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�寄: 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

 

 

寄件者: noreply+feedproxy@google.com [mailto:noreply+feedproxy@google.com] 代理 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries
寄件日期: 2013年12月28日 5:26
收件者: Yinpong@gmail.com
主旨: 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

 

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

28 Dec 1941. R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 11:03 PM PST

Book / Document: 

R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-28

Resumed Prison duties & commenced clearing up the debris. The Prison had been bombed & shelled & there was plenty of loose brickwork & concrete around. No water or electric on. Pris's allowed to smoke. Indians, what are left of them, are very insolent. Tweed Bay cleared. Pos, ex ARP AHS's, wardresses etc all eat together in ex G pty now.

28th/29th Dec 1941. Barbara Anslow's diary

Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:43 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Barbara Anslow's diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-28 - Mon, 1941-12-29

Japs said we must move out.  Some one among us suggested we move to some offices within their knowledge in Shell House. So all we ARP folk immediately did so (only short walk from Dina House).  We swept the floor and cleaned up, and saw some of the wounded soldiers on Hong Kong Hotel verandah opposite.

Jap planes were showing off against a blue sky, dropping leaflets.  Some sort of Jap. parade ((probably the Jap forces ceremonial entry into the city, some officers on horses.))

After half an hour in Shell House, some one in authority came and we were told we had to go back to Dina House, and wait until we were sent somewhere. Did so - we ladies were given a lift to Tai Koon Hotel, Des Voeux Road, next to Central Market. Men followed on foot. Separate cubicles, ladies on 2nd floor, men on fourth floor.

((Cubicles were all in a line, along which ran a wide verandah looking out on to Des Voeux Road; wooden and glass partitions in between. Each cubicle had a large bed which took up most of the width, then a wash basin.  Another line of cubicles backed on to the front row, so you could talk through the flimsy partitions to 5 immediate neighbours.  Some one said the hotel was a brothel. I couldn't bring myself to undress, fearing some kind of contamination, so slept in my day clothes.))
 
We all pooled whatever tinned food we had, and clubbed together and bought vegetables, there was a kitchen on our floor.  Desperately cold.  We were allowed out, Tony escorted me to Hong Kong Hotel where I saw Olive who was billeted there, and Sid in hosp.

Mr Himsworth reported he had seen Mum at the Queen Mary Hospital and that she was OK.

((At that time I knew nothing of Mum's horrific experiences at the Jockey Club Hospital which Jap soldiers entered before the surrender))

28 Dec 1941, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

Posted: 09 Jun 2012 02:24 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-28

The Japanese, under the orders of the former manager of the Yokohama Specie Bank, enter the HKSBC building and assemble the staff. Sir Vandeleur Grayburn is questioned at length and all keys are surrendered and the safes and treasuries sealed.

 

Policeman George Wright-Nooth is taken to Gendarmerie HQ. He's questioned by a Gendarmerie Major as to the districts where 'bad men' are to be found. He points to areas with many opium dens and gives vague names and addresses to avoid admitting that the main records have been destroyed. Wright-Nooth tells him that being confined to quarters makes it difficult for him to feed his Chinese and Indian policemen (he doesn't mention the Europeans): the Major immediately gives him a pass which reads in translation 'This officer can go anywhere. Do not stop him.'

 

The worst period in the ordeal of the Maryknoll Fathers comes to an end. Their bonds are removed and they are allowed to leave the garage for meals. They are back in the garage when the Japanese-speaking Major Kerr arrives. He's acting as an interpreter, and he manages to get some food to them and to the British soldiers who are being held in the room next to them. He also persuades a Japanese officer to allow them out of the garage and into a room in the House - at least this has a wooden floor not a cement one. They are allowed to spend the night in their lower chapel but there are still Japanese soldiers in Maryknoll House itself.

Sources:

Grayburn: Frank King, History of the HKSBC, Volume 3, 1988, 572-573

Wright-Nooth: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner Of The Turnip Heads, 1994, 71-72 

Maryknoll: Maryknoll Diary, December 28, 1941

28 Dec 1941, Harry Ching's wartime diary

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 06:32 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Harry Ching's wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-28

I had tired of keeping out of sight. So, there being strangely few soldiers about, took myself for a short walk, knee deep in stinking rubbish, and with flies pestering. At the first corner I came suddenly upon the corpse of a well-dressed young Chinese - perhaps a nocturnal prowler come to grief, or perhaps merely a body dumped to save funeral expenses.

There were some stalls in the street, selling a little food and a lot of valueless junk, mostly looted. There were also many public gambling booths, in shops, around the market and on vacant lots. Mostly they offered the dice game of Yankee Sweat, fan tan, and the Chinese card game pai kau. They were all reasonably cheerful and all well-behaved. I laid a small bet, lost and left it at that.

Looting of abandoned houses on the hills around us now openly in progress. The looters could be seen in long files like ants, climbing up the hillside paths everywhere on Broadwood Ridge, Stubbs Road and Blue Pool Road, and coming down again carrying furniture. 

In the early afternoon troops assembled on the racecourse; we heard their bugles and banzais. They were computed to number two thousand. This was part of the victory parade. 

From our roof later we could see horse lines and tents in the racecourse, and much activity in the blocks of flats overlooking it. More troops were being billeted, and the occupants are being evicted to find accommodation where they can.

Food is still scarce, and the fact presses heavily upon our spirits. The shops in our district are not yet reopening. In any case they would have little to sell; all commodity stocks have gone underground. We still have half a bag of rice and a modest store of tinned beef and fish, but no cooking oil.

Observing the looting and remembering Kowloon, not to mention our Japanese visitors, we contrive hiding places. We taxed our ingenuity. I used some banknotes to prop up the wobbly leg of a table, and we slipped single notes between shelf brackets and the wall. We discovered that the old-fashioned mantel in our bedroom was hollow; with a little skill the end panel could be removed, giving access to a long cupboard of nearly two cubic feet capacity. In here we put our tinned stuff. Under the stairs at our front door we made another cache, and later added to these.

 

 

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