FROM HONG KONG

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 281, 22 August 1940, Page 8

FROM HONG KONG

Women And Children Reach Auckland

STORY OF EXPERIENCES (By Telegraph—Press ztssociation.) AUCKLAND, August 21.

Thankful that their journey had ended, two women who were evacuated from Hong Kong early in July have reached Auckland from Australia with their children. They are Mrs. E. T. Adams, who has three children, including twins under a year old, and Mrs. It. Higgs, who has two children.

While their husbands remain iu Hong Kong they expect to stay with friends iu Auckland for the, duration of the war.

The two families left Hong Kong on July 5 in a ship carrying 790 women and children, wives and families of British civilians in the colony. About the same time another ship left with about 1100 civilian evacuees, and a little earlier another vessel took on board the wives and families of men of.the armed forces.

A party numbering about 900 evacuees was first taken to Manila. According to Mrs. zAdanns, conditions on board ship and at Manila were not nearly so difficult as those described by another evacuee in a report recently sent from Brisbane. Space was limited ou board ship, and they were glad to reach Manila. For three weeks they were accommodated in McKinley army barracks and received every attention. "We had a terrible experience when we were transferred to an old hotel,” Mrs. Adams added. “The place was in very bad condition, and it was impossible for us to live there. However, we arranged to get flats and stayed in them till we left for Australia.” Stressing that the evacuation was only a precautionary measure, the two women said conditions in Hong Kong were little different from normal when they left. Naturally they regretted having to leave their homes. They had been allowed to bring little other than bare necessities.