The Camp Health Insurance Fund¹ was established on the 20^th of April 1917². The Bowling Alley, which was established by prisoners from Marugame, who had previously run one there, became an early sponsor³. The Fund’s first annual report was published in February 1918⁴. It describes how it was established and also provides a balance sheet. An article on the task of collecting for the fund tells us that it was often demanding and unrewarding⁵. Fortunately money was also provided by charitable donations from outside the camp⁶. Support for the Fund and for other activities was subsequently organised by establishing a Camp Fund⁷. On the 7^th of August 1918 a number of prisoners were transferred to Bando from Kurume. The Fund’s staff were able to provide them with practical help⁸. The people from Kurume also brought unwelcome visitors with them, in the form of bed-bugs, and this necessitated a campaign to eradicate them⁹.

In October 1918 there was some criticism of “representatives of the Left” who “fundamentally disagreed” with the Fund¹⁰.

The first mention of the “Spanish” flu¹¹ occurs in the edition for the 17^th of November 1918¹². By then it was spreading quickly through the camp. The fact that the camp had a fund and willing carers and helpers undoubtedly helped people to survive^13,14. The newspaper for the 8th of December provides a summing up of how the camp coped with the epidemic¹⁵, together with obituaries for two men who died as a consequence of the disease. One was a prisoner who had attempted to escape from Marugame. He was very badly treated in Takamatsu Prison for a year and a quarter before coming to Bando¹⁶. The combined circumstances of the flu and German’s defeat in the war clearly had an impact, but they do not seem to have led to a complete collapse of morale¹⁷. By January, the news was mainly of people recovering¹⁸. The annual report of the Fund, published in February 1919 gives an account of how it coped with its various challenges¹⁹ .

Although the prisoners did not go hungry, the inflation caused by the war did have an impact on their cost of living²⁰. The chart of the prices for the raw materials purchased by the Geba illustrates this, but it did not stop people from purchasing gingerbread and marzipan to take back home to Germany when the camp closed down²¹.