From the South China Morning Post this week in: 1950
Under the headline 'Ex-Hongkong Girl Found Shot Dead', it was reported that 'Mr and Mrs George Witchell had received news that the body of their daughter, Mrs Norah Evelyn Stutchbury', had been found 'about 200 yards from the scene where she and her husband [...] were ambushed by terrorists at Pahang, Malaya, on August 15'. The body of an interpreter who had accompanied the couple had also been found. Mrs Stutchbury's body was returned to Hong Kong, where she had been born, and the funeral service was held at St John's Cathedral three days later. Among the chief mourners was her husband, Mr A.D. Stutchbury, district officer of Bentong, in Malaysia.
American forces succeeded in capturing three key ridges outside Pusan, marking a turning point in the Korean war. Among the battles, 'Negro infantrymen of the 14th regiment recaptured bloody Battle Mountain', south of Haman, the fifth time it had changed hands since the war began. 'Heavy Red attacks on the south-western front' continued, involving 90,000 troops, but 'American forces were holding firmly'. US Secretary of Defence Louis Johnson, addressing a Congressional sub-committee hearing on President Harry Truman's request for a US$10.5 billion supplemental defence appropriation, reckoned that the war could be over by February. A few days later, Truman, at a press conference in Washington, declined to confirm Johnson's prediction, saying: 'There was no certainty in prophesying the outcome of military manoeuvres.'
The Australian master of a British vessel complained to the United Nations after being detained in Kaohsiung for six months. Captain Ronald Hay Conway, of Hustoille, New South Wales, and his ship, the 4,550-ton SS Caduceus, were detained along with its entire crew of 53 on February 16. Conway said that the ship's supervisor, Ying Yen-ming, had been executed in Taipei on July 27 on suspicion of being a Communist. Nine other crew members were sentenced by a military court to 10 years' imprisonment.
A report by Peking Radio, monitored in Karachi by Pakistan Radio, stated that 'units of the Chinese Communist Army had crossed the border into Tibet and were 'warmly welcomed' by Tibetans in the area'. The Chinese forces had moved into northeast Tibet from Qinghai . The US State Department was quoted from Washington as saying it could not confirm that an invasion had taken place, but that it would not surprised if it had because 'the Chinese Communist leaders had been threatening to take over the country for many months'.
'Unconfirmed reports of Indonesian 'infiltration' into New Guinea have aroused Australia and resulted in a plan to organise a colourful native 'fuzzy wuzzy' militia battalion and naval patrol. All three major Australian political parties bitterly resent the claims of the Soekarno regime to sovereignty over the disputed territory. The Australians want the Dutch to retain control of the rich but virtually unexplored territory, or they want it placed under some form of international mandate in which Australia is represented.'