CHUNGKING: Credible but unconfirmed reports from Hong Kong alleged Major Charles Boxer, Chief of the British Army intelligence there at the time of Pearl Harbour, was recently executed by the Japanese on a charge of secretly operating a secret radio transmitter in a war prisoners’ camp there.

The New York author, Emily Hahn, who in her book “China and Me” identified Boxer as the father of her daughter, Carola, now three years old, said: “Unless there is more evidence I don’t intend to believe the rumour that Boxer was executed by the Japanese.” [It later emerged that Boxer had indeed not been executed.]

Hahn, now living in New York since she was repatriated from the orient by the Swedish motorship Gripsholm at Mormugoa in October 1943, said she had heard such a report months ago from the British War Office but thought it might have arisen through the reported imprisonment at Hong Kong of a civilian named Boxer with others jailed for operating a secret radio.

[Meanwhile, as reported from London,] Elimination by the United Nations within their own boundaries of “these practices of racism, discrimination against which they are fighting” is asked for in a memorandum by the League of Coloured Peoples...

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2020