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SPECIAL REPORT
NOTLS ON CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG AFTER THE SURRENDER
Taken from material gathered by the Postal Censorship, Calcutta.
The material available falls into three categories:-
(1) (2)
First-hand narration of experiences. Second-hand information, source given.
(3) No source given.
183
One writer in class (1) is LIEUT. H. L. HEATH, R.A., who was too ill to attempt to escape, but sent out a letter by J.0. M WEDLERBURN. Writing on 2.2.42 he says: "We are being very well treated except from the food point of view which is bloody. We get two bowls of rice a day but just lately we have managed to get a slight supplement of beans, to make a mug of beans per day, and sometimes we manage to get a goat which nearly resembles mutton. Contacts outside the wire manage to sell us a few things like sugar and tins of milk so on the whole we could do a lot worse. In any case don't worry because it is definitely on the up and up."
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The second writer in this class is CORALIE HAIST, Shek Taan, Tsing Yuen, about 200 miles from Hong Kong. She escaped from Hong Kong, and in a letter dated 5.2.42 confirms the account of the food. She says food was extremely scarce so that many were reduced to eating fertilisers made from the bulks and remains of pea-nuts after the oil was rushed out. She adds that drinking water was so scarce that a pint cost H.K.86.00. She also says that foreigners were confined in prison buildings.
Dr. GORDON KING, apparently a member of the staff of H. K. University, who escaped on 10.2.42 writes an informative letter from Kukong, Kwantung on 9.3.42. He was living in the Univer- sity compound which was occupied by the Japanese on Dec. 27th. They got permission from the Japanese to move a big store of food from King's College to the University and this 'gave supplies a considerable boost.' The Japanese took over four staff houses, and evicted the European professors who lived in them. "Then began the worst time of all when we had to knuckle under and do whatever the Japs told us. Some of the officers were not bad in their way."
His letter covers the following main points:
LOOTING. "The looting was terrible...in unprotected houses everythin was taken by the rabble...
was taken by the rabble....the worst looting was done by the undisciplined Chinese nobs....there were armed robberies all over the place....occasionally the Japs would catch the looters...tie them up at their sentry posts to be shot later."
Water'
FOOD. "Slowly things began to get more organised. and light were restored, but the shops and banks remain closed. All you could purchase was looted stuff on the streets of which there was abundance. Food was at an awful price, but you could get things like coffee, tinned food and bread at $1.59 a lb."
INTERNMENT CONDITIONS. The foreigners began to be intern- ed by Jan. 8th. (Note. Presumably this refers to civilians.) They were marched off in groups of fifty to the Chinese hotels in Central district and interned there, as many as ten to a cubicle with a double bed, washstand and a chest of drawers. Many were sleeping in the corridors, including some of the most select people in the Colony. The University staff was at first given special treatment and allowed to stay in the compound on the word of Mr. Sloss the Vice-Chancellor that no one would leave it without special permission, which the writer says
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