Everything tagged: Diary / Memoir

This extract from my Grandfather's memoirs covers his last posting with the RAF before being demobbed. 

Rangoon was as deadly as ever but I was bucked by the thought of the Hong Kong posting. I waltzed into Postings as usual and there was my favourite Flight Sergeant, at his desk with his mug of char at his elbow. "Ah, you're back," said he, "have a cup of char." I parked myself and accepted his offer whilst the formalities of the posting were outlined.

My Dad, John Bechtel, wrote this shortly after his release from Stanley:

The following text was given as a lecture by Mrs L. I. Puckle to the Churchstoke Womens Institute.

I feel very much honoured that you should have asked me to come and tell you about our experiences at Stanley Internment Camp and I hope I shall be able to give you some picture of the life lived there. This is the first time I have ever spoken in public, so I hope you will forgive any shortcomings and make allowances for my lack of experience.

Capt, Thomas Pritchard, Commander R.D. R.N.R

Born at Bryn Coch Farm, Abererch Nr. Pwllheli, Carnarvonshire, N.Wales on September 24th 1877.

He wrote these memoirs whilst interned at Stanley Camp Hong Kong Dec 1941 - Aug 1944. He died in Stanley Camp.

His original notes were brought back by Capt. Albert Jones, "Mathan“, Pwllheli, friend and fellow internee.

Deacription of the internment at Stanley Camp during the Second World War.

These extracts are from Henry (Harry) Collingwood Selby's diary as partly published in "In Time of War" (a collection of materials, including essays, POW camp regulations, etc.) edited by his son, Richard Collingwood-Selby and Gillian Bickley (Proverse Hong Kong, 2013).

The book is available from HK bookshops and can be ordered by them from the distributor, the Chinese University Press. It is also available from https://www.createspace.com/6412761.

During the last year and a half of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War Two, my father, George Smirnoff, with some other Russian refugees, decided to move his family to the only safe place we could get to, the small neighbouring Portuguese colony of Macao.