Stanley Internment Camp

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Photo of the grounds of Stanley Internment Camp

Stanley Internment Camp (Chinese: 赤柱拘留營) was a civilian internment camp in Hong Kong during World War II. Located in Stanley, on the southern end of Hong Kong Island, it was used by the Japanese imperial forces to hold non-Chinese enemy nationals after their victory in the Battle of Hong Kong. About 2,800 men, women, and children were held at the non-segregated camp for 44 months from early January of 1942 to 1945-08-16, the day the Japanese forces surrendered. The camp area consisted of the grounds of St. Stephen's College and the grounds of Stanley Prison, excluding the prison itself.

Evacuation and arrival at camp

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Japanese forces marched into Hong Kong after the Battle of Hong Kong

In 1939, the British government had drawn up evacuation plans for the British and other European residents of Hong Kong. The War Office by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff thought that 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 that the internment of thousands of British civilians would cause unnecessary suffering and provide for the Japanese a source of propaganda. In July of 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 had been moved to the Philippines. However, the hurried evacuations and it's compulsory nature prompted criticism from the husbands and employers of evacuees and would-be evacuees. According to Bernice Archer and Kent Fedorowich, respectively of the University of Essex and the University of the West of England, the evacuation plans angered the local Chinese population as well, which charged that the plans were racist because it did not include Chinese people for evacuation. Additionally, the evacuation plans also excluded those who held British passports but were not of European ancestry. The government subsequently made the evacuations non-compulsory. Existing evacuations ordered were cancelled provided that the evacuees volunteered for duty in an auxiliary service.

On 1941-12-08, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong, starting 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. On 1942-01-04, 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 that gathered voluntarily, there were people who were forcibly removed from their homes as well.

The people assembled were marched to and interned in hotel-brothels on the waterfront near the present-day location of the Macau Ferry Pier. The condition there was dirty and overcrowded, and the food was poor. After 17 days, the internees were taken by boat to Stanley. Upon arrival at camp, the internees discovered that little was prepared for them there. The facilities were inadequate and dirty, the rooms soon became overcrowded with random assortments of people that were unrelated to each other, and little attention was paid to hygiene or public health.

Camp grounds

A map of Stanley Internment Camp, sketched by former internee Geoffrey Charles Emerson

The Stanley site was chosen by the Japanese through consultation with two Hong Kong government officials — Dr. P. S. Selwyn-Clarke, Director of Medical Services, and F. C. Gimson, the Colonial Secretary. The camp consisted of St. Stephen's College and the grounds of Stanley Prison, excluding the prison itself. Several hundred internees lived at St. Stephen's, while the majority of them lived on the prison grounds.

Certain buildings and areas on the prison grounds had specific functions:

• The Prison Officers' Club was used for multiple functions; it was used as a canteen, a kindergarten, Catholic church, and recreation centre.
• Two main divisions of quarters existed — the Warders' Quarters and the Indian Quarters. Before the war, the Warders' Quarters housed European warders, with large flats designed for a famiy each, and the Indian Quarters housed Indian prison guards, built with smaller flats. An average of 30 internees lived in a flat at the Warders' Quarters, and an average of six internees lived in a flat at the Indian Quarters.
• A building which had housed single Indian warders before the war was turned into a hospital called Tweed Bay Hospital.
• Two houses, originally used as homes for the prison superintendent and the prison doctor, were turned into the Japanese headquarters for the camp.
• The cemetary on the grounds became a popular spot for quiet relaxation as well as a place for intimate meetings between male and female internees.

Life at camp

Photo of a former internee, taken after the camp was liberated in 1945, holding the amount of daily rations of rice and stew for her room, which housed five people

The internees numbered at 2,800, where an estimated 2,325 to 2,514 were British. The adult population numbered at 1,370 men and 858 women, and children 16 years of age or younger numbered at 286, with 99 of whom below the age of four. According to internee Geoffrey Charles Emerson, the Japanese forces had not made plans for dealing with enemy civilians in Hong Kong. As such, the camp was provided with few necessities, and the internees were left to govern the camp themselves. Committees were formed for such matters as housing, food, medical care, etc., with the three main national groups at camp, the Americans, the British, and the Dutch remaining mostly independent of each other except for matters of welfare and medical care. Very few government servants were selected to serve on these committees, as there was anti-government sentiments at camp; most internees blamed the government for the quick surrender of Hong Kong.

The biggest concern at camp was food, and ensuring there was enough food occupied most of the internees' time. Little food was provided by the Japanese authorities and the quality of the food was poor. It frequently contained dust, mud, rat and cockroach excreta, cigarette ends, and sometimes even dead rats. Everyday, the internees were served rice congee at 8 a.m., and then meals consisting of rice with stew at both 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Additionally, they also relied on food mailed from friends or relatives in the city, Red Cross aid, a canteen where they may buy food, garden-grown vegetables, and the black market.

Another concern was the health and medical care of the internees. Although medical facilities was inadequate, the internees counted amongst them about 40 doctors, two dentists, six pharmacists, 100 trained nurses, and a large number of volunteer auxiliary nurses. Because of this, no major epidemic occured. The most common sickness amongst the internees were malaria, malnutrition and its associated diseases, beriberi, and pellagra. The shortage of medical supplies and equipment posed a challenge for those in charge of medical care, with the lack of soap and disinfectant being a particularly troublesome concern.

The women and children contributed to a sense of normality at camp as their presense provided conventional social, family, and gender relations. The internees believed that the presense of the children made them less selfish, as it forced them to think of the welfare of the children. The women organised Christmas and birthday celebrations, and other diversions such as musicals, plays, recitals, and variety shows were also staged. Although the camp lacked books and educational equipment, the teachers and educational administrators amongst the internees were able to provide lessons for the children at the primary and secondary levels. Additionally, there was also extensive adult education for the adults at camp.

Deaths

Last will and messages of executed internee James M Kim

Records show that 121 internees died while at camp, mostly due to illness, with half of the deaths having been of internees over the age of 50. There were also a few accidental deaths. Two internees died from falling and one child had drowned. The worst accident at camp occured on 1945-01-16, when an American plane accidently bombed St. Stephen's College, killing 14 internees.

Another seven internees were executed by the Japanese authorities. These internees had possessed a radio set which they used to pass messages in and out of camp. The radio was discovered by the Japanese and the internees were arrested. They were tortured in public, where other internees were forced to watch the torture. Military trials were subsequently held and on 1943-10-29, the internees were executed.

Aside from deaths of the internees themselves, the Japanese authorities had also executed, by decapitation, three Chinese policemen for bringing cigarettes and tobacco to the camp for the internees.

Escape attempts and repatriation

The Union Jack is raised at camp after Japanese forces surrendered

A number of factors made escape attempts daunting for the internees; they would have to navigate through Japanese-occupied territory, find food, and, as few internees actually spoke Cantonese, they would also have to deal with language difficulties in Hong Kong if they succeeded in escaping. Despite the difficulties, there were three major escape attempts, with two of them having been successful in March 1942. One group of eight internees escaped on a small boat to neighbouring Macau. Another group, consisting of two internees, escaped through the New Territories and into mainland China. The third group, four policemen, in April 1942 managed to escape the camp grounds but were caught within a few miles of camp. They were subsequently imprisoned and released back to camp after a few weeks.

Two groups of internees were repatriated before the surrender of the Japanese forces, the Americans on 1942-06-29, and the Canadians on 1942-08-25. The British, the majority of the camp population, along with all other internees, were not freed until 1945-08-16, the day after Emperor Hirohito broadcasted his acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation in surrender. About two weeks later, the British fleet came for the internees, and several weeks after that, the camp was closed.

Compensation

In November of 2000, the British government announced a compensation scheme for British civilians who had been interned in World War II. The scheme called for a package of ₤167 million, and by February of 2001, the first raft of payments of ₤10,000 were being made. Initially, the plan excluded British persons who had no "bloodlink" to Britain, a point of distinction that was made between those who were "British citizens" and those who were "British subjects".

In reaction to this, former Stanley internee Diana Elias launched a civil action case against the British government, citing that the distinction of "bloodlink" that was made by the compensation scheme was discriminatory, and that the Japanese authorities had made no such distinction in their treatment of the internees. Elias' family, including her parents and her grandparents, were all holders of British passports. The "bloodlink" distinction, however, made her ineligible for compensation because she is of Iraqi Jewish ancestry. In July of 2005, the High Court in London ruled in her favour, a ruling which was subsequently backed by the Court of Appeals when the Ministry of Defence appealed the High Court's decision. This allowed for hundreds of surviving civilian internees to also collect compensation, whereas the "bloodlink" distinction had initially prevented payments to be made to them.

See also

• Greater East Asia War in the Pacific
• History of Hong Kong
• Japanese occupation of Hong Kong
• List of Japanese POW camps during World War II
• Second Sino-Japanese War

Further reading

• Bernice Archer (2004). The Internment of Western Civilians Under the Japanese 1941-1945: A Patchwork of Internment. Routledge. ISBN 0714655929.
• Charles G. Roland (2001). Long Night's Journey Into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 0889203628.
• Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke (1975). Footprints: The Memoirs of Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke. Sino-American Publishing Company. ISBN 0904917002.