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21日 5:06
收件者: Yinpong@gmail.com
主旨: 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

 

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

21 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: 

Sun, 1941-12-21

Orders T 10.00AM & attached to the Middlx. Regt. Catchwater overlooking Rep. Bay. Knocked some Japs over during the afternoon.

Retired to Stanley View for the night.

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

Posted: 25 Aug 2012 03:30 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-21

Today the Japanese defeat the last attempt to relieve Wong Nai Chung Gap and the island is now irrevocably cut in half. Japanese troops land in Causeway Bay headed for Central/Victoria. Governor Sir Mark Young sends a telegram to the Admiralty saying that the enemy holds key positions and soon the defenders will be reduced to holding 'a small pocket in centre of city leaving bulk of fixed population to be overrun'. He seeks permission to 'ask terms' before that happens. He's told that his telegram crossed a message from Churchill - 'we expect you to resist to the end'.

The general conditions are becoming critical too:

In Victoria, electricity and gas are cut off.  The civilians now have no light, heat or water.

 

The absence of electricity - and probably the advance of the Japanese westwards towards Victoria - forces Thomas Edgar and his fellow bakers to abandon the Lane, Crawford Bakery in Stubbs Rd. Edgar's previously placed hops and other supplies in various Chinese bakeries, and he now opens the Yoke Shan and Qing Loong bakeries in Queen's Road East. These are two small to produce the bread needed, and more bakeries need to be opened, so army help is sent for. 

 

Joan Crawford and the other survivors of the Power Station siege finally get to eat in the evening - 'a handful of rice cooked on the beach'. This ends four days without food, and the men are allowed to go back to the Station to get clothes and bedding. 

They watch the soldiers being brought to the clearing point 'in pitiful condition', but they are not allowed to approach them.

They're kept at the North Point Camp until the end of hostilities and then sent to The French Hospital - 'where the sisters were so good to us'. From there they go into Stanley on January 29.

 

In Government House they've burnt all the codes and ciphers. Sir Mark Young's secretary, Joyce Bassett, is asked by a friend to rescue his wife and mother-in-law from an area being mortared by the Japanese. Mr. Butters, forbids her to go, but Police Commissioner Pennefather-Evans lends her a car, and she manages to get the two women, and 'another American lady' down just in time - a Canadian soldier tells her the position will be abandoned to the advancing Japanese in an hour.

 

The Repulse Bay Hotel comes under heavy mortar fire all morning. Major C. Templer is given overall command in the area. He arrives at the Hotel, does his best to organise the defenders and talks to Major C. M. Manners (retired) about the situation of the civilians.

Sources:

Military situation, messages, conditions in Victoria: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 2003, 187-193

Edgar: Thomas Edgar, Article in The British Baker, September 13, 1946

Crawford: Austin Coates, A Mountain Of Light, 1977, 49

Bassett: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 129-130

Repulse Bay Hotel: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 109-110

Note:

For further developments in baking see Staff-Sergeant Sheridan's hostilities and escape diaries. Sheridan and Sergeant Hammond arrived on December 23 after an eventful journey: http://gwulo.com/node/13844

 

 

21 Dec 1941, Sheridan's diary of the hostilities

Posted: 31 Oct 2012 02:49 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-21

 

From daylight to darkness I have been driving a lorry carting cases of tea, milk, jams, veg, sacks of sugar and flour and many other tinned commodities from the food store at Chung-Am-Kok to Stanley Fort. The married quarters and barrack block verandahs are stacked up with tons of supplies. We have several air raids but the AA guns have kept them up high and very little damage has been done. One plane strafed the road in front of the lorry I was driving towards the fort, I thought it best to keep going at a good pace and so escaped being hit.

The 9.2 guns at Stanley have been firing out to sea. The shock waves rattle the doors and windows of the Quarters and Barrack block. In the afternoon the Japs got the range of the 9.2 guns and began dropping anti-personnel shells right on target. I saw the ambulance go to the gunsite and pick up some casualties.

I have six Indian troops at the food store helping to load the lorry. They are Sikhs and wear a turban. One speaks good English so I warn him to keep a good look out for any Japs.

We discover that the Japs have now cut the road leading to the Tytam Reservoir about a mile from the Tytam Villas. No traffic can move down towards Repulse Bay further than the food store where I am loading especially during the daylight hours. Several vehicles attempting it have been machine gunned by the Japs.

The Canadians are fighting a losing battle against the Japs on Stanley Mound, and the neighbouring peaks. The Japs have superiority in numbers. I find this out when I come across a party of wounded Canadians on the road. I give them a lift into Stanley Fort, they are all walking wounded. Further on we meet an ambulance which is collecting stretcher cases being brought down the hillside, a very difficult job in such rough terrain. I talk to one of the wounded who travels in the cab with me. He tells me the Japs' mortar fire is most devastating and that it is very difficult to see the Japs in the green foliage as their camouflage is so good. The Japs are also using pack animals to transport their heavy mortars up the steep hillsides, leaving them fresh to move about in their soft soled cloven hoof shoes. These young inexperienced Canadian troops have had to carry equipment, ammunition, as well as food and water, up the steep hillsides through thick scrub bushes and then fight against a fanatical type of soldier. A lot of servicemen and civilians are trapped in the Repulse Bay Hotel. ((For the siege of the Repulse Bay Hotel see http://gwulo.com/node/13017)) Volunteers attempt to transport food and water at night but are ambushed on the way back.

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

Posted: 27 Nov 2012 11:44 PM PST

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-21

On the 21st. December 1941 a Gendarme Officer came and all Chinese were ordered to return to town and the party left under Dr.Choy. At about 5pm. the Europeans left Woodside by car and were taken to the Tsang Fook Piano companies office before being taken to the Duro Paint Factory on Marble Road. Our quarters there were on the concrete Mezzanine office entrance floor. We were joined by other refugees, Strive, 2nd. Officer of the SS Marazion and the Beck family. There were 17 in all and the floor was fully covered when we lay down.

21 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: 

Sun, 1941-12-21

The next morning (21st) was a better day.  The Japanese by this time were using the catchwater like a highway;  they had erected a tent just below the Pillbox, and they had their flags spread out on the slopes of Mount Nicholson to indicate their position to their airmen who were flying around all day as they wished.

Planes came over "The Ridge" several times and took a look but dropped no cards.  They were dropping pamphlets by this time, mostly for the benefit of our Indian troops and others, to the civilian population pointing out the futility of holding out any longer.

There is no doubt that once they held Wongneichong Gap they had the whole island at their mercy as this was more or less the centre and by holding it they had already split us in two.  They also had a light field gun firing from the gap at the river gunboats anchored in Deepwater Bay;  this gun was very inaccurate and the ships steamed out without being damaged.

All this we watched patiently.  I rang up HQ house as I thought it possible they could not observe what was taking place but found I was mistaken.  They had seen everything but we were still to hold fire!!

Later on that day we were told to barricade the bottom windows as it was thought the Japanese might attack us at dusk.  This was done very effectively with the many bales and boxes of stores and a hole broken in the wall between the two semidetached houses so that we could move from one to the other without going outside.

Late that afternoon we saw a party of Canadian Rifles straggling up the Repulse Bay Road;  when they reached the approach road to "The Ridge" they turned up and came up to the houses.  A sort of cheer went up as they arrived � one would have thought we were being relieved after a tremendous siege instead of which scarcely a shot had been fired since the morning of 20th.  We were then told that we were to go off in parties of around a dozen and make towards Aberdeen but after getting organized this scheme was dropped.

As night came on Larry Andrews, Cedric Blake and I went outside to get some fresh air and Larry produced a loaf of bread, a tin of butter and some bully beef which he had put in his car the morning we first called at Deepwater Bay.  This was a grand meal which we all thoroughly enjoyed.  We eat [ate?] it on an open verandah overlooking Deepwater Bay and discussed the situation at some length.

We were of the opinion that the action taken by the HQ house was strange to say the least and we were also of the opinion that GHQ might just as well chuck up the sponge for it was obvious to any one with half an eye that the island was already overrun.  Perhaps that was the trouble, for the GHQ staff was safely below ground and owing to the almost complete disruption of the telephone service, were quite ignorant of the true position.

21 Dec 1941, Harry Ching's wartime diary

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 06:25 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Harry Ching's wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Sun, 1941-12-21

All the furies broke loose. The battle at Wongneichong Gap has reached decision point. We have now to expect shelling from two directions, from Kowloon in the north and Quarry Bay in the east. Above our flat, high but not too far away laterally, the road through the Gap is an obvious target. A burnt-out truck stands gaunt at the corner to remind us of that.

A lively bombardment of the road began. The first shells hammered the road, but successive missiles fell short until they were landing about our ears. My wife took the terrified children down to the ground floor, where an Indian family lived. Our guests joined them. I went on the front verandah to take a look at the road, and a shell exploded on the corner of our roof, some fifteen feet away, shaking me severely. I retreated, went to the back of the flat and decided to close the shutters. As I leaned out to clutch one, another shell took a corner off the back of the building, again a short five yards away and again rattling our hero. I scuttled downstairs where they told me I looked as green as I felt. The women prayed and moaned and would not be heartened, and the children cried while the house bounced again and again. But quite suddenly the protracted ordeal ended.

At sunset a grimly silent procession passed our back door going up Shan Kwong Road - mules with Indian soldiers carrying five mountain guns. These were emplaced on an empty lot at the corner of Village and Sing Woo Roads, almost under the noses of the Japanese in the hills above. The Indian gunners opened up on the Japanese, and they peppered our district furiously in reply.

 

 

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