Military Internment Camp
Stanley, Hong Kong
3^rd September 1945

Here goes for No. 2 post-war letter. No. 1, written 17th August, was posted on 1^st September. Despite all my good intentions I haven't been able to write this before, the chief reasons being that I had no paper or envelopes and there has been a sort of hold up generally - didn't know what was happening and didn't want to speculate on what might. Even now I am in a state of uncertainty as to what my movements will be, when I move from here and where I go to. Another thing, it's terribly hard to concentrate, to get facts in proper order etc, and incidentally to write a proper letter stating facts openly after all these years. However, I'll do my best. Please pass this effort round the family, Mother, George and Willie and possibly you could send a copy to America, as goodness knows when I'll write next. Now to go back 3½years.

Japan's declaration of war came suddenly and as a surprise. We expected it, but not for some weeks at least. I was up all the night of December 6th (Saturday) 1941, seeing about getting a ship away (it got off Sunday, safely, and reached Australia only to be sunk later, we heard, on its way to England). We'd had a few scares before of rushing off ships so we took it in our stride and carried on. Sunday 7th I had an A.R.P. competition for efficiency and so my lot were busy and I had a full day and was so tired that I got to bed about 9pm. The phone went at 5.50 am Monday 8th, and I got orders to mobilise at once. We did a good job and were all ready by 7.30 and their first bombers were overhead by 8am. Was pretty busy for the next four days and suddenly got the order to disband as we were vacating Kowloon. I got about half an hour to close up my show and completed it all by 1.30pm. For the next six hours I helped evacuate people in a launch, old and young, soldiers (wounded) etc. I crossed the harbour thirteen times (seven going, six coming). There was shelling most of the time. Not pleasant. Finally I was told to remain on the Island (Hong Kong), get a meal and a bed and report at 6.30 next day. This I did (sleeping on a settee in the Club) and after a day and a half doing odd jobs I was sent to Western District to assist the people there (A.R.P.) who were having a poor time. Met Philip Read (Betty's husband) who was also with that division. Quite a hectic time there till 25th December when we heard at 4pm that day that we had surrendered. I then heard about Gordon Eales. I had phoned him at 1.30 on the llth December (the day we vacated Kowloon) but wasn't able to get back to the flat at all. He got to Hong Kong at 6.30pm on the 11th and we arranged a meeting on the 16th. He had been posted to Quarry Bay right at the other end of the Island from em. He was killed on the 18th December about midnight when their lot of A.R.P. were trying to get back to the Central district when the Nips landed at North Point. His body has never been found. We weren't allowed to look for it, even after the surrender.

After the surrender we moved to town and I stayed in the A.P.C. building (Tubby Cherrill's room) for 5 days. J.B. Harrison (A.P.C.) was in charge of Western District to which I was attached from the 13^th December, and I stuck with him, at his request, till I got in touch with C.C. Roberts. On 30th December, I joined Roberts and six other B&S fellows and two women at the No 1 house on the Peak and stayed there till we came in here. We kept going quite well, doing all the jobs, cooking, cleaning, getting food, etc., etc. The house was a bit damaged, windows smashed, a hole or two, no light, no heat (except wood fire in one room), no water. I made seven journeys to town, walking both ways. We were troubled a bit by Japanese coming in and there were a lot of bad Chinese about, but we were lucky and had no bad incidents (alas others had). Chiefly ate tinned food and rice, had some candles and got our water from the Peak Club well, quite near by. It was terribly cold and we were short of clothes - I had nothing except what I stood up in but collected odd bits of kit from other fellows who had more than they could carry, and we visited the B&S houses on the Peak and got oddments from them. What a mess the houses were in. The looters had been in them all and the places stripped of everything valuable. Boxes, baskets, bags burst open and the contents just kicked all over the place and ruined.

On 23rd January 1942 we got orders to assemble next day at Statute Square (outside the Hong Kong Club) en route for Stanley. To take only what you could carry. We started off at 8am draped like Father Christmas, got to the square about 10, had ourselves and kit searched and marched to a wharf, away along, well past Wing On's, about two miles or so but after the journey from the Peak it seemed miles and miles. The Chinese and odd Japs lined the streets and the former were supposed to jeer at us but there was little of that. We were a sad procession, about four hundred of us. After waits and delays I got on one of the big ferry boats (that in peace time ran between Kowloon and H.K.) and reached Stanley about 3.30 or so. There was no place arranged for us to go to so after further delay we were housed (?) in the Indian Police Wardens' quarters. Eight of us B&S fellows were given a flat (?) that was two rooms, each 10'x10' with a tiny verandah in front, 3' broad and a smaller verandah behind, native lavatory and little cook shelter taken off the length of the back verandah. I fear this drawing is about as poor as the letter generally, but I'll do better next time. All out of proportion but it was a tiny flat and filthy. With our beds in there was no room to move and no floor space. Brick and plaster walls and stone floor. Not a fixture or anything.

We got no rations for 24 hours and then only rice and a little veg., no water. We ate some tinned stuff we had with us and got some water from others who had arrived a day or so before. The Indians sold us their beds and odds and ends as they were going into the village. The beds were full of bugs. I killed eight to ten every night and they thought I'd got fish poison because of the lumps but it turned out to be bug bites (ain't nature grand!!). Then we settled down. Some had been luckier than we as those who got in before us got rather better accommodation and had been able to get things sent in. They also had had transport for extra luggage. We were the last big bunch to arrive and after us only the odd few people came in from time to time. The bloke who said we were "driven like sheep, housed like cattle and fed like pigs" was as nearly correct as he could get. However we took it.

We remained in those quarters till the middle of July 1942 when there was a reshuffle (Jap order) so that all the police who had been scattered over the camp could be put together. Quite a number of young men were with the police and the Nips wanted to centralize them and watch them. We moved to Bungalow F. Sounds good but what it really was was the servants and coolie quarters of St. Steven's School which is in Stanley and lies alongside the prison. In "F" we were two to a cell (as that is what they were really) which gave us more room and there were only fifty-two of us instead of a mob. It was an improvement. We remained there (I changed my room three times as people got transfers to other parts of the camp, and I got in a room with a B&S fellow finally) till January 1945 when the Bungalow was closed down - too near the barbed wire the Japs said - and I moved with nine others to the Indian Mosque back in the Indian Quarters. We were put there as there was no other room for us. That was completely bare and full of mosquitoes and bugs, but it was larger, and we had more space; but so cold in winter and now it's stinking hot. So much for that. I simply can't go into further details as I haven't the space or time. We each got three pieces of paper and one envelope today and the mail closes am tomorrow. Do hope you can read this.

I've done all sorts of jobs, more or less, in the following order: sawing and chopping wood for the kitchen fires, general labour i.e. digging, moving bricks etc., cooking, i.e. washing and boiling rice, veg. and meat (when we got it). Sanitary duty i.e. cleaning W.C.s etc., boiling water for 100 people three times a day with a grass fire, cutting grass, carrying water, gardening, special police. So I'm now a man of parts. I've kept wonderfully well really and apart from one nasty dose of dysentery in November 1942 haven't had anything seriously wrong with me. I was pretty low however second half of 1943 to middle of 1944. My blood pressure dropped badly and I lost two to three pounds each month during that period. With the help of the 1¾parcels per person which arrived in October 1942 via South Africa from England and the bulk goods that came forward then I had picked up, by the middle of 1943, to 130 pounds (that was ten pounds increase from April 1942) but then all that food was finished, and I dropped steadily to 100 pounds when I refused to be weighed, and with a little extra food since then I'm now eight stone (112 pounds) (normal weight between 142 and 150 pounds). The Japs gave a small extra ration for labour and as I was a worker I got the extra which made all the difference. Apart from the 1¾ parcels and the bulk goods mentioned before we have, since then, received only four parcels per person. On 13th September 1944 we each got three Canadian parcels (these parcels had arrived in the Colony about November 1943 and had been held up by the Nips. Swine they were and are. In February 1945 we received one parcel each. These were the same kind of parcel that had arrived in 1942 via South Africa and either been held up by the Nips here or short shipped from South Africa with the original lot). We got some odd bits of clothing from South Africa but nothing from Canada. No food from America but some very useful clothing from there early 1945. My share of the U.S.A. clothes was: one very nice towel (bath), one thick undervest and one pair cotton summer drawers. The welfare here did what they could with odd clothing, and beans and bran and oddments of food were sent in by the Swiss Red Cross bloke bought with money sent from London. But the Japs completely ran the Red Cross man and he could do little and finally wasn't allowed to see us at all. I've smoked when I could as it took off the hungry feeling. I used to cut cigarettes into half or thirds and at no time had more than three of four a day, often none for days and weeks on end. We lived on rice, never more than fourteen ounces a day, tiny bits of meat and for one period of nearly a year, none at all, tiny bits of fish off and on. Often no fish or meat for months. No bread for months. It was over two years before we got a tea ration. Sugar, salt, oil have been a joke, but we failed to see the humour - we'd get half a teaspoonful of sugar per day and sometimes none for weeks. We had very little money and could only get very little at a very limited canteen. Recently, of course, money has been a joke; people were paying ten pounds sterling for a pound of Wong Tong which you bought for ten cents in 1940. Actually you wouldn't have eaten Wong Tong then, as it is the scrapings from the floor of the lowest grade of sugar after the molasses has been taken off and is "coolie chow" in peace time. I fear it all sounds rather gloomy but I won't refer to it again and I want you to know roughly what really did happen. When we meet I'll be able to answer any questions you care to put.

And now to come up-to-date. We've always been out off from the outside world but since Germany packed up we've heard nothing official until the 17^th August we were told that the Japanese had accepted our terms on the 14^th. Nothing happened here for several days. Then the Chinese started visiting us (employees etc.) and then the P.O.W. from their camps paid short visits. A very few of our people went to town. The Japs were still in control but we were not prisoners any longer although for safety etc. we were confined to the camp. Nothing happened apart from rather better food, light and some news from the outside, until the fleet arrived off Hong Kong on the 29th August and Admiral Farcourt landed on the 30th. He visited us and we raised the Union Jack but the Navy only took over the Naval Yard and the Kowloon Station. The rest was still under Jap control and was to remain so until September 2nd when the Peace was to be signed. However, that didn't work and our people took over and some officials and a representative from each firm moved to town to get things in order. Some of the sick and aged have left the camp and are on board the Hospital Ship. There are numerous rumours going about but when we'll get away nobody knows yet. I am still in camp and haven't yet been out of it. I may in a day or so get into town for a few hours but I really don't worry. I just wait for definite news and instructions which no doubt will come ere long. It's a bit trying having to wait like this but there is so much for the authorities to do and distances are so great that things can't expect to move quickly. My intention is to get to Edinburgh as soon as possible but I've had no wire or news of you all and we've had nothing from the firm in London, so we just wait (no news since 19/10/44). How I do long to see you all, my dears, and I'll let you know as quickly as possible when I'm in a position to do so, what my plans and moves are. Meantime my very best love to you Claudia, Mother, Ned, Robin, George and Willie and their families, to Machi and Jim and my relations and friends in America. Hoots to you all and here's to our next merry meeting and may it be very soon. I'm well and although skinny I propose to get fat. To the future! Life begins at fifty says Father !!

Hugo