On July 29th Maudie Min went to town! In an ambulance!! It isn’t as bad as it sounds. She has had some tummy trouble and the doctor attending wanted an X-ray of her. The only way in which X-rays can be obtained is for the patients to go into town to the French Hospital (which is still being run by the Sisters).
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No news.
Shifted to Er ((?)) boy’s room.
Swim.
Curfew orders re-inforced.
This evening Mr Fred Kelly (Police) visited us, also Father Moore, an American Maryknoll Mission priest, very young and sincere. ((He was one of 8 newly-ordained RC priests who had flown into Hong Kong just before the Jap.
Welfare enquiry among internees
Killed snake on main road
Lists circulated by Block Reps. for mil, naval & professional qualifications required by C.S.O.
Petition to eject Mrs. Greenwood from kitchen. ((There were two Mrs Greenwoods in camp, Maggie and Bessie. I'm not sure which one is mentioned here.))
Swim P.M.
Chinese advancing through Wai-Chow. Germans unable to advance against Russians. 2nd Solomon Battle much in our favour.
Repatriation routine progressing?
The New York correspondent of the Canberra Times publishes a report of an interview with journalist Vaughn Meisling who was repatriated on the Gripsholm.
The first thing he mentions is that Meisling saw Dorothy Jenner ('Andrea') in Stanley. She worked as a secretary to the Commissioner of Police during the fighting and a bomb scored a direct hit on her building but she was unharmed apart from shock. In Stanley she'd lost weight but looked well.
We arrived in Fort Wayne on Saturday afternoon ((August 29)) where the family and friends met us. Again the photographers were there but this time they were much more polite and did not fight among themselves and push each other as they had in New York.
To say the least, Fort Wayne ((Indiana)) looked mighty good to us and so did the chicken dinner that we had been talking about for months. Lest you get me wrong, we were also very happy to see all the family there, yet: for, not having heard for 8 months, we were not sure what to expect.
All $75 parcels in
Softball - Kitchen 15 v Sanitation 7
News OK in general.
Concert P.M.
Rain and typhoony. Electricity off for a while. French in am, some other girls have now joined. ((These classes were held in the upper gallery of St Stephen's Hall.))
I should have had 4th injection but electricity off therefore no sterilizing could be done.
Thought I was going to lose my fountain pen this morning((i.e. I was writing my diary with it beside the P.O. Club)): two Japs came along and had their eyes on it - but nothing happened.
The Detroit News begins front page serialisation of Gwen Dew's 'I Was a Prisoner of the Japs.' It begins:
I was hunting for war. I found it. I wanted to know what war looked like thorugh a woman's eyes. Now I know. Horror, destruction, torture, hunger, death. I want to tell you in Detroit what it means if war comes to your front door.
Source:
http://www.albionmich.com/history/histor_notebook/S_Dew.shtml
Anne ((Muir)) told of her experiences during the war where she had been a V.A.D. nurse at St Albert’s - normally a monastery run by Italian Fathers. They, according to Anne, proved to be most unsympathetic and in fact quite objectionable: it seems a pity they were not turned out of the Colony with the other Italian fathers when Italy entered the war in her stab - in – the - back manner.
Reichtag having trouble re where-abouts of Hitler. Germans falling back in places on Russian Front.
Repatriation in the air.
Much cooler.
24 years ago! Surely we'll be able to celebrate our Silver Wedding together. We have had so much separation the last 8 years - over 5 years apart and in the last 3 years only 4 months together. I wonder where we'll meet. Things are going as well as can be expected but I feel it will be some time yet before we are free. All my love always L.O. Darling. Billie.
At the beginning of September, we were again warned that a further draft would be leaving in the near future. Many who had come nearly to the end of their tether, with the monotony of the present camp, eagerly volunteered for the chance of new surroundings, as popular feeling held the view that any change would be for the better than the existence we were leading at present. We should certainly have not been so enthusiastic had we been able to foresee the events to come.
Mary's name is down for a chest x-ray and the threat of chest trouble looms again. She gets 2 bottles of milk a day at hospital and that will help.
Rumour is (a) the Russians are retreating round Stalingrad, and (b) the Russians have counter-attacked on various fronts. Also, that Canada has invited us in the Far East to go to Canada, all our expenses paid.