Monday, December 30, 2013

�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20日 5:34
收件者: Yinpong@gmail.com
主旨: 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

 

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

20 Dec 1941. R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Posted: 27 Dec 2011 07:35 PM PST

Book / Document: 

R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sat, 1941-12-20

Returned to Stanley 9AM for food, clean up & to await fresh orders.

Remained in Club (H.Q.) all night.

Japs shelled & bombed during the day.

Quiet night.

20 - 22 Dec 1941, Barbara Anslow's diary

Posted: 01 Feb 2012 03:18 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Barbara Anslow's diary

Date of events described: 

Sat, 1941-12-20 - Mon, 1941-12-22

Paper said more landings had been made. Tales that Chinese planes had been engaging Jap planes over Kowloon.

Back at Dina House, slept first night in room with Janet and Lillian since Mrs Pryde and Mrs Bebbington who had moved in, were on night duty.   Next day moved to large room with Mrs Hilda Hutchinson (who is expecting soon), Mrs Boulton (American); Edith Palmer from Shanghai, Marjorie Cook, and Edith and Ivy Batley (all 3 Eurasians working with ARP).  At night Mrs H. told us stories about the BBC where she had worked (telephonist); and Edith told us of her many travels.

Mrs. Boulton very nice, she wasn't in any of the essential services so wasn't eligible for meals at the Parisian Grill or Cafe Wiseman, so I used to buy bread and butter for her in Lane Crawford's - with her money.

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

Posted: 25 Aug 2012 03:51 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Sat, 1941-12-20

Tony Banham gives a concise explanation of the military developments that are going to unfold from now until the surrender:

As they remove the defenders from the north-south road, the Japanese, are simultaneously pushing westwards towards Central ((then Victoria)), and south towards Stanley.

Stanley Fort, of course, is a major British strong point. Nevertheless, Banham tells us clearly that the main objective was Central/Victoria, capture of which would lead to almost immediate surrender, while 'Stanley was simply a sideshow'. But it's in the southern part of the island that a group are about to undergo what was to become one of the best-known civilian experiences of the Hong Kong fighting.

 

At 9.30 a.m. the troops and civilians in the Repulse Bay Hotel come under attack. Second Lieutnant P. Grounds (Middlesex) is in command, and his orders are to hold the hotel at all costs, as it guards the coast road. Later in the day Grounds is killed leading an attack to free five prisoners in a garage opposite.

 

It's a large and varied bunch of civilians who are inside the hotel:

And inside the hotel, too, were a hundred and fifty civilians - young mothers with babies and young children, their husbands fighting with the volunteers, the dowager duchesses of Crown Colony society and Gwen Dew, free-lance American girl photographer from Detroit; the wealthiest Chinese merchants of the Far East and their families; a few Chinese houseboys who had followed their British masters to refuge; eighty-three-year-old Dr. L. C. Arlington, the famous author and authority on Chinese culture; courageous Americans employed by the British-American Tobacco Company who wanted to fight, and retired European rentiers who didn't.

At the other end of the island, Joan Crawford and the survivors of yesterday's siege of the North Point Power station are taken out of the garage in which they've spent the night:

Next day we were lined up once more, the men in uniform separated from the civilians. We were marched down to Ming Yuen to the refugee huts (built for the Chinese refugees from China)....

Once more we were sorted out, questioned and allocated to huts which were filthy dirty. Some of the bunk beds had been used as lavatories, and we were ordered to clean up as best we could, using our hands and whatever rubbish had been left behind. As we finished, we were ordered out to even flithier huts and the whole process of cleaning again.

Strangely enough, all through the previous two days, having been in the front line so to speak, I had no feeling of fear, as though completely detached from the whole thing. But the cleaning up of this filth finished me off....

We were joined by other civilians, and the mysterious process of organizing life began to stir. Beds were allocated, latrines dug - one for the ladies being modestly screened.

 

The Daily Mirror's page 1 headline:

Hong Kong Defenders Hold Out - Our Penang Garrison Goes

But the report admits the situation is 'serious' and describes Japanese landings on the north-east of the Island on the night of 17/18. That's a little early, and the report of Japanese successes on the back page is also exaggerated:

By 11 a.m. most of the island was in Japanese hands...The remainder of the British withdrew to Victoria Peak while Victoria city was occupied intact by the Japanese.

Victoria was never occupied, of course, but only because surrender came first. The front page of The Daily Express carries a similar story:

Hongkong, fighting to the death with swarms of Japanese who landed yesterday at many points on the island, rejected with scorn a third offer of surrender terms and then came silence.

Citing Japanese sources, the paper claims that British troops had withdrawn to the Peak, where a last stand was expected.

Sources:

Military developments: Tony Banham, Not the Slightest Chance, 2003,  165-166

At 9.30 a.m.: Banham, op. cit., 175.

Civilians: Jan Henrik Marsman, I Escaped From Hong Kong, 1942, 36-37

Crawford: Austin Coates, A Mountain Of Light, 1977, 148-149

Note:

For Bennie Proulx's arrival at the Hotel, see yesterday's entry.

20 Dec 1941, Sheridan's diary of the hostilities

Posted: 31 Oct 2012 02:47 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Sat, 1941-12-20

     On reaching Stanley ((Fort)) we settled down on the verandah of one of the married quarters and slept until dawn. As soon as it is daylight, all hands set to issuing tinned rations, etc. which have been stored in the quarter's, I drive the lorry accompanied by Hammond and Tuck to the WO's ((Warrant Officer's)) quarters which overlook the sea, to fetch some cases of tinned rations. As we have no keys we have to break a window to get in and open the front door, but we later find a window broken at the rear and signs that someone else had been in. As we were carting some cases from an upper bedroom I discovered a body in a cupboard at the top of the stairs. He had slumped down with a rifle between his knees and his brains had been shot out. Whether it was an accident or not we could decide. However, Tuck recognised the man as Professor France of Hong Kong University, a member of the H.K.V.D.C. ((Norman Hoole France was noted for his great love of China and before the war was active in the China Defence League which organised relief and aid for those fighting the Japanese. There is a tribute to him in James Bertram's The Shadow of a War and he's one of the dedicatees of Israel Epstein's The Unfinished Revolution in China.)) We reported the facts at the guardroom and our next trip rolled the body up in a blanket and took it to the guardroom. In the afternoon we get some more lorries and some Indian troops to help to transport stores from the concrete food store at Chung-Am-Kok into Stanley Fort. ((Can anyone confirm the location of this food store?))  I drove a lorry until darkness set in. It was evident that stocks of food were to be built up at Stanley, in case of an attack by the Japs.

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

Posted: 27 Nov 2012 11:44 PM PST

Date of events described: 

Sat, 1941-12-20

The next day and onwards we recieved frequent visits but on each occasion we went out in a body out onto the lawn, The behaviour of the Japanese was insulting and threatening. On the 20th December we heard men on the path and on swiching on all lights went into the hall and were there threatened by Japanese with bayonets.

We were searched and robbed of all jewellery and money and then thrust into a small room off the hallway and the door was locked. The following morning we found that all food had been taken. Whenever I saw a Japanese Officer I asked for the protection of all non-combatants.

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

Posted: 06 Dec 2012 02:41 AM PST

Book / Document: 

A. H. Potts' wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sat, 1941-12-20

The night passed without incident and on getting up the next morning (20th) I found it was drizzling.  There was no sound of firing from Wongneichong Gap and it appeared that the Japanese now held the Police Station, Tinson's house and the Pillbox as we could see them wandering around quite casually.  We manned the parapet of the driveway in front of the houses with rifles and a few Lewis guns and were firing with some success at the various targets in the gap when we began to get a few casualties ourselves from some snipers up on the catchwater.  This forced us to retire into the houses as we were completely enfiladed and it was impossible to get at the snipers by sending a party after them as the catchwater was one hundred feet up a sheer hillside.

I was in the big semidetached house and after barricading the top windows with bales of uniform I placed Bren and Lewis guns at them and again engaged the targets in Wongneichong Gap.  I also similarly barricaded the windows on the opposite side of the house which commanded a view of the catchwater as it approached from Repulse Bay and from these windows one could also look down on the Repulse Bay Road and Deepwater Bay.

I had only been firing for a short while when I was called to the telephone and informed from the HQ that I was to cease firing and wait for further orders.  So we sat and waited, growing more and more restless as the day wore on.  During the afternoon we observed Japanese calmly walking along the catchwater from the Repulse Bay direction.  I again opened fire from the back window and again was telephoned and told to hold my fire.

That night I slept in this house.  I was very tired, very dirty, very hungry and very thirsty.

The Japanese had cut off the water on capturing Wongneichong Gap and we were reduced to drinking water from firebuckets and what rain water we had been able to collect.  The stench in the house was awful, it permeated everywhere, from the lavatories which could not be flushed and which our foolish troops had continued to use instead of going outside.

We had been without proper rations since the evening of 18th, catching the odd meal when possible and were now down to a few tins of "bully" and Army biscuits which also had to be carefully conserved.  If we were to remain in this place doing nothing but hide with not enough to eat or drink it was not my idea of a joke.

20 Dec 1941, Harry Ching's wartime diary

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 06:24 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Harry Ching's wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sat, 1941-12-20

A very foggy morning, brightened by the appearance of a hawker selling milk. We did not ask its source. Distantly, the battle in the hills went on all day, but it is a strangely quiet night.

It is now difficult to get food. A hawker sold bread at $1.50 a pound and a little pork could be got at $5 per pound limited to a quarter pound to each customer. The newspapers noted that there is no fresh fish in the central market, only dried fish. Firewood is also hard to get, and the Food Control is distributing cooked rice. 

A shop up town which had been hit by a bomb was looted. The police fired on the looters and killed several of them. Government has warned that in future the police will shoot to kill on sight. A police reservist called, presented a requisition and took our motor-car, in which a load of street guards immediately began a local patrol around the district.

Our neighbours all had the same thought in mind and asked the same question: what will happen when the final moment comes? The looting at Kowloon is taken as a warning; it would also be our lot on the Island. A neighbour and I went into frequent council of war. We would bar doors and windows. What else? He revealed himself a man of property; he has two new pistols and has given me one, with two tins of ammunition, all disguised as a tin of biscuits.

 

 

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