July 1946

Mr. W. E. Jones, of Warragul, Vic., writes:— 

"Having read the references in the 'A.S.M.' about the new Hong Kong Peace or Victory stamps, I thought possibly the following information might be of interest to you.

"The design for these stamps was prepared in one of the prison camps in Hong Kong, during 1944, and had to be kept out of sight of the Japs. The Postmaster-General, who was in the same camp as I was, approached me one day (I suppose because the Centenary stamps had been prepared from designs that I had done) and said, 'What about doing a design for a Victory stamp and using the phoenix as symbolising the revival of Hong Kong ?'

The enclosed sketch is the one we decided on; I am sorry it is so rough, but the paper, on the rare occasions the Japs, issued it, was intended for an entirely different purpose! 



The final drawing the P.M.G- took to England with him, and I am looking forward to seeing what the printers' artist has done by way of improvement.

The characters, roughly translated, read:
Right Side, 'The Phoenix revives, great harmony';
Left Side, 'China and England, great good fortune.' Possibly the last two characters will be altered to 'Great peace.' They have to be submitted to a Chinese scholar to get the right Chinese idea of balance, sound and correct four pairs of characters, which is most important to them."