Stanley Internment Camp - Evacuation and Arrival at Camp

Evacuation and Arrival At Camp

See also: History of Colonial Hong Kong (1800s - 1930s)

In 1939, the British government had drawn up evacuation plans for the British and other European residents of Hong Kong, which was a Crown colony of the United Kingdom (UK) at the time. The War Office by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff thought the city would inevitably fall to Japanese forces in the event of an attack, so it should not be reinforced with more defensive forces. The presence of a large number of British women and children would have been an "embarrassment" for the government when the Japanese forces take Hong Kong, and additionally it was thought the internment of thousands of British civilians would cause unnecessary suffering and serve the Japanese as propaganda material. In July 1940, the colonial government of Hong Kong received orders from the UK to proceed with the evacuations. By 3 August, all service families and registered non-service British women and children were moved to the Philippines. However, the hurried compulsory evacuations prompted criticism from many evacuees, their husbands, and their employees, who felt the evacuations were premature and unnecessary. According to Bernice Archer and Kent Fedorowich, respectively of the University of Essex and the University of the West of England, the local Chinese population were angered by their exclusion from the evacuations and condemned the plans as racist. Additionally, the plans excluded British passport holders who were not of European ancestry. Amidst the criticism, the government subsequently made the evacuations non-compulsory. Existing evacuations already ordered were cancelled provided evacuees volunteered for auxiliary roles, such as nursing or administrative work.

On 8 December 1941, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong, marking the start of the Battle of Hong Kong. Seventeen days later, on Christmas Day of 1941, which came to be known as "Black Christmas", the Hong Kong government surrendered, and Hong Kong came under Japanese occupation. On 4 January 1942, a notice appeared in an English-language newspaper that all "enemy nationals" were to assemble on Murray Parade Grounds. Many people did not see the notice, but about 1,000 people were eventually gathered on the grounds. In addition to those who gathered voluntarily, there were people forcibly removed from their homes.

The people assembled were marched to and initially interned in hotel-brothels on the waterfront near the present-day Macau Ferry Pier. The conditions there were dirty and overcrowded, and the food was poor. After 17 days, the internees were taken by boat to Stanley. The "enemy nationals" who failed to assemble on Murray Parade Grounds avoided internment at the hotel-brothels. However by the end of January, most of the civilians to be interned were moved to Stanley. Upon arrival at camp, the internees discovered little was prepared for them there. There were no cooking facilities, no furniture, little crockery or cutlery. The toilet facilities were dirty, inadequate, and without water. The rooms were soon overcrowded with random assortments of people unrelated to each other, and with little attention paid to hygiene or public health.

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