Bush. Time to led my fantastic imaginations roam, and above all time to watch and observe all the grown up women cope with the stress of their surroundings. They were from all walks of life and nationalities and cultures. English middle class mums had to mix and get to know Chinese mums as well as a Bengali, Eurasians, a Dutch girl , French , Australians etc. A year later when I was sent to live with the Men there was also a similar varied mix.
On the twenty fifth of October we awoke after a cold night to see the Azuma mountains lying on the Western side of the camp with a small volcano nestling in its middle, and which were about 6,500 ft high had their first covering of winter snow. The following day it snowed at the camp , although it was not cold enough yet for it to lie on the ground. All around, on the nearby surrounding foothills, the wild Japanese Maples on them were now turning the most brilliant fiery red, burnishing the hillsides, as were also the large maple trees that lined the parade ground at our camp.. Japan in autumn is quite spectacular, far more so than spring which unlike England is sudden, short and lasts only about a fortnight between the bitter cold easterly winter wind blowing straight from Siberia, and the summer warm humid tropical winds from the South Pacific. Most people do not realise that the latitude of Tokyo is the same as Gibraltar, but lying close to the great central Asian land mass, it is under the influence of monsoon winds, which are either coming from Siberia and are freezing in winter, or swelteringly humid and tropical in summer.
During the afternoon of our first snowfall, we were surprised by the appearance of four new prisoners, survivors from the “Gloucester Castle”. This tragic ship of 8,006 tons was on a voyage from Birkenhead to Capetown with military supplies and was attacked during the night of the 15th July 1942 by the raider “Michel” under the command of Korvettenkapitan von Ruckteschell who had commanded “Widder” in the North Atlantic two years before. Many of his former crew were with him on his new Danish built vessel which carried two Arado seaplanes and also a motor launch which was fitted with two torpedo tubes and was often used in action with devastating effect. The Michel had approached without warning in the dark, and at very close range fired two torpedoes followed by salvoes from her 15 cm guns. The vessel sunk in under ten minutes, after the starboard side was an utter shambles . Only the life boats on the port side survived, and as these were being hurriedly lowered, the ship capsized and sank about 600 miles NNW of St. Helena taking all the remaining boats with her. Out of 154 persons on board only 61 survived including 4 passengers out of the 12 on board. They were Pat Radford a buxom fair haired 19 year old girl, who had lost both her Father and Mother in the action; Marion Sparke and her 10 year old son Graham whose father who was working in Capetown in the port, and a 16 year boy Andrew White who also had lost his Mother.