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She was assisted by the Czecho-Slovakian wives of two members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (Mesdames Krofta and Tomes) and by a Portuguese mother and three daughters (Xavier) whose husband and father was also a military internee.
This group was responsible for a thousand pairs of strong leather shoes, hundreds of pairs of sandshoes, thousands of shirts, vests, etc., being carried to Shamshuipo Camp.
The Canadian troops in this prisoner of war camp had arrived in Hong Kong shortly before hostilities commenced, consequently they had made very few friendly contacts and had no relatives as was the case with the interned volunteers or other units. To ensure that they received a reasonable quota of food parcels each week, I utilised lists of those who had been in hospital for wounds or sickness and arranged for Miss Ho's group to lend their names and to take a number of parcels addressed to the Canadians every week.
M.
Funds to combat malnutrition.
From time to time, the Japanese Commandant of the prisoner of war camps stopped food parcels being sent in. To overcome this and to assist the camp medical authority to buy eggs, peanuts, and other highly nutritious foodstuffs through Japanese and Formosan sentries, I had recourse to sending money by underground channels to Major T.W. Ashton-Rose, I.M.S. Senior Medical Officer in the camp. This officer was thereby able to give extra meals every day to several hundred cases of advanced malnutrition.
N.
Prohibition against drugs.
I was obliged to use the same underground method when serious outbreaks of dysentery, diphtheria, "electric feet", etc., occurred in the camp and the Japanese medical authority refused to allow me to send in by the normal, official way supplies of anti-toxin, sulfapyridine, and so on. I was fortunate enough to find a Japanese with high humanitarian principles who had the entré into the camp and who was prepared to risk his life in taking special drugs and money for food purchases to the camp doctors. Appendix 1 has a bearing on this point.
0.
Medical and welfare care for wives and dependants of p.o.w. etc. Meanwhile, efforts were made to lighten the burden of the wives and dependants of prisoners of war and internees.
Apart from monthly grants to meet food and rent, I organised schools on both sides of the harbour where certificated teachers combined teaching with games and physical culture in order to keep the children happy and healthy. Milk and vitamin biscuits were distributed daily to the children. They were examined and weighed and when they showed signs of ailing, they were examined by a doctor specially trained in paediatrice.
Two ladies (Miss Helen Ho and Miss Dorothy Lee) assisted me to look after the non-interned families of volunteers and others. They visited each family at least once every month and some families on two or more occasions as necessity arose. They took pains to ascertain whether the mother and children were adequately fed, clothed and housed and were in good health or whether they needed additional and special help.
In order that these wives should not sacrifice themselves or their children by spending their monetary grant on food parcels for their husbands or relatives in the internment camps, I arranged for them to receive tinned soya beans, marmalade, etc. each time
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