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to continue as "Adviser" to the department which came into existence, on paper, as from a week after the surrender. This position enabled me to persuade such of my technical medical, nursing, health, investigative and cleansing staff as were needed to remain at work for the benefit of the community.
(8) Care of internees, prisoners of war, etc.
The post of "Adviser" also gave me the opportunity after- wards of assisting military and civilian internees, widows, wives, children and dependants of volunteers in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps and of those interned in the camps or who had been killed in action during the war.
(9) Food and medical care for billetees.
About 3,500 wives and dependants of volunteers and essential services workers, mostly from Kowloon, were accommodated in the May Road district of Hong Kong. As Government food distribution ceased at the time of the capture of Hong Kong, this group became one of my early commitments in relation to food and medical
care.
B.
Internment of British Forces.
About a week after the surrender, British Forces were con- centrated in the former North Point Refugee Camp, in Argyle Street (Chinese Soldiers) Camp, the Ma Tau Chung Refugee Camp and Shamshuipo Camp, approximately 10,000 in all, including almost 2,000 Indian troops.
Owing to the overcrowded and insanitary conditions of these camps, in the early stages, combined with under nourishment, bacillary dysentery broke out and I was able to render a certain amount of assistance by taking in sulfapyridine, bread, milk, blankets, etc.
C.
Internment of civilians.
Towards the end of the first week in January, 1942, the Japanese authorities ordered the internment in Chinese hotels (mostly of the poorer class) of approximately 1600 "enemy" nationals in Hong Kong, 500 being interned in Kowloon; leaving the Hon. Mr. F.C. Gimson and several members of his Executive Council in the town, about 400 under the care of
Sir Atholl MacGregor on the Peak reservation, and a few other small groups, e.g., attached to the Medical Department and Dairy Farm.
Most of those interned in the Chinese hotels had to carry their own belongings through the streets and some reached the hotels with nothing but the clothes they stood up in.
(2) Removal of sick from hotels.
Several of those interned were seriously ill. By securing a pass from the Japanese Foreign Affairs Department, counter- signed by the head of the Japanese Medical Department, I was able to see these sick persons and to remove them to hospital. I took advantage of being inside these guarded hotels to ascertain the most pressing needs of the inmates.
(3) Supplies of food, etc., to internees.
The Japanese delivered rice and occasional quarters of buffalo and pine logs for fuel, but provided no cooking utensils, meat or wood choppers, milk or other foodstuffs suitable for the young.
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