CONFIDENTIAL
C. P. Crouch
1111 Beaver Hall Hill,
MONTREAL.
7th December, 1943.
61
Mr. Crouch called to sco mo. He arrived on the Gripsholm and has been employed for the last six years in the Police Department of the Shanghai Iunicipal Council as a Detective Sergeant. I understand from him that there wore half a dozen Shanghai policemen on the exchange ship. Mr. Crouch folt very keenly the fact that no one had met his party or could be persuaded to take an interest in their case. His point was that all of them had endeavoured to enlist carly in the war and had been advised by the British Diplomatic representatives in Shanghai to remain at thoir posts. As a result of that, they said, they had been caught by the Japanese and were now landed in Canada with- out resources or means of support. I explained as gently as I could that they were not our responsibility but with the help of Mr. Patterson and Mr. Williams in Ottawa, arrangements were made for Mr. Crouch and his colleagues to report to the Department of External Affairs.
tir. Crouch saw the scuttling of the Italian ship Conte Verde off Shanghai and he says that relations between Italians and Japanese and between Germans and Japanese in Shanghai are very strained. He in- formed ine also confidentially that there were many short wave receiving sets still in action in Shanghai and that the BBC news through New Delhi and San Franscisco were regularly listened to.
I arranged with Mr. Williams to keep tabs on those Shanghai police- men, who are highly qualified mon, in caso the Colonial Office is inter- ested in employing them on reconstruction work.
D 64251-1 20 D/A 87 12/43
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