40
G. C. EMERSON
was summoned to Japanese Headquarters in Camp and informed of the surrender.
The first days after the surrender were tremendously exciting ones as friends and relatives arrived from the city and prisoners-of-war came from the two Kowloon P.O.W. camps. On 23rd August, Mr. Gimson moved into the city and began re-establishing the Government. Nearly two weeks passed after the surrender before the British fleet arrived on 30th August. At 5.00 p.m. that afternoon, the Commander of the Fleet, Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt, came to Camp and attended a very moving flag-raising ceremony. It was several weeks before the Camp was finally closed. Many ventured into the city to begin picking up the lost threads of their lives but many, particularly those whose health was poor, remained in Camp waiting to board the ships which took them away from Hong Kong.
From this brief account, it may sound as if internment was not a particularly bad experience. Such an impression would be far from the truth. Internment was a dreadful experience. Not only were the physical aspects - lack of food and of clothing, the over-crowding, the insufficient food, etc.- most unpleasant, but the mental aspects were extremely bad also. The humiliation of defeat, the separation from loved ones and the years of waiting for release are impossible to imagine for those of us who have never had such experiences. While the horrors of the German concentration camps fortunately never were experienced in Hong Kong, internment in Stanley Camp was a terrible experience for almost all the internees.
I would like to finish by reading you a few lines from a poem written by Mr. C. J. Norman, later Commissioner of Prisons, Hong Kong, in 1954. The poem is entitled “A Farewell to Stanley”.
A Farewell to Stanley! It's over.
Of Internees there isn't a sign. They've left for Newhaven & Dover
For Hull & Newcastle-on-Tyne.
No tales where the rumours once started.
The kitchen's devoid of its queues.
The strategists all have departed
With the lies which they peddled as 'news'.
40
G. C. EMERSON
was summoned to Japanese Headquarters in Camp and informed of the surrender.
The first days after the surrender were tremendously exciting ones as friends and relatives arrived from the city and prisoners-of- war came from the two Kowloon P.O.W. camps. On 23rd August, Mr. Gimson moved into the city and began re-establishing the Government. Nearly two weeks passed after the surrender before the British fleet arrived on 30th August. At 5.00 p.m. that after- noon, the Commander of the Fleet, Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt, came to Camp and attended a very moving flag-raising ceremony. It was several weeks before the Camp was finally closed. Many ventured into the city to begin picking up the lost threads of their lives but many, particularly those whose health was poor, remained in Camp waiting to board the ships which took them away from Hong Kong
From this brief account, it may sound as if internment was not a particularly bad experience. Such an impression would be far from the truth. Internment was a dreadful experience. Not only were the physical aspects - lack of food and of clothing, the over- crowding, the insufficient food, etc.- most unpleasant, but the mental aspects were extremely bad also. The humiliation of defeat, the separation from loved ones and the years of waiting for release are impossible to imagine for those of us who have never had such experiences. While the horrors of the German concentration camps fortunately never were experienced in Hong Kong, internment in Stanley Camp was a terrible experience for almost all the internees.
I would like to finish by reading you a few lines from a poem written by Mr. C. J. Norman later Commissioner of Prisons, Hong Kong, in 1954. The poem is entitled “A Farewell to Stanley”.
:
A Farewell to Stanley! It's over.
Of Internees there isn't a sign. They've left for Newhaven & Dover For Hull & Newcastle-on-Tyne.
No tales where the rumours once started.
The kitchen's devoid of its queues.
The strategists all have departed
With the lies which they peddled as 'news'.
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