ministers.

Sources:

Fisher: Les Fisher, I Will Remember, 1998, 219-220

Hunter:  http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80018267 (Reel 9)

Note:

Barbara Anslow's diary for August 1 records knowledge of Labour's election victory circulating in Stanley 'these days'. R. E. Jones' diary notes 'Attlee Premier' on July 29.

Most British constituencies polled on July 5, but the results weren't declared until July 26 because so many of the voters were servicemen still overseas. So this news travelled into the camps quickly, perhaps through Chinese papers, as the Hong Kong News was no longer being sent in.

Jean Mather, in a semi-fictionalised source, claims that the news came to Stanley from the Japanese headquarters:

Towards the end of July came the stark and numbing notice from Up-The-Hill. It read, in effect, that the British people had turned their backs on their brilliant leader. Churchill had lost the election. He was OUT. There was an addition to the notice issued, which read 'that this was the greatest error amongst the many that the British people had made and would surely lead to the Allies being vanquished.'

Our committee knew the truth of this. The rest of us refused to accept it, believing it was just another piece of vile propaganda to drown our morale.

Twisting the Tail of the Dragon, 1994, 259-260

Agnes Hopwar dies aged 77 in Hong Kong.

Her daughter Florence and her granddaughter Bonnie were in Stanley's Block 4.

Source:

Peter Hall, In The Web (2012 ed.), 69

At about 8.15 a.m. (local time) the Enola Gay releases an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima.

The wife and step-daughter of interpreter Kiyoshi Watanabe are among the 70-80 thousand people who are killed by the explosion and subsequent fire storm.

Source:

Watanabe: Liam Nolan, Small Man of Nanataki, 1966, 154-155

In accordance with the Yalta agreement, the USSR declares war on Japan three months after the surrender of Germany. Offensive operations will begin at one minute past midnight.

The Hongkong News publishes a Tokyo syndicated report which announced the Vatican's condemnation of the atomic bomb.

A second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki.

Source:

John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 223.

Jean Gittins describes a tumultuous day;

On Friday 10th the authorities issued an order: every man with a technical qualification was to assemble at 2 p.m. with his family outside his block ready for immediate transfer...An atmosphere of doubt and excitement pervaded the camp. Engineers and technicians pulled their possessions from under their beds and threw them into whatever contaniers they could lay hands on. No matter how little they had entred the camp with, the 'treasures' they collected had outgrown the small cases many had brought. Pandemonium broke loose as people rushed around - there were debts to be collected, farewells to be made. The rest of the camp speculated wildly.

And historians have, as far as I know, not been able to do more than repeat or add to the speculations - it's never been established what was behind the transfer of the technicians. Were they to be used as hostages, sent to Japan to help keep things going there, or were they being kept out of play simply to spite the incoming Allies who would need them to get Hong Kong going again? Some of the technicians feared they were to be executed, and Franklin Gimson seems to hint at this when he writes that some people thought it was a 'special segregation of technicians who might be useful {to the Allies} in the reconstruction of Hong Kong'. Gimson also notes that some optimistic souls thought the techinicians might be on their way to repatriation, something that was virtually impossible at this stage of the war. Perhaps strangely, I've never seen it recorded that any of the internees allowed themselves one obvious thought: perhaps, having removed all those who might be useful to them, the Japanese were going to shoot everybody else.

In any case, two couples marry to stay together (and a third would have, if only their banns had been called).

Clifford Cecil Frederick Crofton, who worked for the Prison Post Office, marries Gertrude Tamara Jex, a stenographer with the HKVDC.VAD. Eric Humphreys, who'd earlier been out of Stanley living at the French Hospital, marries Sheila Bruce.

During the fighting Crofton had been with the Stanley Platoon (prison officers), which saw some of the fiercest fighting.

Sources:

Technicians: Jean Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 1982, 150; Gimson Diary, Weston House (Oxford)

Crofton Marriage: Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 622

Platoon: http://gwulo.com/node/12244

Patrick Cullinan of the Hong Kong Police Department marries Sheila Haynes of Perth.

Source:

 Sydney Morning Herald, June 2, 1947, page 5

Jean Gittins:

We had finished our last meal of the day on Tuesday, 14 August when someone started a rumour: a strange story of a terrible bomb, its flash 'brighter than a thousand suns', which had devastated Japan. Frank Fisher brought it to St. Stephen's. Frank was full of stories, and always insisted they were true, so we listened politely to what he had to say. It was told to us in confidence and we promised not to repeat it. But the rumour, darting here and there like a glow-worm, soon spread through the camp.

Back in London the Daily Mirror leads off a page eight story with a touch of humour:

Several hundred fully-trained uniformed Civil Servants - prepared for any emergency - are standing by in India awaiting the Jap surrender.

They are to move into the British territories under occupation and restore administration. But then a more serious note:

A special unit will be flown to Hong Kong where the plight of thousands of civilians is known to be desperate.

But the really significant developments are taking place in Tokyo against the background of continuing Russian advance through Manchuria and the war's biggest American air raid on Japan. On August 12 Emperor Hirohito had told other members of the Imperial family of his decision to surrender - with the proviso that the war would continue if the Allies refused to accept his own continued rule. Meetings of the War Cabinet yesterday and today eventually agree to accept the Emperor's decision. At about 11 p.m. today an Imperial Rescript announcing that Japan will accept the Potsdam Declaration of July 26 - in which the Allies set out their terms for bringing hostilities to a close - is transmitted to Berne and Stockholm to be sent on to Allied governments - in fact, most of the Japanese codes have been broken and Washington will learn about the surrender at about 3 a.m. tomorrow (August 15). Late this evening a recording is made of the Emperor reading the Rescript - it is to be broadcast on the radio tomorrow in order to bring the war irrevocably to an end. Up to 1000 military hardliners, who refuse to accept the surrender, enter the Imperial palace and spend much of the night trying to locate and destroy the recording. They fail to find it, and the attempted coup will be brought to an end tomorrow morning.

Sources:

Stanley: Jean Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 1982, 150

Events in Tokyo: Max Hastings, 2008, Nemesis, 554ff.

Olaf Pederson dies after a major operation for an illness caused by malnutrition. He's the only Norwegian to die in Stanley.

American planes attack Japanese patrol boats and the Japanese respond with 'fierce rifle fire' from the camp. It seems that yesterday morning's peace rumours were ungrounded. Tomorrow Franklin Gimson will go to Kadowaki to protest that the firing has put the internees in danger. Kadowaki blames the Americans for breaking international law, but Gimson gets the impression he's embarrassed by the affair.

Kiyoshi Watanabe, newly re-employed as an interpreter by the Japanese administration after being abused and dismissed by Colonel Tokunaga, already knows about the destruction of Hiroshima, where his wife Mitsuko and two children were living. Today he hears the Emperor's surrender broadcast on the radio, and weeps.

​The Emperor's speech is broadcast at noon Tokyo time and marks the end of WWII. Rebellious army officers had spent the night trying to find and destroy the recording to prevent the surrender. At a camp close to Nagasaki 16 American flyers are murdered by diehard elements and there are tense scenes all over the former Japanese empire - New Zealander James Bertram, one of the defenders of Hong Kong drafted to Japan, notes that 'For another forty eight hours it was touch and go around Tokyo, and on the night of the sixteenth a group of drunk NCOs will make an unsuccesful attempt to break into the barracks of Omori camp where the American B-29 crews were being held segregated.

Nevertheless, most members of the armed forces accept the Imperial Rescript and lay down their arms.

In the evening George Wright-Nooth hears rumours that the peace has been signed. It comes, by way of his fellow policeman Lance Searle, and because it's attributed to Father Bernard Meyer, who they regard as a rumour-monger, neither of them believe it. But later that night one of the guards, worried about his own fate, comes round and confirms the story.

 Sources:

Pederson:  J. Krogh-Moe, 'A Brief Report of Stanley Internment Camp From A Norwegian Point of View', in Hong Kong PRO, HKRS163 1-104  

Air raid: Gimson Diary, p. 168 (recto), Weston House (Oxford)

Watanabe: Liam Nolan, Small Man of Nanataki, 1966, 146

Bertram: James Bertram, Beneath the Shadow, 1947, 210

Wright-Nooth: George Wright- Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 244

Note:

According to John Luff (The Hidden Years, 1967, 224) Kiyoshi Watanabe took the news of the surrender to an unnamed camp. This isn't mentioned in Liam Nolan's biography, which moves straight to his internment alongside the other Japanese in Hong Kong.

Note: The June dating is a mistake, and I suspect the correct spelling is Olav Pedersen.

The Imperial Rescript bringing an end to the war is read outside the Hong Kong Hotel by a Japanese officer, first in Japanese and then in Chinese.

In Stanley nothing's official yet, but more and more internees believe that this time the rumours are true:

On Thursday, August 16, the Camp Council met in solemn assembly....While we argued, pondered and frowned, internees kept passing the window, holding up their thumbs and grinning. Prisoners in the gaol below us were dancing and waving. Even the harbingers of gloom conceded that something must have happened.

For some confirmation comes in an unexpected form:

(W)e were flabbergasted by a messenger charging through the corridors shouting 'The war's over: all go down for your Victory roll!'

Though convinced the whole thing was a joke, we hurried downstairs to investigate. A long queue had already formed, and a real toilet roll was being handed to each - the first ever during internment. Now we were ready to believe anything!

In Ma Tau-wai Camp the internees ask Dr. Selwyn-Clarke to take charge. He decides that the liberators should find the Union Jack flying 'in claim of status':

Arthur May produced a Union Jack which he had concealed, at considerable danger to himself, throughout the occupation. And Hilda, ((Selwyn-Clarke)) it was suggested, should have the honour of hoisting it on a long bamboo pole.

The moment the ceremony's over, the guards rush onto the scene and demand it be taken down. Selwyn-Clarke refuses to do so without a written order from the Japanese Military Governor.

Sources:

Rescript: G. B. Endacott and Alan Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 1978, 229

Meeting: John Stericker, A Tear For the Dragon, 1958, 208

Victory roll: Mabel Winifred Redwood, It Was Like This, 2001 184

May and flag: Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, Footprints, 1975, 96

Franklin Gimson issues a statement saying that Stanley's Commandant, Kadowaki, has told the guards to lay down their arms and to treat internees with the utmost civility. Gimson adds that he's taken over responsibility for camp discipline, and that the British police will henceforth resume some of their functions. Most of the guards leave for town.

There's a Thanksgiving Service and St. Stephen's Hall is filled to overflowing.

But Hong Kong is in the hands of looters, the food's running out, there are no Allied troops anywhere close by - and no-one is sure what the Japanese military will do next. These are frightening as well as joyous times for the internees.

Sources:

Gimson: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner Of The Turnip Heads, 1994, 245

Thanksgiving: Bill Ream, Too Hot For Comfort, 1988, 54

Note:

See also the entries for yesterday and tomorrow.

Paul Reveley - a world class radio engineer - has left Ma Tau-wai Camp to inspect the wireless station at Hung Hom. He tells Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke that he is able to arrange for messages to be transmitted beyond Hong Kong. The former Director of Medical Services begins a campaign to persuade Franklin Gimson to re-assert British authority over Hong Kong. He wants to thwart any Chinese attempt to take over Hong Kong with American backing, and perhaps even more urgently he wants to resume his old work and start to deal with the appalling health conditions he sees all around him. But Gimson is more cautious: his policy for the next five days will be to engage in talks with the Japanese, hopefully leading to a gradual resumption of British control - he is aware that the British are nowhere near able to maintain law and order, and he fears that if he pushes the Japanese too hard they will abdicate responsibility and chaos and mayhem will ensue. His advisors in camp are even more cautious: he wishes to take the oath as Officer of Administering the Government, making him the theoretical Governor of Hong Kong, but he's told that even going this far is too risky.

About 11 a.m. Leon Blumenthal arrives in Stanley on a motorcycle, accompanied by Greenwood and Brailsford ((Two of the technicans removed from Stanley and eventualy placed in Ma Tau-wai)) in a fire-engine with a Chinese driver. There's huge excitement in camp. Blumenthal tells people there's plenty of food in town.

A British plane does a victory roll over camp. Lieutenant Owens brings a pile of cards from Shamshuipo. A union jack is seen flying over St. Stephens. Eric MacNider sees stew ((probably rice congee)) in the dustbins - some people are now refusing to eat the old diet.

Sir Robert Kotewall tries to visit the camp but is stopped by gendarmes ((presumably the Japanese Kempeitai.))

There's a Union Jack hidden in the house of Arthur May's parents on Hong Kong Island. With the agreement of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, May slips out of Ma Tau-wai late last night or early this morning with his friend, the engineer J. C. Brown. They cross the harbour in a leaky boat, which nearly sinks half way over. They wake May's parents, retrieve the flag from the cushion where it's hidden and climb the Peak in the dark 'by unfrequented ways'. They create an impromptu flag pole with an abandoned plank, fix the flag to it and erect it ready for the dawn. Guards with fixed bayonets rush to the Peak and demand it be taken down. The flag remains until May has secured a promise from an officer that the Japanese won't sabotage public utlities before the arrival of British troops.

The flag was taken down at 1.30 p.m. It had flown for four and a half hours.

Donald Bowie, in charge of the hospital at the Central British School (formerly Bowen Road) receives a letter from Matron E. M. B. Dyson of Stanley's Tweed Bay Hospital saying that she wishes to bring her Queen Alexandra nurses to rejoin his staff - 'this gave us pleasure'. On August 22 Bowie completes arrangements for all the QA sisters to return. (See also entry for September 1, 1945.)

Sources:

Revely, Sewlyn-Clarke and Gimson: documents in the Selwyn-Clarke Papers, Weston Library, Oxford.

Blumenthal to Kotewall: MacNider Papers, 'Aug. 18, 1945'

May and flag: Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, Footprints, 1975, 97; Arthur May Papers, University of Hong Kong

Bowie and the QA sisters: Donald Bowie, Captive Surgeon in Hong Kong, 1975, 258-9

At Ma Tau-wai Camp Hilda Selwyn-Clarke raises a Union Jack provided by Arthur May. The Japanese guards tell Dr. Selwyn-Clarke to take it down, but he beats off their requests. The flag will fly until tomorrow when an order arrives from the Miitary Governor at 2 p.m.insisting that only the Japanese flag should be flown; in response Selwyn-Clarke keeps the Union Jack raised until dusk, explaining that this is the British custom. Then he reluctantly tells Arthur May to take it down.

Many Stanley internees are finding today a time of great joy and not a little pain.

Jean Gittins:

Sunday, 19 August, brought our first visitors from town. We had been told to expect them at around ten o'clock in the morning. Our police-officers donned what was left of their uniforms and erected a light barricade across the main road a short distance from the entrance to the camp. Internees decked themselves in their pre-war finery: suits and leather shoes for the men; women replaced their shorts and suntops with dresses - one or two even put on their hats.

The bus from town pulls up, and Gittins' sister Victoria and her husband M. K. Lo are among the first to approach:

Our visitors hesitated uncertainily at the sight of the barrier and smiled wanly at us through the lines of weary anxiety so clearly drawn across their faces. Their smiles broadened as we shouted a greeting, but the pallor of their complexion spoke more eloquently than words could have done. In a flash we saw how deeply they had suffered.

Jean Gittins is unable to contain her feelings. She slips under the barrier and embraces her sister and brother-in-law. She does not yet know her own husband has died in Japan.

In Canton Prison the European civilian and military prisoners are ordered out of their cells and addressed by a captain of the prison staff who tells them the war is over.

Sources:

Ma Tau-wai: Documents in the Selwyn-Clarke Papers (Oxford) and the Arthur May Papers (University of Hong Kong). In his autobiography Selwyn-Clarke claims the flag was flying on August 16th-17th, but documentary evidence persuades me that the later dates are more likely to be correct. This issue was first raised by Ronald Taylor in his indispensable The Arthur May Story.

Gittins: Jean Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 1982, 151-151

Canton Prison: Ralph Goodwin, Passport To Eternity, 1956, 75

Yesterday saw two busloads of civilian visitors from Hong Kong, and today brings new excitement: two buses full of former POWs from the Kowloon camps. As one wife who hadn't seen her husband since December 1941 writes in her diary, 'An absolutely wonderful day - in all respects'.

Sources:

POW Buses: Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1942-1945, 254

The internees are still confined to camp for their own safety, but Franklin Gimson leaves Stanley to discuss matters with Red Cross Delegate Rudolph Zindel in a chaotic and dangerous Hong Kong. It's a city with almost no electricity, in the grip of mass looting, while the only powerful armed force remains the Japanese military.

The last recorded birth in Stanley Camp: Mr and Mrs Cochrane have a daughter. ((Barbara Anslow's diary records this birth tomorrow.))

Conditions in Hong Kong are still primitive and dangerous, while the future is uncertain until the military arrive, but to a limited extent people are able to move around.

James O'Toole (Shamshuipo) visits friends in Stanley:

Trip to Stanley by launch 'Clara' across the harbour two trucks in very poor condition to Stanley. Alan ((Barwell)) just the same not changed in the least. Peggy Harrison also same. All look very fit especially the children & there is plenty of them. Couldn't see Joan Whiteley. Mrs. Gill lost her litle boy in the fresh water plunge on beach. A day is rather short to see and talk to everyone...Rosie Spry looks older but is well. Got home at 11.30 long day but enjoyable. Had a good swim at Tweed Bay.

Franklin Gimson takes eight civilians from Bowen Road to Stanley - 'and they were delighted to go'. 

Sources:

Birth: China Mail, September 15, 1945, 4

O' Toole: Diary of Staff-Sergeant James O'Toole:

http://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/James_OToole/html/dairy_1945.htm

Gimson: Donald C. Bowie, Captive Surgeon In Hong Kong, 1975, 259