APPENDIX III.
CONDITIONS IN THE SHUM SHUI PO CAMP.
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This report holds good only from 30th December, 1941, the date of our arrival in camp, to the day of our departure 9th January, 1942, though the official British Government Statement of 10th March, 1942, "based on statements from reliable eye-witnesses who succeeded in escaping from Hong Kong" states, inter alia, that "by the end of January 150 cases of dysentery had occurred in the camp", both of which quotations seem to imply that there had been later escapes.
For more exact information as to numbers in the camp and sickness in the camp, Colonel Ride should be referred to as in his position of Senior Medical Officer of the camp he had access to these details.
Number of Prisoners.
Total in the SHUM SHUI PO Camp, about 5,700 comprising Royal Scots, Middlesex, some of the Canadian contingent, some Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, about 1000 Indians, 780 Naval personnel and certain civilian and Merchant Navy. The Naval personnel included Dockyard Defence Corps, Dockyard Police and Marines.
I gathered from Colonel Ride that there were also the:- ARGYLE ST. CAMP with probably a thousand. This was the former Chinese internment camp in Kowloon and the
NORTH POINT CAMP.
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on Hong Kong with probably about 2,000. This was the former refugee camp near the Chinese North Point · Bathing Clubs.
Allowing for Colonel Ride's estimate of 1,000 wounded in hospitals this brings the total within reasonable range of the Japanese figure of 10,947, and if we allow a Japanese estimate, as reported to me in camp by one of the Naval Contingent who acted as interpreter for the Naval prisoners, of 1,000 British killed, then the total becomes about 12,000 13,000 which I was told was the total number of our combatants.
Condition of SHUM SHUI PO CAMP.
As mentioned in the main report, this camp was the evacuated NANKING and HANKOW Barracks. The Naval Contingent was housed in JUBILEE BUILDINGS, formerly Officers' and Non- Commissioned Officers' quarters, on that part of the camp adjoining the waterfront and these Buildings with the camp as a whole, were in a shocking state as a result of looting which must have taken place after the evacuation of the camp at the beginning of the war. It would seem most probable that this looting had been done by Chinese as the Japanese would have been otherwise occupied at the beginning of the campaign.
Windows and doors had been torn out, upholstered furniture which had not been removed had been slashedto expose the stuffing, fireplaces were wrecked, electric light fittings torn away, brass taps, etc., removed from bathrooms, lavatory pans had been broken, and, in short, anything which could be had been removed, while anything which could not had been damaged or destroyed.
We, in JUBILEE BUILDINGS were, even so, comparatively well off when compared with the Barracks proper where inmates had to block up open doorways and destroyed windows with sheets of tin, palm leaves etc.
There
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