or diarrhea…I remembered there was once I fell sick to diarrhea, sitting on a make-shift toilet made of a water bucket and too weak to stand up.
45
41 SCMPHKT, September 11, 1945, Page 2
42 鮫島盛隆 （龔書森譯），《香港回想記》（香港：基督教文藝出版社，1971），頁 142; 謝永光，
《三年零八個月的苦難》（香港：明報出版社，1994），頁 412.
43 The Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre (香港文物探知館), http://www.amo.gov.hk/en/hdc.php (accessed 2015/10/21)
44 饒玖才，《香港的地名與地方歷史（上冊）—港島與九龍》（香港：天地圖書，2011），頁 220.
45中央研究院近代史研究所「口述歷史」編輯委員會，《口述歷史》，第六期：日據時期臺灣人赴 大陸經驗 (臺北：中央研究院近代史研究所，1995)，頁 125.
After more than a month of internment in Kowloon, the British authorities decided to move all internees—including the Taiwanese—to Stanley, located in the southern end of the Hong Kong island, starting from the end of October. Stanley held a rather symbolic position in the mind of many Hong Kong residents, as it was where the Japanese
authorities imprisoned most Allied POWs—many were civilians— during the wartime, and thereby became identified with (Western) civilians’ suffering under the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. After the war ended and the British take-over of Hong Kong, Stanley immediately became one of the focal points of public attention as the fate and livelihood of the remaining Allied POWs drew a great deal of attention in the newspapers.
For the first week after the British rule was re-established in Hong Kong, reports concerning Stanley (and the Allied internees) appeared in the paper almost on a daily basis,46 and public attention continued till all Allied internees were released.47
From the perspective of “historical memory”, Taiwanese have been considered as very unique and significant, but rather in a highly negative light, in the history (and historical memory) of Japanese occupation and the subsequent internment of the Allied POWs in Stanley. One of the major facilities used for the internment of the Allied POWs during the Japanese occupation was St. Stephen’s College, which was founded in 1903 and moved to its present-day location in Stanley in 1929. After the war broke out in December 1941, the College suffered tremendously under the Japanese military action;
and noticeably the “Taiwanese” have been since identified as the main culprit.
According to the school history, A Testimony to St. Stephen’s College (and its Chinese version 聖士提反書院百年回顧), published in 2008 with support from Hong Kong government authorities,48 it was stated that soon after Hong Kong fell into the Japanese hands, “All enemy civilians were moved to Stanley Internment Camp on January 15th, 1942. The total population rose to approximately 2,600 including children…The Preparatory School was used for internees for a short time but then
became guard barracks”. But more importantly, in the account of the events leading up to the internment, it described how the College was affected:49
46 SCMPHKT, “Several Hundred Out”, September 1, 1945, Page 2; “Still in Prison: Two Hundred Chinese Left at Stanley: Cruelty of Warders”, September 3, 1945, Page 1; “Stanley Notes: Chinese Cooking Staff Relieves Internees: Newspapers Appreciated”, September 4, 1945, Page 1; “Wanganui List: Hospital Ship to Sail Today: Stanley Internees to be Repatriated”, September 5, 1945, Page 1; “At Stanley Camp: Supply of White Bread Stills Complaint: Ration of Flour Issued”, September 5, 1945, Page 2; “Hospital Ship Plans:
Disappointed People Await Transport by Empress of Australia: New List of Repatriates”, September 6, 1945, Page 1; “Life at Stanley: St. Stephen’s College to Resume Work: Camp Entertainment”, September 7, 1945, Page 2
47 SCMPHKT, “Stanley Camp: Last Two Internees Leave on Monday”, October 26, 1945, Page 2:
48 A Testimony to St. Stephen’s College (Hong Kong: St. Stephen’s College, 2008), cover page. “Quality Education Fund” and “Antiquities and Monuments Office” are listed on the cover of the publication as
“sponsor” and “supporting organization” respectively; the former organization was founded and funded in 1997 by the initiative of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, see http://qef.org.hk/e_index.html , and the latter was established in 1976 and is now under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region http://www.amo.gov.hk/en/about.php (accessed 2016.09.28).
49 A Testimony to St. Stephen’s College (Hong Kong: St. Stephen’s College, 2008), p.9. I would like to acknowledge the guidance and assistance from Professor Uganda Kwan Sze Pui in obtaining this material.
The entry of the Japanese (actually, they were mainly Taiwanese) into the College initiated ‘St. Stephen’s College Massacre’. The troops were out of control and acted with the kind of madness and cruelty. About 150-200 troops broke into the hospital (School House). They bayoneted 56 British and Canadian soldiers lying wounded in their beds. Some medical and College staff were also murdered.
Among the victims, one of them was Mr. Tam Cheung Huen, the Head of Chinese Studies. He chose to remain and died in defense of ‘his boys’.
How, and whether it was true that, the Taiwanese were identified in the account of the “St.
Stephen’s College Massacre” remains unclear; but statement like this clearly showed that in the mind of many Hong Kong residents—as well as in the (government-sponsored) construction of historical memory, the “Taiwanese” have been closely associated with and seen responsible for the cruelty and atrocity under Japanese occupation, even 60 years after the war ended.
Because Stanley was where the Japanese had kept all the Westerners in Hong Kong as internees during the wartime, thereby it was symbolic to the British to re-locate the Japanese internees to Stanley after the war. But transferring thousands of people from Kowloon, across the water to Hong Kong, and to the southern end of the Hong Kong island, was a daunting task. Originally, it was planned to complete the process in 10 days,50 it eventually took more than one and a half months and the process was not completed till the end of November.51
It is worth noting that throughout the relocation process, the Taiwanese were
handled separately from the Japanese. Relocation of the Japanese to Stanley started much earlier, from October to the early part of November, and the repatriation of Japanese started as early as November. However, most Taiwanese remained in Kowloon in late November; as reported in the newspaper, the director of the Kowloon camp was quoted saying: “there were around 3,000 Taiwanese and Koreans in the compound, about 1800 of them were Taiwanese, 200 were Koreans, men made up half of it and women and children made up the other half”. If the report was correct, it showed around 1000 Taiwanese women and children were still imprisoned in Kowloon’s internment camp toward the end of November; by then, they had been interned, against their will, for almost 3 months.52 But even then, none of the interned Taiwanese knew how long this ordeal would continue.
51 SCMPHKT, “Japanese Prisoners: More Internees Transferred”, November 3, 1945, Page 2；《星島日 報》，「嚤囉兵房日俘概遷出 日間來港英軍將進駐」，中華民國 34 年（1945 年）11 月 28 日，第 3 版報導，「前日上午最後一批九名日人，亦由該嚤囉兵房，移往戰俘醫院」。
52 《星島日報》，「集中營臺鮮人 恢復自由不確 現在尚有二千餘名」，中華民國 34 年（1945 年）
11 月 21 日，第 3 版。
At the end of November, while some Japanese were released from internment and repatriated back to Japan, the aforementioned newspaper article on the condition of the Taiwanese in the Kowloon camp reported: “while there is rumor indicating that they would soon be granted freedom, it is entirely false, how to deal with (them), awaits the authorities’ further instruction”.53 It showed that while the British authorities already started releasing and sending the Japanese back to Japan, they were still undecided and ambiguous about how to deal with the Taiwanese. As a result of this lack of clear policy, the internment of the Taiwanese was prolonged and their release was further delayed. It was not until the period between November 22 and 24 that the British authorities
relocated the interned Taiwanese—nearly 3000 of them together with a small number of Koreans—from Kowloon to Stanley.54