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�寄: 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

 

 

寄件者: noreply+feedproxy@google.com [mailto:noreply+feedproxy@google.com] 代理 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries
寄件日期: 2013年12月14日 5:41
收件者: Yinpong@gmail.com
主旨: 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

 

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

14 Dec 1941. R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Posted: 27 Dec 2011 07:31 PM PST

Book / Document: 

R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-14

Ordinary routine. Chinese service at noon in Club.

HK bombarded all PM, leaflets dropped. V.G. ((Probably 'Victoria Gaol')) & Central Police Station hit.

"Tiny" Baker committed suicide?

Cannot get potatoes or veg.

14 - 15 Dec 1941, Barbara Anslow's diary

Posted: 01 Feb 2012 03:10 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Barbara Anslow's diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-14 - Mon, 1941-12-15

So cold in the night.  Had to get up while it was dark ((as working from 7am to 3pm)).  Went to Parisian Grill for breakfast with Mr G. B. Murphy, Lillian and Janet.  ((P.G. was only a short walk from Dina House)).  It was bacon and beautiful chips, and bread and butter and coffee. Then to tunnel.

Peggy ((Wilson)) invited me to stay with her in MacDonnell Road flat so moved there after shift.  'Uncle Sidney' (not a real uncle, but friend of Peggy's family) also lodging there, he is S.S. Harris, Gas Detection Officer.  ((All 3 of us slept in the same room, felt safer that way.))  We had cold meat and salad.
 
Raids most of daylight hours, and shelling day and night.   Peg & I got up at half past 5 and dressed in the drying-room as could have electric light on there as no windows.  To conserve Peggy's food stocks I went to breakfast at P.G. before going (with tin hat and respirator) to tunnel.   Peggy now drove a truck or lorry where required after finishing shift at 3pm.

Central Police Station bombed badly in afternoon, several killed.  Felt the concussion even in the tunnel.

14 Dec 1941, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

Posted: 12 Feb 2012 02:44 AM PST

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-14

The assorted group we've been following around Kowloon are still in the Hing Wah.

It's Gaudete ('rejoice') Sunday, and Father Gallagher preaches a sermon on that theme to his fellow prisoners: 'Rejoice Always!' That's not easy:

The first four days we had nothing to eat, and made a broth out of gold fish, and gold fish water, that the children in the school had left behind them.

 

Nevertheless, Dr. Newton reports a little food being provided yesterday and in today's diary entry records visits from two Japanese doctors, one of whom brings 'two large tins of army biscuits and two large kettles of boiled water'. He summarises his experiences of the Japanese so far:

Except for the actual rounding-up stage at Kowloon Hospital they've been very polite and pleasant to us.

 

Japanese shelling of the island begins at daylight and continues late into the night:

And all over Victoria the terrified citizens crouched in corners, waiting for a lull which would enable them to run to a Governmment shelter.

 

George Wright-Nooth offers a good general description of the experience of the next few days:

Being bombed, shelled or mortared is an extremely frightening experience. You have absolutely no control over the situation. Nothing seems to offer adequate protection; the awful explosions, the unbelievable noise, the violent shock waves and the sickening apprehension as to where the next one will land, can combine to produce terror and inertia in all but the most courageous individuals. A part of the possible solution lies in activity, preferably physical.

 

Nurse Brenda Morgan is killed by a shell in or close to her station in Happy Valley. ((See note below.))

 

Twins Aileen and Doris Woods and their sister Mrs. Winfield are billeted at the house of Sir Vandeleur and Lady Mary Grayburn. The electricity fails so they can't listen to the world news. The strain is getting on their nerves and there are frequent quarrels in the house. In between air raids they look down on the city. They see huge fires at North Point. Food is running short.

Another air raid starts and they run to take shelter in the pantry, where they sit for hours repeating the 91st Psalm.

When the shelling stops, they emerge and inspect the effects: the front of the house has been damaged and the Grayburns' private sitting-room is in ruins.

Sources:

Gaudete: Thomas F. Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire In The Siege of Hong Kong, 1944, 81

Gold fish broth: R. B. Levkovich, Statement, page 5 (from the Ride papers, held at the Hong Kong Heritage Project, and kindly provided by Elizabeth Ride)

Newton: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 51, 63

Japanese shelling: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 58-59

Wright-Nooth: George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner Of The Turnip Heads, 1994, 55

Woods: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 136

Morgan: Susanna Hoe, The Private Life of Old Hong Kong, 1991, 276 and Oliver Lindsay and John Harris, The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945, 2005,

Note: Brenda Morgan

Susannah Hoe states that she was a Canadian military nurse killed by shelling. According to John Harris she was from Nottingham and was killed by bombing. Harris also says that her fiancee, his flatmate Micky Holliday, a sapper, became 'unhinged' as a result and five days later went charging to his death along Wong Nei Chong Road, brandishing a revolver and in the company of several other Sappers.

See also http://gwulo.com/node/13997

This source seems to establish she was in fact from Leeds, and gives a more detailed account of how she died.

See also Chronology, January 13, 1942.

 

 

14 Dec 1941, Sheridan's diary of the hostilities

Posted: 13 Oct 2012 07:04 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-14

Just a week ago today I saw the golfers enjoying their round of golf, or sitting on the verandah enjoying their cocktails. Now the grass is cut up by numerous lorries and the green in front of the Clubhouse is marred by the unsightly hump of 15 Aldershot ovens.

The weather could not have been better, it is warm and sunny all day and nice and cool at night.

We can hear the 9.2 guns from Stanley, Mt. Davis and Collinson. ((There weren't any 9.2-inch guns at Collinson Battery. Perhaps they heard guns of Bokhara Battery at Cape D'Aguilar.)) Also the AA guns when the Japs come over on their bombing raids. So far we have escaped. Normally we could be playing hockey, tennis or football or even in the sea for a swim, as it is still warm enough for it.

The gun boats have moved out of Deepwater Bay although HMS Cicala comes in and anchors at night.

All the yachts and boats in Deepwater Bay have been sunk including our little Snipe class boat. It is sad as we have had some great times sailing in it.

During the night there was a hell of an explosion. It shook the Clubhouse and some of the windows facing the beach were shattered. It happened about 2a.m., I got up to investigate. One of the patrolling sentries told me that some of the mines on the beach had gone off with a mighty blast.

14 Dec 1941, Charles Mycock's report of his wartime experiences

Posted: 27 Nov 2012 11:37 PM PST

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-14

From the 14th. December 1941 the camp was shelled daily usually in the afternoons and evenings resulting in 2 killed and 37 wounded. The two killed were buried by Inspector Trimble, Sanitary Department.

14 Dec 1941, A. H. Potts' wartime diary

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 02:37 AM PST

Book / Document: 

A. H. Potts' wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-14

On 14th we got an urgent order to move 24,000 cartridges for 6 inch shells from Kennedy Magazine.  I heard that there were some 28,000 six inch shells stored in various magazines and at batteries, but the bulk of the cartridges were in the old Kennedy Magazine, which was in great danger now the Japanese had reached Kowloon, as it was in full view.

We worked hard on this job all day � it was shelled on several occasions but nothing came alarmingly near us.  We moved all the cartridges to Shouson Hill magazine, so they were again all in one place.  The six inch batteries were scattered all over the island so I should have thought it practical to have taken a few loads to each.

That night we made another trip to Stanley, and had cleared Shouson Hill magazine of all 9.2 land directional shells.

14 Dec 1941, Harry Ching's wartime diary

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 06:17 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Harry Ching's wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-14

Church services had a more than normally solemn atmosphere. There were heavy artillery exchanges throughout the day. There were signs that services were breaking down, and anxiety was expressed about the water supply. Supply is rationed and people are urged to conserve. The scavenging service is failing, and garbage is piling up everywhere in the streets where ever-individualistic householders are dumping it. Much of the Island is without flush closets, and the bucket removal service is made impossible by shelling in daylight and black-out at night. People are told to burn their rubbish and bury what will not burn. Thefts are increasing. Destitute and hungry laan tsai are snatching food in the streets.

There is still a shortage of currency, so Chinese notes got from the Bank of China were overprinted - HK$1 on Chinese $5. The food kitchens are functioning well, but serving only 100,000 people of a population of a million. Many rice shops have not obeyed the command to reopen, pleading no transport to deliver their supplies to them. The Government began selling rice from its stores, and free distribution to the poor was begun. The chemists were requested especially to resume trading. Other shops are open, doing a cautious business through their door grilles or portholes in their shutters. The fear of looters is intensifying.

The Government requisitioned all motor-cars, and private motoring has ceased. The shelling increased, the Naval Dockyard and battle headquarters area above it receiving much of the attention. It is now difficult to reach town through the barracks area, and I am permitted to remain at home and work by telephone.

 

 

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