"Food was scarce because of the strict rationing system enforced by the German authorities. Prices were so high we could hardly buy what we needed and the rations were very small so that we would have been really very badly off if we did not have the provisions we brought from Shanghai.
"The fixed daily allowance of food," the boatswain said, "was half a pound of rice for each person, and that is not enough.
"At night the ship was never allowed to show a light and the very fewest possible lamps were burned, perhaps because of oil shortage or fear of night raids by the British air ies from Shanghai soon ran out and we began to grow uneasy.
"Some of the Chinese sailors were very unhappy when the British began to raid the port, though no bombs were dropped on Hamburg at first. Later the British bombers did enormous damage to the docks, many warehouses and some factories on the river," the boatswain declared.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.