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

The Highland Monarch sails carrying 450 internees and 350 Indian POWs.

Among them is journalist Eric Macnider. He takes with him one of the most substantional collections of camp memorabilia known to me. As well as a diary, it contains lists of rumours, accounts of camp 'trials', daily menus, details of rations, copies of notices, statistics copied from the Hong Kong News....At some point the collection will be deposited in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

Sources:

China Mail, October 5, 1945, page 2

MacNider: MacNider Papers, unheaded sheet

A letter on page 2 of the China Mail refers to the 'frayed state of the nerves of the majority of bona-fide residents and hard-worked officials' and calls for forbearance, kindness and consideration.

They need it because they've hardly had time to recover from the rigours of the occupation and the situation is still very difficult:

The Japanese left no appreciable stocks of...food. Peanut oil, fish, beef, vegetables, sugar and salt are in seriously short supply....As to firewood, Hong Kong is iving off floors and doors.

Source:

HKRS 41/1/547/7410/45 'Food and Fuel Position', October 1945,cited in William Roger Louis, End of British Imperialism, 2006, 347

In town there's a day of celebrations, starting with a Victory Parade - Admiral Harcourt takes the salute from a dais outside the Des Voeux Road entrance of the HKSBC - followed by a Chinese parade, a band concert on the pitch of the Hong Kong Cricket  Club and an evening dispaly of searchlights and fireworks. At the close of the day Harcourt makes a radio broacast admitting material shortages and a legacy of 'hatred, bitterness and tragic sorrow'  to be overcome, but calling on hard-work, inititiative and kindness to transform the life of the Colony

Tweed Bay Hospital, 'scene of many medical miracles', is shut down. Patients are transferred to Queen Mary Hospital.

There are now about 150 people left in what was once Stanley Camp, awaiting transfer to Rosary Hill, and led by the Rev. J. E. Sandbach and his right-hand man 'Skip' Taylor. There are regular bus services to town, a reliable electricity supply, and plenty of food's available - milk, eggs, meat and tinned goods. The 'gardens' are still as they were when news of the surrender was received, and are occasionally used for potatoes to supplement the diet.

Sources:

Parade: China Mail, October 10, 1945, page 2

Speech: China Mail, October 10, 1945, page 1

Tweed Bay: China Mail, October 11, 1945, page 2

Dr. Selwyn-Clarke is about to embark for a lengthy and much needed period of recuperation leave, but he's finding time to write to those who've helped him. Today he sends his thanks to J. I. Barnes:

...I attribute in no little measure, the smoothness with which the medical defence scheme for the colony was brought into operation to the pains which you had taken in working out administrative details. During hostilities, I felt that I could rely on you absolutely to ensure the continuance as far as possible of departmental routine and of the additional intelligence work.

He also thanks Barnes for his work during the re-occupation, which has included going with the colony's 'only qualified pharmacist' (perhaps Arthur Rowan) to dispose of mysterious stores of abandoned chemicals, some of them poisonous.

But, in a very different development, two doctors are settling scores from the occupation. Gustav and Helen Canaval produce and circulate a document with today's date providing a detailed critique of the way Rudolf Zindel ran Rosary Hill Red Cross Home. They accuse Zindel of wastefulness, failure to control the residents and of setting up an Administrative Council that did little more than provide jobs for his fellow Swiss. Zindel will claim the report is full of half truths and direct mis-statements - while accepting that his  stewardship was open to criticism at some points - but the 'Report' harms the Red Cross whose actions during the war have already become controversial.

Source:

Barnes: J. L. Barnes, Hong Kong World War Two and Other Stories, 2005, 44, 43 (Imperial War Museum)

It's reported on page one of the China Mail that Father Bernard Meyer has opened a club for servicemen on the fourth floor of the King’s building,  next door to the Australian Red Cross, and almost opposite the ferry. Tea, cakes, eggs, fish, steak, chips are all available at reasonable prices.

An article on page 2 of today's South China Morning Post claims to be breaking 'the silence that has almost automatically been kept' about the trials and executions of Allied citizens, both civilian and military, during the 'dark days' of the occupation.

It's not all accurate, but there are a number of interesting points:

• the claim that messages smuggled out of the camps went to 'a central distributing organisation in the city' run by David Loie;
   
• the claim that the Japanese probably got their first inkling of the resistance organisation through the detection of a message carried by an Indian woman to Captain Ansari ((See Henry Ching's diary for April 21, 1943. ))
   
• the claim that some inernees in Bungalow 'C' saw something of the executions, or at least the preparations for them, on October 29, 1943, but didnt fully understand the significance of what they saw;
   
• the claim that the wife of Colonel Newnham (executed December 18, 1943) was in Stanley Camp and was never told anything of what was happening to her husband;
   
• the claim, based on statements by Indian warders, that 400 prisoners died of starvation or malnutrition at Stanley Prison in the first year of the war.

Note: 

In 1918 Lanceray Newnham married Edith Phyllis Henderson. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Newnham)

I can find no trace of her in the Provisional Lists drawn up in early 1942, but these aren't complete.

Update: in an email of March 17, 2015, Marion Hebblethwaite, author of a series of books on the recipients of the George Cross, kindly confirmed that Mrs. Newnham was in Stanley.

In an article noting Charles Boxer's departure for New York, which took place yesterday, the China Mail (page 2) refers to Emily Hahn's 'now sensational China To Me'. The same paper on September 20 mentioned her only as the author of a book on the Soong sisters, so her memoir must have arrived in Hong Kong some time between that date and yesterday (or probably a little earlier unless there are some very quick readers in the Colony).

The book contains frank portraits of her friends Selwyn and Hilda Selwyn-Clarke and other Hong Kong notables. Boxer himself is enigmatic about his future wife's memoir, saying that 'it opened a new line in literature that had unlimited possibilities that would in turn provide its exact limitations.' This seems to mean roughly 'she made a lot of things up so it's good reading, but I wouldn't trust it too much'. It's hard to be sure though.

On the same page the paper reports yesterday's transfer of 500 more Japanese civilian internees, under commando escort, from Whitfield Barracks to Stanley Camp.

Notes:

1) For a discussion of Hahn's portrayal of Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, see https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/emily-hahn-as-source-…

2)  Other reports make it clear that the Camp for Japanese was at Stanley Fort, not at the site of the former Stanley Civilian Internent Camp.

The Empress of Australia finally manages to land in Liverpool - it's been delayed by gales around the British Isles, and today's China Mail describes it as a 'hoodoo ship'.

Source:

Oliver Lindsay, The Lasting Honour, 1980 ed., 197

Worrying news for the former internees and POWs.

The China Mail headline reports that Macao is 'mobilising' and that a 'state of siege' exists after the occupation of a city centre hotel by armed (perhaps communist) troops. Portuguese Volunteers there are postponing their return to Hong Kong.

Yesterday, they learn from page 2, three mystery shots were fired in Kowloon, The second, perhaps from a high-powered rifle killed a Chinese man on a sampan in the harbour.

And two kempeitai officers have escaped from Shamshuipo.

Note: The next day's China Mail reported that the incident had been resolved amicably, and that two hotels had been taken over by armed soldiers (presumably Nationalist) who, after negotiations involving amongst other British Consul J. P. Reeves, surrendered their arms.

The End of Stanley

The China Mail of October 2 reported that the Camp would be closed in 'the next weeks'. Tweed Bay Hospital was closed on October 9, with 150 people still in residence. On October 19th the Reverend J. E. Sandbach supervised the transfer of the last batch of internees to a location in Kowloon. The Rev. Sandbach, assisted by retired sea captain 'Skip' Taylor, led a party responible for clearing up what, since January 21st, 1942, had been Stanley Civilian Internment Camp - the name was changed to the Military Internment Camp in 1944, but most people then and now continued to think of it as Stanley. Today Sandbach and Taylor, the only two of the party remaining, complete their task.

After everyone else has gone, the pair search the camp carefully, looking for people or objects left behind. Sandbach experiences a 'creepy feeling' walking round the once crowded precincts that now seem more like a morgue. When they've completed their search, they place everything they'd found in a single room in the Prison, and go to the camp gate, which Sandbach locks behind them.

The time is about ten o'clock in the morning.

 Sandbach  says a short prayer -  'Please, God, may this never happen again' - then turns to his companion: 'Come on, Skip, let's go'. They get in a jeep and drive away.

Sources:

Imperial War Museum Interview with J. E. Sandbach, Reel 8 - http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004743;

Documents in the Hong Kong GRS

RELIEF RATION SCHEME

Hong Kong people now taking their rations under the D. B. R. basic rations scheme speak glowingly of the efficiency of the improved service and of the much improved quality of the rations supplied.

The new Distribution Depot is at No. 6 Chater Road, and is visited daily by a fairly large number of people after the bread ration of 12 ozs.

The weekly ration consists of the following items:

Sugar 1lb.; Milk two tins condensed; Butter one 1-lb tin (every two weeks); cocoanut (sic) oil, 8 oz; tea, 3 oz; salt, 2 oz; corn beef, two 12-oz tins; fruit, 4 oz; dehydrated apricots; flour, 8 oz.

All the rations now are of the best quality possible, and early grouches on this point have given way to smiles and satisfaction.

Nevertheless, David MacDougall tells London today that the Colony is 'one jump ahead of a breakdown.' There's a desperate shortage of foodstuffs and other necessities and a real danger that the unrest to the south and north will spread to Hong Kong.

The China Mail reports on page 4 the arrival of the new American Consul-General George Hopper and notes that Mr. and Mrs. Addison Southard are living in San Francisco after the former's retirement from the Consular service on return from internment in Hong Kong.

Source:

Rations: China Mail, November 2, 1945, page 1

MacDougall: Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 2003, 298

The Hong Kong Sunday Herald (page 2) is upbeat about the progress being made:

Hong Kong has had  a busy week rehabilitating itself. The endless fag up winding stairs is over with the installation of a skeleton lift service in every large building. The lifts keep going out of order but, nevertheless, most of the heart-aging climbs are over.

The trams are again running, the Star Ferry service has been extended to 10.40 p.m. from Kowloon and 11 p.m. from Hong Kong. The fllth piled up in the alleyways in Central District, and elsewhere too, is being moved away.

The cable service to Shanghai has been resumed. Prices other than for a very few commodities are on the downward incline. The Hong Kong dollar is rehabilitating itself against all currencies and is rising in purchasing power. And, to say the least, the Dairy Farm has re-introduced Coca Cola, though at the tear-provoking price of $1.50 a bottle.

David MacDougall once again ((see November 2)) tells London how bad things are: 

Father Bernard Meyer's and Father Nicholas Maestrini's Catholic Centre is officially opened.

The Daily Mirror announces (page 8) that God Is My Co-Pilot is showing in London. It's a film about American ace Robert Lee Scott and the climax is his duel with a Japanese flier above Hong Kong. Is this the first appearance of the Hong Kong war in a  non-Japanese film?

Source:

http://www.catholic.org.hk/v2/en/cdhk/a07chronology.html

The China Mail reports on its first page that the value of the Hong Kong Dollar has risen against the Chinese National Dollar, the US Dollar, and almost all forms of fresh food.

Slab sugar, peanut oil, pork, beef and duck have all fallen in price.

Page two carries an interesting and significant letter from 'a few ratings', which shows that nothing about 'old Hong Kong' was automatically changed by the deprivations of Stanley Camp:

Is Hong Kong so different ((from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA in all of which the ratings felt welcome)) after all? When comparing Ceylon, Bombay, Singapore and Hong Kong with the above we find it difficult to realise we are amongst, or anywhere near, anything which represents a democracy. A more supercilious, artificial and unnatural English speaking (Frightfully English - what?') set of snobs (what price Z.B.W.?) would be hard to find. It is not to be wondered that the Chinese, Europeans and Indians look at them so strangely. Is this a look of admiration - or?

It is regrettable that we have  not met any Servicemen who, at present or in the past, have been connected in any way with a part of the civilian life - Officers yes, but men no. We have always been 'cold-shouldered' and made to feel as if we were social outcasts....

It is apparent that the Serviceman is still looked upon as a degrading element....We fought this War for democracy, but is it a democratic act to close the best hotels, such as the 'Lido', 'Repulse Bay' , 'Gloucester Hotel' and 'Pensinsular Hotel', except to the privileged few, which was the case in peace-time.

...Does the Leopard change its spots?

That is the question.

Note:

Z.B.W, was the Hong Kong radio station.

Former Stanley internees Henry Graye and Elizabeth Florence Donaldson are married at 'the Registry'. The reception is in the Rose Room of the Pensinula Hotel - the former Japanese headquarters is getting back to normal.

Bishop Ronald Hall preaches at the mid-day service at the Cathedral. He's a man who's never made any secret of his left-wing views. After referring to the heavy losses among the brave defenders of Hong Kong, he tells the congregation:

Under God we dare not stay in Hong Kong unless it is our purpose to build here, as part of the great Pacific civilisation of the future, a city in which truth and freedom and justice are not tainted by national pride or racial fear.

An article on page 3 of the Sunday Herald describes conditions in Singapore's Changi Camp. It describes the fortitude of the former Hong Kong Dean, Bishop J. L. Wilson who was one of 40 people arrested by the Kempeitai on October 10, 1942 ('the double tenth') and charged with espionage offences. Wilson, who was accused of receiving money for anti-Japanese purposes, was one of six survivors. The article also notes that Stanley Camp got more news of the progress of the war than Changi.

Source:

Hong Kong Sunday Herald, November 11, 1945, page 2, 3, 4

Hall: Oliver Lindsay, At the Going Down of the Sun, 1982, 261

The debate as to Hong Kong's attitude to servicemen continues.

'Barnacle Bill', a merchant seaman, visited Hong Kong several times before the Japanese attack and he found the general attitude appalling, but makes one exception:

The only man who ever had any time for us and did put himself out to do things for us was Padre Cyril Brown of the Missions for Seamen....Outside hospitality was nil.

He says he made up a parcel for former Stanleyites, to show he bore no grudge, but on this visits he's stayed on his ship in the harbour for two months rather than go ashore.

'Reverse Side', presumably a local not a visitor, acknowledges the problem but puts most of it down to the character and attitudes of the servicemen themselves. He feels they tend to treat Hong Kong residents like officers and their stiff and deferential behaviour makes social contact unrewarding for both sides.

'Democrat' is on his first visit, and, although he has nothing to say about attitudes to service personnel, he does make some interesting comments on the treatment of the Chinese majority:

I am appalled by the smug indifference of the majority of European residents here to the suffering of the Chinese. Their ready acceptance and apathetic attitude is no doubt due to the fact that their own high standards of living and prosperity depend entirely on the maintenance of cheap labour.

But 'Democrat' shows an awareness of the complexity of the problem:

Also in my condemnation I include certain wealthy Chinese – particularly the coolie contractors who have recently been receiving not only a 15 per cent commission on all coolies supplied but have also appropriated as much as 50 cents from each coolie's daily wage of $2 as 'compensation for having produced work'.

Hong Kong has been freed – surely not freed to permit such unscrupulous graft and corruption.

He goes on to condemn excessively harsh sentences for trivial crimes (especially theft born of economic necessity, and the labour of old and pregnant women and children. He points out that some people he makes such points to argue that it's all the fault of the Japanese, while others assure him it was just the same before the war!

Source:

China Mail, November 12, 1945, page 2

The vigorous newspaper debate about the nature of post-war Hong Kong's 'Europeans' continues.

'Pownee' points out that, whoever's snubbing ordinary servicemen, it isn't the British community, most of whom are on repatriation leave. Those left behind are generally billeted in Government-requisitioned hotels or R.A.P.W.I. Centres – they don't invite servicemen into their homes because these homes have been looted so much as to be uninhabitable. These people, who have been kept behind to work for short-staffed Government services, are often dependent on charity even for clothing, and in fact they themselves feel that 'certain members' of the Military Administration resent their presence.

These seem like good points, but so do those made by 'Anti-Exploitation' on the separate but related issue of the treatment of the Chinese majority. Citing the 1941 Civil Service List , he shows that a 'Chinese' (i.e. non- European) Medical Officer gets $375 a month, while a European with the same qualifications gets $933 plus help with rent. Sadly this was not to change much in the years to come: Dr. Eddie Gosano, who had performed splendid work operating – as a volunteer- on wounded soldiers after the end of hostilities, later moved to Macao where he helped provide medical services for refugees and was a member (for a time the head) of the BAAG (British resistance organisation). He agreed to return to Hong Kong as part of the BAAG mission at the end of war, even though this meant giving up a flourishing private practice, and helped re-establish medical facilities in Kowloon. He was nevertheless re-employed as 'Chinese' on a lower salary – quite rightly, he doesn't make the point that he wasn't ethnically Chinese but that no-one should be paid a salary determined by their 'race' (real or imaginary).

But it's significant of the new mood amongst Hong Kong's 'Europeans' that The China Mail weighs into the debate with an unambiguous editorial headed 'Economic Equality'. The writer fully accepts the case made by 'Anti-Exploitation' and hopes that racial dsicrimination in salaries will soon become a thing of the past, and that this will be just one part of a broader move towards democracy - 'Hong Kong's New Deal'. It notes, reasonably enough, that the situation was not created by the Military Administration and can't be resolved in the next few months. But it makes it clear that when, hopefully, in the near future, civilian rule is restored, it expects the Government to deal with the matter of racially-based economic discrimination quickly. At the same time, it praises the Miitary Administration for having done a reasonably good job of spending money to relieve distress and reduce living costs for the masses. It looks like the values Selwyn and Hilda Selwyn-Clarke and like-minded men and women of the left were fighting for before the war are about to triumph. But will Hong Kong's British rulers really be able to leave behind both racism and laissez-faire thinking and start taxing the rich of all nations and spending the proceeds on the largely Chinese poor?

Sources:

Letters: China Mail, November 14, 1945, page 2

Gosano: Eduardo L. Gosano, Hong Kong Farewell, 1997, 36-38 42-43.

Cecil Harcourt, head of the military adminstration, sends out letters thanking those who sent food, money and other necessities into the camps.

One is received by Melitza ('Lila') Pio-Ulski, piano teacher and wife of George Pio-Ulski, the leader of the orchestra at the Hong Kong Hotel before and during the occupation. They had not been interned because of their Russian nationality.

Like almost all those who helped relieve the POWs and the internees, Mrs Pio-Ulski did so even though she had very little herself - at one point she was reluctantly forced to kill and eat her hen for want of anything else to feed the family. In addition, sending parcels to anyone but a spouse or relative was a risky business as anyone who did so was automatically suspect as a 'British sympathiser'. Some people were arrested and even tortured for this. It seems probable that Mrs. Pio-Ulski sent in parcels through the Japanese, but she is believed to have thrown parcels over the wire into the Kowloon Camps; this undoubtedly increased the risks she was running.

Parcels were not only important in supplementing the meagre rations in Stanley and the POW Camps, but they helped keep up morale by showing the inmates they hadn't been forgotten. This was recognised as early as August 29, the day before Harcourt's fleet landed, in a letter sent out by the chief officers of the forces in Hong Kong, all of them POWs themselves, which thanked Mrs Pio-Ulski and the other senders of parcels and stated that they'd undoubtedly saved many lives and 'prevented the complete breakdown of the physical and mental health of large numbers'.

Another recipient is American author Emily Hahn, who worked with Selwyn and Hilda Selwyn-Clarke to provide both legal and illegal relief to the camps.

Sources:

Pio-Ulski: The complete text of the two letters can be read at

http://pio-ulski.com/?page_id=12

Hahn:Ken Cuthbertson, Nobody Said Not To Go, 1998, 295

Note:

It is now known that Ms. Hahn also worked for the British Army Aid Group, the British-led resistance organisation, a fact understandably left out of her 1944 memoir China To Me and unknown to her biographer.

Bernard Tohill boards the S.S. Tamaroa for the three day voyage to Shanghai.  He will live close by in Nantao until his ordination as a priest on July 1, 1948.

The correspondent 'Dig In' works for the Government-run Civil Labour Control and assures readers that, contrary to previous claims, he and his fellows are doing their best to put an end to the exploitation of 'coolies' bycontractors who take a significant portion of their earnings for getting them work.

On the same page, the China Mail publishes a fierce denunciation of Civil Affairs for discriminating between those 'essential workers' who have and who have not been interned. The former are charged $8 a day for room and meals, the latter $16 - more, it is claimed, than the Hong Kong Hotel would have dared to charge in its pre-war heyday! Moreover, although conditions in the Peninsula and Gloucester may be better, some rooms at the Hong Kong Hotel have nothing but a camp bed, not even containing a mirror.

Sir Atholl MacGregor dies at Port Sudan, Sudan.

He was born in 1883 and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1909. After serving in adminstrative and legal capacities in Nigeria (1912-1926) he became Attorney-General for Trinidad and Tobago (1926-1929). He was transferred to Kenya (1929) and then to Hong Kong (1934), where he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

He presided over the court in Stanley, where he and his wife lived in a large room with seven others. He was seriously ill by the time he left camp to help in  efforts to establish a provisional British administration at the end of the war - he 'dispensed legal advice from a palliasse on the floor'.

Sources:

Tohill: 'Some Notes From A Diary Of THe Years 1941-1942', 19

Dig In, editorial: China Mail, November 17, 1945, page 2

Macgregor:

Career: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TMV3n-26cLAC&pg=PA275&lpg=PA275&dq=sir+atholl+macgregor+hong+kong&source=bl&ots=Hnf8E-2R_x&sig=OuNE0suJ5c8NKXi9tCdCe1AKNFM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HniDUbaqO9Kg0wWAu4HgAw&ved=0CFgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=sir%20atholl%20macgregor%20hong%20kong&f=false

http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19370622.2.136.aspx

Court, room: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11335503

Legal advice: Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 2003, 250

Lieutenant Peckham deny reports that Japanese residents of the internment camp at Stanley Fort have been allowed to go into Hong Kong without escort - they are always accompanied, he claims, although  not neccesarily by the commandoes who run the Camp. They are allowed out, one or two per day, to buy things like food, winter clothing or paint for the Camp. Some are needed to help in the liquidation of the Yokohama Specie Bank or to answer questions about the institutions they ran during the occupation.

Peckham also announces that about 100 civilian internees have already been sent back to Japan and that the number in the Camp is now about 3,500.

Six more schools have opened recently. The school system almost collapsed during the occupation, and it's not easy getting started again, although private schools are opening up more quickly than subsidised ones. At the end of October just over 12,000 pupils were being educated.

The fall in value of the Chinese National Dollar is good news for Hong Kong residents, as black market food prices are falling. You can get eggs for 20 cents, for example.

In London The Observer publishes an article (page 5) headed 'Normal Life Rturning to Hong Kong'. The author , O. M. Green, cites a local businessman who calls the Colony 'The one bright spot in the general chaos of the Far East'.

Green paints a rosy picture. The Government has imported large stocks of rice which it sells at the pre-war price of 20 cents a catty. Coal has been imported from Australia and electrictity and light is now being provided, although not yet for private consumption. The dHK$ is stabilised at 1s. 3d. to the pound. The Governemnt employs 50,000 Chinese in cleaning up the filth left by the occupiers. Their wages are two HK$ a day and they can live on half that. 

But the author is clear: the old 'Crown Colony' system is dead, and Hong Kong must have self-government on the elective principle. Only then can it become 'an example of prosperous democratic government which will be an example to all the Far East'.

Sources:

Hong Kong Sunday Herald, November 18, 1945:

Japanese: page 1

Schools, Black Market: page 2