Short (3rd anniversary service) / Dow
Pages tagged:
Cold, overcast. NE wind.
Clayed in chatty for Mrs W.
Workshop.
Steve gave me 3 Pkts. cigs.
No news today.
Colder pm.
Pasties pm meal, excellent.
Tarlac captured 20th, also airfield to the E.
Bl. mkt. cigs up to Y25 due to lack of supplies.
Full moon.
Mary Rogers in hospital with appendicitis. Ivy Batley (26) and Mrs Lena Edgar also in hospital.
Went to see Annie, she made rice pancakes with sugar rolled in.
Got hot water for Fortescues. Worked in morning. ((Boiled hot water was served from 8 am, when you queued with your container for your share to make tea if you had any left. The Fortescues and the Redwoods took turns to collect each others))
Evelina Edgar enters Tweed Bay Hospital to have an operation on her right leg. The scar will be noted on her post-war Hong Kong Defence Force identity card (October 21, 1949).
Her husband Thomas Edgar will buy her an egg on the black market to help her recover. It will cost about £27/HK$270 in today's terms.
Overcast, & a little warmer. NE wind.
Workshops.
Altered water boiler fire-box. Great improvement, halved the firing time.
US forces S of Tarlac & on the way to Clark air-field. All fronts OK.
Clouds broke up late pm.
Doreen had shorthand lesson.
Newspaper says Philippines waiting for enemy; also suggests an attempted landing at Bias Bay.
Death of Dr. Hermann Balean from acute anemia. He joined the BMA in 1902 and was appointed to the Hong Kong Medical Board in 1937.
Bright, warmer morning.
Workshops.
Fitted bed for Weir. ((Not sure which Weir he is referring to))
Clouded over, cooler pm.
Germany to shift capital. Clark air-field raided, Anglo-Indian forces within 500 mls of HK.
Lorry with wood 6pm & another with veg 7pm. & rice party.
Parcels soon?
(Linicker)
Bulletin (via newspaper) gives Goebell's speech re if German armies of East give way there will be a world's workers' war. Rumour that German HQ has removed to Nuremburg.
Mrs G. Goddard asked me about shorthand, we're going to do it often
Rumours that Japs have said we will get parcels but they are not here yet; that bulk stuff is in HKong and will be sent in as and when we need it.
We have had a respite from air raids since the calamity of the 16th January. The funeral of the victims took place the next day and all were buried in one large grave side by side.
There have been a few, in fact, quite a number of air raids since the big one on 16th Jan., but they were on a small scale – except for one fairly big one on Sunday, 21st. (This one involved 30 B-24s of the 14th USAAF) The Lakers stated in this Sunday raid that 500 tenement houses in Wanchai were demolished, causing 5,000 casualties. Poor Chinese, I hope this is an exaggeration – it is bound to be – but there have undoubtably been heavy casualties amongst the Chinese. I hope all our friends are still safe.
Bright, cold wind NE.
Workshops.
Browns cistern etc.
Air/r alarm 11am – 11.50am.
Workers oil & sugar issued.
Shelters? being dug in rockface on the main road.
North’s notes contain list of Fraser’s 13 battleships in the Pacific.
Japs claim many more ship sinkings including Ex.French & [Italians?] off Luzon & admit US advances on Luzon.
Overcast, wind dropped.
Workshop, odd jobs.
Weather beautiful aft. onwards.
Lorry with veg & fish 5.30pm.
Planes & “thumps” heard but no A/r warnings.
After work, to beach with Clifton & Mabel to get salt water, then German lesson, and rehearsal, then shorthand with Mrs. G. Goddard.
My watch went ((for valuation and sale through Black Market)) - marker received.
To lecture on 'Murder'.
L. A. Collyer, head attendant at the Mental Hospital before the war, admires the work of the nurses but is in cynical mood:
Today has been a good day: Y had a 25 word letter from Pop saying they are well and had been delighted to hear from Dodds (Frances Dodds), that we were well. They had a new home. The Old Vicarage, Upwalkham, Horrabridge, S. Devon, which was awaiting our return. This was dated April 1944.
Overcast, N wind, colder.
Workshops, odd jobs.
Small convoy arrived 9am.
Lorry with wood 3pm. veg.5.30pm.
Russians 60mls E of Berlin & advancing (Frankfurt) No news of other fronts.
(Food stuff coming through the wire, prices, Pork Y600 per lb. (£32-10-0, or £2-0-0 per oz.) Wong Tong Y140 per lb (£11-7-8 or 10/- per oz.) Matches Y40 per box (7d per match) Cigs Y25 per pkt. (2/11 each)
Water day. ((i.e., it was turned on in the taps one day in 4. In evening of water day we filled the bath in our flat and every one honour-bound to take out only a certain amount per day, usually 3 small tinfulls about the size of a tin of soup, nailed on to a piece of wood. You tipped your allotment into the washbasin, washed yourself and your clothes, then pulled the plug,and the used water drained into an old kerosene tin underneath.
George Wright-Nooth is on a firewood loading party in town. He gets a rare glimpse of the dying days of Japanese Hong Kong: