Winds of change
An excerpt from journalist Ian Gill’s debut book, Searching for Billie, provides a deeply personal account of a World War II internee’s life at Stanley camp in the chaotic days following the Japanese surrender.
With the Japanese still around, George Giffen and Henry “Harry” Ching camped in the office, with George regretting he had not brought his bedding from Stanley (internment camp). They were not friends, but George thought highly of the Australian-born Eurasian editor.
“Ching was a fine chap, he had integrity and I respected him,” George said. “In the office [of the South China Morning Post, in Wyndham Street], his favourites were Australians. He liked their rough style. He had no time for the English chaps and I was the only English fellow then. He told me he had had a lousy time in the war; he was beaten up by everybody.”
Like all of Hong Kong, they were anxiously awaiting the arrival of military forces to end the tense, uneasy limbo where no one was in charge. Although the food situation had improved, Stanley internee Billie (Louise Mary Gill) watched with wonder when, on August 29, 1945, the United States Air Force dropped parachutes with food and medical supplies.
“While we looked on in disbelief, the first fly pass of planes roared over our heads, doing the victory roll again and again,” Billie would say later. “Then each of the planes released coloured parachutes with trunks full of medicines and Red Cross parcels tied to them. This beautiful heaven-sent rainfall went on for hours, the trunks landing all over the camp. We were so well disciplined by then that squads were immediately formed to collect the trunks from rooftops and places where they had landed. It was tremendous.”
At the newspaper office on August 30, 1945, Harry and George set about preparing their first full issue under a cloud of uncertainty. Many were still unsure which force would reach the colony first – the Chinese army or the British or American navies.
It was George who spotted the warships. He had been out and about since early morning and he rushed into the office shouting, “The British fleet is coming in.”
George typed out his story on the arrival of Admiral
Cecil Harcourt on the cruiser Swiftsure – it was printed as a single-page leaflet to be distributed free to passersby, and was on the streets of Central by the afternoon, with copies reaching Stanley later.
The next day, Harry and George, assisted by John Luke and Eric MacNider, produced the first full postwar issue under the combined masthead of the South China Morning Post and the Hongkong Telegraph.
To print the paper, George had to “walk up and down Wyndham Street, asking people to turn off their fans and lights so that we could get more power and get the press to run – and they obliged”, he said. “It was a wild time because everybody was celebrating. I had to go around the city in a rickshaw and visit the Chinese paper firms and try and confiscate rolls of newsprint so that we could go to press.”
Frederick Franklin, the assistant general manager of the Post, arrived as army press liaison officer with an officer from the Hong Kong Police and ordered the Japanese to leave. They did, reluctantly, taking their Japanese type but leaving a large stock of rice, which Franklin found useful in paying the Chinese staff during the next few days. George would be on the newspaper’s masthead as publisher for the next three months and would run the company for 10 weeks after Franklin left with health issues. In Stanley, Billie read the paper with pride but she missed George terribly.
Her head was swirling with thoughts of the future, not least the baby that was due in November and needed a Caesarean delivery.
On August 31, she saw Harcourt, newly appointed commander-in-chief and governor of Hong Kong, arrive in Stanley with his aides. Billie stared at the big, strapping navy men, who made her acutely aware of her skeletal frame. She saw jeeps for the first time, a stark symbol of how the outside world had moved on in some ways while she had been at a standstill.
Washing had been taken down from camp buildings and a Union Jack hoisted as Harcourt addressed the internees: “The motive that has inspired my men, all the Bluejackets, to get here as quickly as possible, which we have done, has really been you people.”
The assembled gathering sang God Save the King and other nationals raised their flags, which were lowered to half-mast as a bugler sounded The Last Post in memory of the departed. Internees sang Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past and planes flew low in salute.
For Billie, liberation brought unexpected stress. Supplies of Red Cross parcels found in Japanese stores were distributed, but the richer diet caused those who gorged themselves on tinned vegetables and bully beef to be violently sick.
After dreaming of steak for years, Billie found the taste of beef bland and repelling and she hankered for the pungent flavour of salted fish. Gradually, she began to regain her strength. Activities such as climbing the footpath became less exhausting. Her skin shed its pallid colour and her face looked less gaunt. To her relief, her memory started to return, like an old friend. But with it came psychological challenges as initial jubilation gave way to anxiety about the future. For so long, she had been intent on surviving day to day without having to make plans for the morrow and now,