The increasingly frequent American air raids over Hong Kong gave us every encouragement. We knew they were destroying Japanese shipping, oil depots and docks.
On 6th August 1945, as we were devouring our pitiful breakfasts, two American Superfort aircraft appeared in the sky above Hiroshima. Seventy-five hours later it was Nagasaki’s turn.
Two days later, a ration truck pulled into Shamshuipo. One of the POWs found a scrap of paper hidden in a crack in the truck’s floor; he hid it in his pocket. A short while later stories were circulating among us that a strange new bomb was devastating Japanese cities. On 9th August The Hong Kong News published a Tokyo syndicated report announcing the Vatican’s condemnation of the atom bomb.
On Wednesday 15th August Watanabi, the kind Lutheran minister, slyly told a few that the war was over. That same day some Portuguese ladies, seeing some of us marching back to Shamshuipo after a working detail, came close. They were seemingly engaged in conversation and suddenly raised their voices. “It’s all over,” they exclaimed.
On the following day The Hong Kong News announced, “Peace signed: His Imperial Majesty Broadcasts to Nation: Imperial Rescript Issued.” Lieutenant Colonel Simon White Royal Scots stepped forward at the morning roll call on the 16th and told the Japanese officer that there would be no count of his men as the war was over. The Japanese replied that he knew nothing of this. White showed him the newspaper. A few hours later a truck delivered toilet rolls to us! Arming themselves with iron bed-legs, a party of POWs drove to the Japanese HQ in the Peninsula Hotel and loaded up with food. Gradually our guards disappeared. Two lorries arrived with three dead oxen. We had never seen so much meat for four and a half years.
We held a victory parade in Shamshuipo on the 18th. A White Ensign was run up the mast; our band played Abide with me and we sang God Save the King.
“It was the most impressive ceremony I have ever attended,” noted the Canadian, Captain H L White. “Hearts were too full for much singing; many tears were in evidence. I couldn’t keep them back. We all realized more than ever before the meaning of freedom. We also flew the Stars and Stripes and Russian, Dutch, Chinese and Free French flags, all made from coloured rags. Some Indians came over from their camp, and it was very touching to see them greet their British officers with real big hugs. Some wives with their children arrived from Stanley to meet their husbands. It was so moving I couldn’t watch.”9 On Victoria Peak someone had hoisted the Union Flag.
There now began a strange period when we waited with growing impatience for an Allied fleet to appear. Discipline was difficult to maintain. Some ex-POWs crept out at night to seek the company of Chinese girls, one of whom was smuggled into Shamshuipo: there was quite a queue for her.
The few Japanese we saw saluted us and bowed before approaching us. During these weeks the Chinese looted everything worth taking.
Two American Dakota aircraft flew over our camp, dropping large boxes of food which burst when they hit the ground. They were eventually followed by an RAF plane which came very low over our camp. The pilot dropped a brown envelope; it was marked ‘OHMS’ and contained a letter signed by Admiral C H J Harcourt. It told us that our location was known; and we should remain there. We reluctantly did so.
At 10.00 a.m. on 30th August we saw HMS Swiftsure approach the harbour led by minesweepers. Beyond were cruisers, an aircraft carrier and submarines. It was a large fleet.
Several days later I was invited on board HMS Euryalus where I had my first pink gin for over three and a half years. I saw on the wardroom table Country Life with its pictures of British villages and farmsteads at their best. It brought tears to my eyes.
Notes
1. Interview Scriven with OL.
2. Young, A N, China and the Helping Hand, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, p. 418.
3. WO 208 3260 HN 04176, p. 45.
4. Ride, Edwin, BAAG: Hong Kong Resistance 1941–1945, Oxford: OUP, 1981.
5. Letter Wallis to OL.
6. Statement by W J Anderson, PRO Archives Hong Kong CR 7676/45.
7. Alden, D, Charles R Boxer, Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 2001, p. 181.
8. Interview Bird with OL, and report dated September 1945.
9. Capt. H L White’s diary.
CHAPTER 21
Sinister Developments: Stanley
Internment Camp, the Japanese
Occupation and the Privileged
Nightmare
I gradually heard of the horrors faced by those imprisoned in Stanley Civilian Internment Camp. The internees had been moved there from 21st January 1942 onwards. Rather like our arrival at Shamshuipo, everything was initially chaotic at Stanley.
“Four of us were given a cold, grey cell with no beds or furniture. We huddled together and couldn’t sleep, so we talked long into the night about our husbands and wedding days, and how wonderful life would be when we were released. I thought to myself, ‘We can’t live like this – we will die,’” recalls Mrs Topsy Man, whose husband had so distinguished himself preventing the Japanese breaking into Victoria during the fighting.
“Teamwork counted for most,” wrote another internee. “The American community was small enough to function as a single entity and it set the pace, while the British community was initially divided by class, occupation and prejudice.” One portly matron, watching a gang building a store, was most impressed and announced, “Isn’t it fortunate that the Americans have so many members of the working class in their camp!”
Three autonomous groups quickly formed – 2,325 British, 290 Americans and 60 Dutch. Each group had its own quarters and committees which had control over such matters as billeting, assignment of duties in work details, sanitation, medical clinics and education.
After Hong Kong’s surrender the Governor, Sir Mark Young, had been held incommunicado in a place unknown to us. His responsibilities fell on the Colonial Secretary, F C Gimson, who had the misfortune to arrive in the Colony from Ceylon the day before the Japanese invasion.
Gimson believed it imperative to maintain the Government in being, and issued orders to the internees that no official should take instructions from the Japanese except through him. He started by writing “in a language scarcely diplomatic”, protesting at the squalid and inhuman conditions in which the internees had to live in the Chinese ‘hotels’ before the move to Stanley. The letter resulted in his immediate arrest and imprisonment. On being transferred to Stanley three months after the other internees, he was dismayed to find the former Hong Kong Government was regarded most unfavourably for failing to have made better preparation before the Japanese attack and for refusing to surrender once resistance seemed futile.
All schemes for the pooling of cash and personal food supplies were opposed by Sir Atholl MacGregor, the Chief Justice, on the grounds that the whole principle of private property was involved and “endless litigation” would result. The Americans were more sensible and pooled many of their resources.
Fortunately the camp at Stanley lay alongside a pretty bay, and “the green trees, flowers, wide spaces, warm sky and friendly sea were things to feed our souls, if not our bodies,” recorded an American. A healthier site for the camp could not have been chosen. The accommodation consisted partly of the residential quarters of the former European, Indian and Chinese prison officers and their families. Other buildings included those used before the war as a sanatorium, hospital and canteen which had all formed part of the Hong Kong prison. A former school, St Stephen’s College, and staff bungalows also lay within the camp.
There were sufficient teachers to educate all the children. Many youngsters forgot what ‘outside’ was like; it seemed to them a kind of fairyland, full of abundance, except for food. One child saw a horse and assumed it was a big dog. Another could not imagine what a river looked like. Yet their education may not have suffered unduly. After liberation, five of the older ones entered British universities.
Men and women were not separated into two camps as happe
ned in some other places occupied by the Japanese. Morale may thus have been enhanced though morals were jeopardised. The cemetery proved to be a popular place for lovers. The Japanese authorities issued an order on the lines of “Sexual intercourse is prohibited except between husband and wife or close friends.”
Religion played an important part in camp life. There were 20 different denominations represented. The Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Christian Scientists all held separate services. The thin pages of the prayer books were found to be excellent for cigarette paper: guards had to be posted during services to ensure that the pages were not torn out.
The internees endured a starvation diet which led to malnutrition and discord. As the years dragged by, conditions became harsher and a growing moral and physical deterioration was evident. Welcome parcels were received by some, due to the courageous generosity of some Chinese, Indians and Portuguese still living in Hong Kong and not interned because the Japanese wanted their co-operation.
Very controversially, Gimson did not endorse the principle of repatriation. He felt that the British internees were British subjects on British territory, therefore they had no claim to transfer from one section of the Empire to another. He also believed that repatriation would weaken the case for Britain retaining Hong Kong as a Colony after the war. Much later he admitted that he might have misjudged the situation.
The repatriation of 1,500 people in the Far East, including the British at Stanley, was prevented by General MacArthur, commanding the southwest Pacific area, and by the Australian Government, because they would have been exchanged for 330 Japanese merchant seamen interned in Australia. These Japanese were familiar with the Australian coastline and harbours. Some of them were probably spies before the war.
Yet in June 1942 the American civilians were repatriated in exchange for Japanese interned in America. They subsequently publicised the plight of the British and Dutch left behind.
Dr P S Selwyn-Clarke, the former Director of Medical Services, had still not been interned because the Japanese had confidence in him. He was allowed to visit the camp at least once a week, providing he gave no news and discussed only medical and relief matters. Everyone knew that some improvements in diet and the provision of medicines and clothing were the result of his untiring efforts. His arrest on a charge of treason was a culminating blow: the lifeline of extra foodstuffs was severed. Sixteen months later, he was given the light sentence of three years’ imprisonment because there was no evidence against him.
The discovery of the wireless set in the internment camp and the link to the BAAG which led to so many tragic deaths have already been described.
Fourteen internees were killed when they were bombed by the Americans. By resolution the internees stated that, while the incident was most tragic and unfortunate, no bitter feelings were held against the Americans, who were seeking out Japanese anti-aircraft batteries.
Two weeks before Admiral Harcourt reached Hong Kong, Gimson, hearing rumours of the surrender, told Lieutenant Kadowake, the Camp Commandant, that unless there was a formal announcement, serious incidents might arise if the guards continued to adopt their usual attitude of arrogance and violence. Kadowake replied: “His Majesty the Emperor has taken into consideration the terms of the Potsdam Conference and has ordered hostilities to cease.” Seeing the bewilderment in Gimson’s face, Kadowake added: “In other words you’ve won; we’ve lost.”
Gimson left Stanley and met the senior British officers at Shamshuipo Camp. He was, in turn, one of the first to meet Admiral Harcourt, who reported to London, “Gimson and his gallant band of ex-POWs and internees had already got going and continued to give very good service until some of them literally cracked up, not yet being fit.”1
In August 1995 Oliver Lindsay took a large Royal British Legion Pilgrimage to the former Stanley Internment Camp. After a moving service at the Sai Wan cemetery, we had lunch in the prison officers’ club, looking forward to the former internees in our party telling us of their reminiscences in the precise buildings in which they had been imprisoned. It would have been an exceptional experience for all of us. Alas! Typhoon warning No. Three had just been hoisted. We had not even finished lunch before we were bussed back to our hotel. Perhaps it was just as well we didn’t eat too much for a few of our party fell seriously ill with food poisoning attributable, apparently, to lack of hygiene in the club’s kitchens.
* * * * *
The Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong
When I was first interned in Shamshuipo, I saw a steady trickle of Chinese moving north each day, returning to China. As months went by, it became apparent that fewer and fewer were left in the Colony. It was only after my release that I could gradually piece together what ‘Japan’s New Order’ in Hong Kong had amounted to.
The Japanese administration’s first priority had been to reduce the Chinese population to avoid the responsibility of feeding them. In the face of starvation, unemployment, reduced educational and other social services, over one million Chinese fled to China during the occupation, leaving only 650,000 in Hong Kong by 1945. Many unfortunates died on the way, never reaching their destination, thereby doing untold damage to Japanese propaganda.
Several hundred of the more destitute were herded into large junks and abandoned on Lantau Island, which had no water.
Crime rose dramatically in view of the semi-starvation; draconian punishment kept it within bounds. Periodically there were mass executions of thieves, who were first made to dig their own graves. The Chinese whom I had seen executed at the water’s edge in 1942 had probably come from the nearby prison, which was overflowing. A Catholic nun who was released from the Internment Camp in July 1943 remembers: “We saw a Chinese man tied up in a cage which was three foot high and three foot square. He was kneeling and begging for mercy from a Japanese soldier who was amusing himself by poking a stick through the bars. We were told that the man was going to have his head cut off.”2 (Just as terrorists in Iraq behead some of those whom they have kidnapped.)
Father Granelli, an Italian priest who fled to Macao, reported that “Colonel Eguchi, the Director General of Medical Services, beheaded his cook at a dinner party. Eguchi was annoyed because the dinner was late and so bullied the cook before cutting off his head with his sword. A Portuguese lady who saw the whole performance had to go to bed for a week.”3
After the British surrender, nearly all Allied military equipment, ammunition, fuel, medicines, food and other stores were shipped methodically and efficiently to Japan together with any movable booty including trucks and cars. My little Morris was broken up for scrap metal, I fear.
Chinese labour was paid in rice; prices soared. Every commodity was strictly rationed and food queues were evident everywhere.
The Japanese set great store by hygiene. Hands had to be washed in a basin of antiseptic on entering a public building; feet were wiped on a mat saturated in the same liquid. The Japanese language was enforced in the few schools which continued to function.
Despite all these difficulties, life in Hong Kong went on as it did in cities in Europe under German occupation. It was not Japanese policy to antagonise Chinese or Indians for there were vague plans for Hong Kong and India to have an eventual role in Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, and this would need the conquered races’ co-operation.
The Chinese had no alternative other than to co-operate with the Japanese if they were to survive. Even so, the degree of collaboration would seem to have been no greater than in German-occupied territories in Europe, excluding Guernsey. (Incidentally the British made no attempt to defend Guernsey, choosing an ‘open city’ policy there. Hong Kong internees would have liked to have seen a similar policy in the Colony.)
Much has been written about Chinese collaboration; people such as Sir Robert Kotewall Keung, a former member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, and Sir Shousan Chow were vilified after the war for allegedly co-operating with the enemy. It was suggested that they should be st
ripped of their knighthoods, just as Professor Anthony Blunt, the Russian spy, had his removed by the Queen in 1979.
The key point, however, is that both Sir Robert and Sir Shousan had been formally requested to work with the Japanese by the leading members of the former Hong Kong Government. Within a week of our surrender, R A C North, Secretary for Chinese Affairs, J A Fraser, Defence Secretary, and C G Alabaster, Attorney-General, had called on them and specifically asked them to promote friendly relations between Chinese and Japanese, and to do their best to restore public order and preserve internal security since the British were powerless. Moreover, some wealthy Chinese were secretly passing funds to Dr Selwyn-Clarke, and others after his arrest, for the POWs and internees.
Racing at Happy Valley was restarted, but the horses frequently collapsed during the races due to starvation; eventually the course was turned into a vegetable patch.
The Anglican St John’s Cathedral was used by the Japanese as a stable. Dr Charles Harth, a German Jewish refugee, enabled services to continue in the Anglican Bishop’s House. He was a tower of strength, although before the war some British thought he was a German spy.
Valtorta, the Italian Roman Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong, was given $50,000 by the Pope to buy food and clothing for the internees. He spent it as best he could to help us all.
As Allied submarines sank more Japanese ships, Hong Kong became increasingly destitute and isolated. “Fear lay upon the town like an impenetrable fog, hope seemed dead and deliverance far away. At intervals a few tramcars rumbled along Victoria, Hong Kong’s capital. They were continually halted by American air raids,” recalls one eyewitness.
The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Page 24