พร
Extract
Personal
My dear First Lord,
*
*
ALT
WHIT
*
25
Office of the Commander in Chief,
Hong Kong.
7th November, 1945.
*
It has been a wonderful experience and a great privilege to come ere, rescue our prisoners, round up the Japanese and start to get this very ine Colony going on its feet again. It has been very cheering seeing the dual stages of improvement; first more people on the street, then more chops ojen, more tu to sell in the shops young women coming out in brig ter dresses instead of their drab ones - the harbour "illing up it junks and sampens, etc. Te hoveled a good meny headaches, but so far se have managed eleys to keep our heads above water, and I trust we hell continue to manare to do so.
The Jeanere at first expected to arin with us, but we soon disabused their minds of that, since hen they have been entirely docile. "e have got about 21,200 prisoners-of- her and civilian internees here, of thich shout 4,000 pre ~ick "n2 sounded. The prisoner-o-er not only keep their come ve1l we'l isciplined and in extremely good order, but Lundreds of the are employed on orking portier clearing up the mess, imroving the aerodrome, etc. and they all work extremely ell. "e invc cen care ul to keep them clear of Chine e labour so that we cannot be accure of employing the Japanese on thur takin: the bread out oˆ the mouths of Chinese coolier.
•
Then the Fleet was entering the erhour a Chinese gentleman ko was very friendly to u too the opportunity to o along the water front and mingle with the crow to hear what they were talking about, endir impresion was that the eople were not a bit interested as to whether the chips hich come in were Priti or American; the girt of their remerke was 'thank goodness we shall no get food'. This attitude is, of course, very · tural one end as, I think I am right in saying, lmost the major thourit of our prisoners-of-war end civilian int mes. "e took steps et once to do all we could with the limited stocks of food at our disposal, and employed lere gange of coolies to clear un the debris with the object not only o clearing the debris but o riving employment so that they could urchase "ood for their families.
Lereuantities of rice have also been distributed trour the Chinese charitable or nis ti ns. This couple with our ability to maintain law and order, round un the Japanese and start the life of the City going again have, I think, grined the con lidence of the local inhabit nt to quite
uite satisfactory derree.