SECRET.
The D.M.I.(M.I.2.c), The War Office, LONDON
78
Reference: A/133/6.
As you know from the various reports on Hongkong which I have sent you, the ex-Director of Medical Services, Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, has been allowed to remain free by the Japanese am has been continuing to do certain work in connection with the public health in Hongkong.
2.
I attach herewith a copy of an extract from a report by Lieutenant-Colonel Kide. This report is admittedly in soewhat strong language. Coming from Ride, however, who is not usually given to this, I feel it carries more weight than from a man who is one to use it more freq ently.
Mrs. Kendall is the Chinese wife of Kendall, an S.0. man that I took into the .I.9 team, owing to his exceptional qualifications. For various reasons into which I need not enter, he has proved a complete failure and may indeed have been the fundamental cause of the unfortunate delay in getting permits for the party to proceed to Shaokwan. He is being withdrawn from China at the earliest possible moment.
30
I know nothing of Miss C. um, except as Clarke's "lady-friend". I do not know guchi, but I understand he has a bad reputation.
4.
Although I have no inde pendent means of checking these statements, I have no reason at all to doubt them, and am satisfied that Ride would not make them unless he had good grounds for believing them. They certainly leave a nasty taste. 5.
Clarke has earned great praise for the very small improvements in conditions in Stanley Gaol Internment camp, which his dose contact with the Japanese has enabled him to effect. To what extent his activities in other directions are of a less meritorious character, it is really impos si ble to say at present. I feel, however, that Ride is justified in saying that it is not for nothing that the Japanese have made all these concessions to him.
Under these circumstances, you may feel it worth sending a copy of this report to the Colonial Office.
British Embassy, Chungkin,
29th June, 1942.
(sd.) G.E. Grimsdale.
Brigadier,
H.B.M. Military Attache.