Monday, February 10, 2014

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

11 Feb 1942, R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Posted: 31 Dec 2011 05:38 AM PST

Book / Document: 
R. E. Jones Wartime diary
Date of events described: 
Wed, 1942-02-11

Jap paper looks bad for us if its report is true. Food rather scarce today. Our Canteen would appear to be a myth. Americans bought Cheng's stuff & sold it today despite their assurance that they would boycott him.

11 Feb 1942, Barbara Anslow's diary

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 05:54 PM PST

Book / Document: 
Barbara Anslow's diary
Date of events described: 
Wed, 1942-02-11

Started working at hospital.  Day seemed long.  4 slices thin bread and mincemeat at mid-day. Bitterly cold.

11 Feb 1942, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:09 AM PST

Book / Document: 
Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
Date of events described: 
Wed, 1942-02-11

Morris 'Two-Gun' Cohen is taken to an interrogation room. Already there are an officer, an interpreter and 'two ugly-looking customers'.

Cohen realises that, although they seem to have a lot of information about him, much of it is jumbled and inaccurate, so when they ask him for details of his wartime activities with the Chinese and British, he denies everything. The two 'ugly-looking customers' start to mistreat him:

One of them slashed me across the shoulders with a bamboo. That was too much. I got to my feet and socked him on the jaw. It was a good sock too....but it was the end for me. The officer joined in, and the three of them let me have it with fists, boots and bamboo till they were tired.

 

Franklin Gimson sacks George Kennedy-Skipton from his post in the Hong Kong Government after the latter refuses to obey Gimson's order to cease his work in Hong Kong. Kennedy-Skipton will remain uninterned by asserting Irish nationality until his escape from Hong Kong on January 24, 1943.

Sources:

Cohen: Charles Drage, The Life And Times Of General Two-Gun Cohen, 1954, 292-293

Kennedy-Skipton: http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/accusations-of-collaboration-1-george-stacy-kennedy-skipton-2/

Note:

I've summarised Cohen's own account, which is accepted by his biographer Daniel Levy, even though Levy recognises that some of Cohen's stories are 'fabrications'. Personally I doubt he punched a Japanese officer.

11 Feb 1942, Harry Ching's wartime diary

Posted: 17 Jan 2013 01:07 AM PST

Book / Document: 
Harry Ching's wartime diary
Date of events described: 
Wed, 1942-02-11

((Following text not dated:))

Increasingly subjected to retailers' tricks. We bought bottle of kerosene for small makeshift stove, to find it so loaded with waste oil it would not burn. Neighbours reported purchasing flour partly rice flour, corn flour, and even lime. One shocked to find sugar purchase weighted with crushed glass. 

Fuel shortage another difficulty. Saddening to see looted blackwood furniture chopped up. Authorities threaten punishment for selling broken furniture as firewood. Also send police into hills to stop forest raiders. 
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