AbstractsWomens Studies

In July 1940, the wives and children of British families in Hong Kong, military and civilian, were compulsorily evacuated following a plan created by the Hong Kong Government in 1939. That plan focused exclusively on the process of evacuation itself, covering who would be evacuated, how they would be communicated with, where the necessary ships might be found, and so forth and not on what would happen afterwards. Finding homes, money, jobs for the women and schools for the children, parameters governing how and when the evacuees might be returned to Hong Kong, modes of communication with abandoned husbands, procedures to be put in place should war actually come, methods for reuniting families once geopolitical stability returned; none of these issues were considered. In practice, few would ever be addressed. When evacuation came, 3,500 people would simply be dumped in Australia. Everything that followed their departure would be an unplanned, reactive and largely unstructured response to the prevailing situation, from looking for accommodation when they suddenly found themselves in a new country; to disintegrated families feeling their way back together (those who survived) at the end of the war. The experience of the evacuees can be seen as a three-act drama: delivery to Australia creates the tension, five years of war and uncertainty intensify it, and resolution comes as war ends. However, that drama, unlike the evacuation plan, did not develop in a vacuum but embedded in a complex historical, political, and social environment. Based on archival research of official documents, letters and memoirs, and interviews and discussions with more than one hundred evacuees and their families, this thesis studies the evacuation within that environment. It evaluates, in context, its legality, planning, execution, effectiveness, consequences, and short and long-term effects on the families involved. Looking at the outcome on those impacted, and structured around a narrative bridging between the evacuation plan's theory and practice, it develops arguments showing whether the evacuation succeeded or failed in its aims, and whether the missing elements of the plan were justifiable. In particular, the conclusion explores whether the evacuation benefitted either the government or the evacuees, considering the divergence between the plan’s focus on the few days needed to get the evacuees out of Hong Kong and the reality of the long separation that generally ensued.