Hill, Donald ___ 1921-1985 ___ British ___ aviator

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
There is not much information about Donald Hill available on the internet, other than that used to promote the recent publication of a book which is based on the diary he wrote about his time in a Hong Kong prisoner of war camp. The diary was written in code. It was only after Hill's death that a mathematician - Philip Aston - at the University of Surrey - decoded it, and then Andro Linklater wrote Hill's story as 'The Code of Love'. The book weaves together the story of Hill's romance with Pamela Kirrage who he met months before being stationed in Hong Kong in 1939, the diary itself, and his own efforts to unravel the code. The code was devised by Hill because officers abroad were not allowed to keep diaries or records. When Hong Kong fell, Hill was captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. After the war, on his return to Britain, Hill married Kirrage. But, the union was not to be a happy one, since Hill was psychologically damaged by his incarceration. The couple divorced in 1978, but remarried a year before Hill's death. According to the book's publicity, it was only after the diary had been deciphered that Kirrage could understand the 'private hell' her future husband had experienced as a prisoner.
A biography link
No Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1939-1945g ___ self prison HongKong

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
etext
a few pages

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Code of Love
 

October 2005, corrected February 2007, July 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.