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.
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Visitors from town by bus. M.K. Lo saw Gimson
Wedding - Wm. Watson & D. J. Scourse, T.B. Hosp. (Dow)
Gendarmes order Chinese flags removed.
Passes being issued to people visiting Stanley. Big crowd going. I climb aboard truck in wretched condition. Repulse Bay area devastated.
At camp gate Hongkong Police. Recognise Inspector, says O.K. but skinny and hungry. Big crowd awaits. Some silent and snooty. Wylie awaits. Getting more food. Offer us rice. Meet many terribly changed, can't place them.
Home for tea.
Downstairs Jap moved out yesterday. We souvenired some stuff. Using phone. Tonight pinched phone and brought upstairs.
Cloudy, NE wind.
Visitors allowed from HK. 2 ce per day. [Twice?]
Contents of leaflets made known. They are instructions to Internees & P of W & info re duties of Delegate.
Multi Vit. capsules issued. Basic rations increase. All male internees weighed to complete final statement of physical condition. 156 lbs.
Lights allowed till 11pm. Final negotiations expected to be signed in Manila today.
8.00am. The little boys behaved very well and are thrilled with everything. ((Although they had been put in separate beds next to each other, in morning they were found to be together in one bed.))
Again unwanted congee is collected for the sampan people, who are apparently crowding on the Indian Quarters' beach edge, and swapping fish and bananas for clothes.
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
105 men from S.S. Po
Internees trading clothing for fish from sampan folk
"Lucky Dip" (Carol & Viv.)
((Barbara Anslow: 'Carol' may well be Carol Bateman. 'Viv' may well be Vivian Garton (male) as he was a talented performer on the Stanley stage.))
Fine. NE wind.
Odd jobs.
Felt lousy.
S.S.P. [Shamshuipo] Camp seem to have procured everything worthwhile in the eats & drinks line. 130 Ps of W visited. Many wives happy now.
Clinic hot plate.
Dug spuds for G.
Blumenthal arrested.
Everyone very happy & excited.
Prison Inds trying to curry favour with C of Pr S of P.
Still on Camp food damn it, surely something will be done soon in the way of milk & tinned stuff, mail etc.
Leaving hospital today.
Fishing boats bobbing up and down, close enough to barter their fish through the barbed wire on hospital embankment.
Mr F. Kelly sent me 2 hot baked sweet potatoes which I ate and hope I won't regret.
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.
Walked to town. Hot and tired. Hear Japs giving newspaper staff 40 catties rice bonus, but denied to boy who shook hands with Wylie.
G roof 1am. ⨳ A mixture of contradictions difficult to interpret.
Very little work in the shop now.
Visitor from town & Camps.
Camp officials to town for conference with R.C. Rep. Zindel.
Camp Radio Press indicates we shall be all moved to Manila shortly.
1 Box matches. 2oz Oil. 8oz Soy & 38 Siege biscuits issued.
Dance at St. Stephens 8-10.30pm.
US bombers dropped cigs & chocolate on S.S.P. Camp yesterday.
Boxer, Foy, Leiper, Roberts, Andersons ((William and James Anderson)) and others imprisoned by Japs (elsewhere) arrived at Central British School (hospital) last night from Canton, and are coming here tomorrow; also the technicians ((that had left camp on 10th August)) are returning.
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:
Issue of milk & margarine & 10 pkts. Cigarettes
Bank prisoners arrived in camp
Tired, so quiet day at home. Europeans in street reserved as though cautious or hating.
I am gradually beginning to realise that war is over and what that means! It really is wonderful. So much has happened during these last few days that I cannot even attempt to write it down in detail. The pamphlets instructed us to remain in our camps and maintain order until relief – which was on the way – arrived. We were told to be of good cheer, our troubles would soon be at an end and so on.