or two ladies in our groups fainted, which is possibly the very thing the Japanese wished for.
Arriving some two and a half hours later on the other side of Hongkong, we saw what was to be our home for the next 21 months, however, little did we realize then that this little strip of land was to be our jail' for the best part of two
years.
On a narrow neck of land between the main part of the island and the Stanley Fort, we were enclosed by barbed wire in a space of approximately 50 acres. Our community of British, Americans, and later Dutch, Belgians, Norwegians, and etc., were housed in buildings that were originally built for European, Indian and Chinese Jail warders' quarters, and the College with adjacent buildings which formerly housed the St. Stephen's College and staff.
As a result of the heavy fighting that took place on the Stanley Peninsula, many of the buildings were badly damaged to such an extent that they were unfit for human habitation, yet the inadequate housing accommodation made it necessary that such buildings be occupied.
Our first, and real problem was making these buildings habitable, but without the necessary materials for repairs, this, and the construction of communal kitchens, clinics, was a task in itself, and for the first few weeks life in the Camp was very hectic.
The next problem was to got satisfactory cooks able to boil rice, If the rice wasn't almost raw, it would be burnt or overcooked to a mash, and it was some time before the kitchen staffs were able to maintain consistency in their cooking.
Our food those first days was sickening. Twice a day a bowl of rice and small cup of fish soup full of bones with boiled lettuce leaves made up our diet, but even such unpalatable food in those winter days was looked forward to. Hunger was our chief complaint, and on many occasions internees have broken down and cried from sheer hunger and exhaustion. During that first spring in Camp, food deficiency diseases began to break out in earnest, beri-beri in various forms, and a general loss of energy throughout the whole Camp. This was more marked among the middle aged and elderly persons. Figures taken throughout the entire period of our internment showed that the average bodily loss in weight was approximately 25%.
To give some idea of the rations received in Camp, it is best to give the daily ration figures received over the entire period of confinement per person in ounces, These were as follows: Flour 4 0.; Rice 7 oz.; Oil 1/5 oz.; Salt 1/3 oz.; Sugar 1/4 oz.; Firewood 9.5 oz.; Combined Meat and Fish 5.5 oz.; and Vogetables 7.1 oz. The meat consisted of buffalo, of which 65% was bone, occasionally pork, and for a period of six weeks, mutton, this latter being cold store stock which the Japanese and Chinese do not eat. The fish sent in to us was the poorest quality, either conger eel mackerel, or a local many-boned small fish, and more than was necessary it arrived in the first stages of putrefaction, especially during the summer months, when ice packing as refrigeration was inadequate. The vegetables were usually made up of gourds (molon, pumpkin, marrow, turnips etc.) and a few greens usually consisting of lettuce, water spinach and local Chinese cabbage, On many occasions when meat or fish was rejected on the grounds that it was diseased or putrefying, and representations were made to the Japanese Authorities, our requests for replacement of this deficit were only ignored, so that the figures shown above of the daily rations do not represent the true figures, but only those received.
Possibly the most disheartening part of the early internment came when, after spending weeks of hard labour in preparing and seeding new gardens, where gardens had never been before, the Authorities cut off the gardens with barbed-wire fencing, placing them outside our boundaries, and thus cutting off all access to them. With the food situation so meagre, this act was unjustifiable and unforgiveable.
With the arrival of the Red Cross supplies in November, 1942, the general health of the Camp tool: a definite upward trend. Whereas, prior to receiving these life giving supplies, the clinics and hospitals were unable to cope with the number of septic cases in Camp, after the first two weeks of absorbing proteins etc., septicaemia dropped to a minimum among the internees, and cases that had been receiving treatment for weeks, now began to cure very quickly.
It was at this time that the Japanese porpetrated another wiforgiveable crime in the eyes of us all in Camp. Received in parcels from friends in town wore canned goods foreign to Hongkong, but the same as that received in our Red Cross parcels, showing that these foodstuffs had been looted and sold in town.
64251-1
14
In
41