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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24日 5:44
收件者: Yinpong@gmail.com
主旨: 72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

 

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

24 Dec 1941. R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Posted: 22 Dec 2011 10:56 PM PST

Book / Document: 

R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Wed, 1941-12-24

Frying bacon on a Chinese chatty in the middle of a dance floor has its humourous side. Grabbed some salvage, tinned peas, cocoa, milk & packet of Woodbines & a Mills bomb.

Shelling commence 11.30AM & ended 1PM leaving us with a 5.9 dud at our door. Shop next door damaged so we collected more salvage, mineral waters mostly.

Planes bombed Fort & snipers active locally.

All set for night watches but at 7.30PM Major Forsyth took over & our section changed position to SE corner of wooden hut E of Police Station. Lousy position too with a frontage that shut off the view at 20* due to rise in ground. Left flank was the road, right flank McTavish & one section, rear Vickers guns in strengthened position on the fork in the road. Canadians marched out.

8.50PM heard the rattle of tanks on Island Rd as they approached the village (Jap). 2 knocked out by anti-tank gun & hell broke loose. Everything opened up on them & the Jap troops with them who were urged on  by peculiar cries from their Commander.

The Japs spread out each side of the Rd. & bombed our lads out. We got on to the Rd. hoping to get a better advantage point but we could only see as far as the police station. Shot at by our own men. (Grants section, I think) bullets tore up the rd. 3 ft. from me. Got on to Fort Rd to cover Middlx. position. Ran out of ammunition so retired 100 yds to Garage. Middlx. grenaded out and we made our way to the Fort at about 2.30AM

24 Dec 1941, Barbara Anslow's diary

Posted: 01 Feb 2012 03:19 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Barbara Anslow's diary

Date of events described: 

Wed, 1941-12-24

Went to see Sid again. Olive and Topper came to see him just as I left.

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

Posted: 29 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Wed, 1941-12-24

It's close to the end now. The Middlesex are living up to their regimental nickname - the Die-hards - stubbornly holding up the Japanese advance to Victoria.

Down on the Stanley Peninsula the Canadians and members of the HKVDC spend the evening in a bitter firefight with the invading troops. Today and tomorrow parts of what will soon become the Stanley Internment Camp are engulfed in violence, something the internees will never quite forget.

 

Bill Hudson and his fellow Stanley Platoon (prison officers) were involved in some of this fighting. They were called up on December 19 and have had a relatively peaceful time until today:

Then the nightmare came at 8.50 p.m. on Christmas Eve. They attacked the Village ((Stanley Village)) with small tanks and thousands of troops, it was hell let loose, machine guns every, ((sic)) some of the Volunteers defended the left of the Village and the Mary Knoll, but the attack came direct for us from the Beach and the Lower Beach Road, for three and  half hours we fought so, with lulls between, then they would come on again screaming their heads off, just to be mowed down...

Bill Hudson survives, and, like some of the other Prison Officers, is sent to Stanley in spite of being captured in uniform. ((See tomorrow's entry.))

 

Conditions in town are deteriorating, as leading surgeon Li Shu-Fan testifies:

Towards the end of the eighteen days, most of the doctors had been in the city where the appalling health conditions frightened us. Malignant malaria, cholera, and other diseases were breaking out, and the hospital was getting its first quota of these. One had only to glance at the Hong Kong streets to see the reason for the epidemics. Stagnant pools of water, filthy tin cans, broken vessels and cesspools � all these, everywhere, were excellent breeding places for mosquitoes. The Sanitary Department had ceased to function and the coolies refused to work since the streets were unsafe during battle; so, too, anti-malarial squads stopped work and the scavenging coolies abandoned their rounds. Garbage and filth, accumulated in heaps everywhere, bred an unprecedented number of flies; and the thousands of decaying bodies scattered on the hillsides were additional breeding grounds….The swarms {of flies} brought on a wave of the four major bowel complaints � cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and diarrhoea.

 

Andrew Leiper and his fellow HKSBC Essential Workers open the Bank but very few customers appear.  Leiper goes shopping:

Lane Crawford was one of the few shops still open, and I went there through an almost deserted street to buy some tins of food, toilet articles, a few odds and ends of clothing, and a small canvas bag to hold all that remained of my worldly belongings. The Portuguese assistant who served me said that he regretted he could not charge the purchase to my account as usual, and I would have to pay cash as all credit sales had been suspended.

 

George Kennedy-Skipton and Henry Refo go into work and then try to get back to the house they were forced to abandon on the night of December 22. They're after supplies for their large group:

Christmas Eve the men went back to work ((at the Billetting Office)). After work Henry and Mr. Skipton decided to go back to Mt. Cameron in the big car. Planes sighting it and supposing it to be an officer's car dived and bombed it. Hearing the roar as the plane dived down, Henry and Mr. Skipton attempted to stop and get out. The first bomb landed some fifteen feet to the rear but struck the embankment above the car. Had it struck the road it would have been really serious. As it was, only one piece of shrapnel hit the car. It went through the rear window and embedded itself in the front seat a half inch from Henry's back. The plane returned and dropped one or two more small bombs that went wide of the car and of the men who by this time were far down the road. A little later they returned to the car, anxiously looked it over, got in, turned around and returned home as fast as they could.

 

Gwen Priestwood, who's been driving a truck delivering food all through the fighting, relaises that the great and the small intertwine to create the experience of war:

I drove the gray truck all Christmas Eve and got home that night tired and dirty. There was a small package on the table. Wearily I opened it up.

Six pairs of sheer American silk stockings!

I almost cried. Well, I suppose any woman would have. Here I was, at a great moment of tragedy in the history of the British Empire, a city in flaming ruin around me, surrender to the Japanese a few hours away - and to me the silk stockings seemed the most beautiful things in the world.

 

The civilians captured at the Repulse Bay Hotel are given five minutes to pack. Mathilde ('Mimi') Compton has to leave her 'paralytic' husband Albert Henry  ('Harry', the head of Sassoons since 1918) behind, and they are not to be re-united for months; some Chinese men are frantic at having to leave their wives and children in Japanese hands. The party is not told where they're going, but ordered to start marching.  They're taken on a long, hard walk, up past the dead bodies in the Wong Nei Chong Gap:

Near the top of the peak Mr Needa I think it was, commandeered a passing truck being driven by a Jap soldier and managed to get it turned around in the direction we were going. Into it were loaded the mothers and children, the sick and the aged, a few of the bags. I suppose that some of our group would have died along the road without the help of this truck.

They continue downward through Happy Valley, close to No Man's Land. A short halt gives them hope they might be allowed to pass through to British lines:

But that hope died quickly; we were kicked into motion again, and descended the hillside to the Tai Koo light plant at the east end of Victoria City. From the weakest to the strongest, all of us were done in...

Just before dark they are taken into the filthy, looted Duro paint factory on the waterfront to spend the night.

 

But at the Hong Kong Hotel regulars are still allowed to sign chits for their bar drinks.

 

And back in Britain - well, hope springs eternal:

Hong Kong Hammered, Hits Back

Though facing new onslaughts from freshly-landed Jap troops, and having suffered 'very heavy casualties,' the weary defenders of Hong Kong are striking back at the enemy with tigerish ferocity.

The page 1 report goes on to suggest that the Japanese have fallen into a clever trap: they were allowed to march almost unopposed 'across the Tytam Reservoir dams' down to Stanley. The dams 'form a causeway' which was then blown up and the Japanese, cut-off from their bases, were subjected to withering fire.

Although it reports the death of two senior Canadian officers, the paper's also upbeat about the problems the Japanese will face in wresting the western half of the island from the defenders. And the back page continuation of the article stresses Hong Kong's strategic importance and quotes sources in London to the effect that if the Colony is captured there will be a counter-attack.

The Daily Express story on page one also claims success on the southern front with the 'town' of Stanley being retaken by the defenders.

Sources:

Bill Hudson: http://blunderingblindlybackwards.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/amanuensis-monday-letter-from-bill_22.html

Conditions in town: Li Shu-Fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, 1964, 103-104.

Leiper: G. A. Leiper, A Yen For My Thoughts, 1982, 86

Kennedy-Skipton and Refo: Sally Refo's Letter, available to members of the Yahoo Stanley Group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stanley_camp/messages

Priestwood: Gwen Priestwood, Through Japanese Barbed Wire, 1943, 25

Repulse Bay - 'Five minutes to pack', the Comptons, Chinese men, 'Near the top': Gwen Dew, Prisoner of the Japs, 1943, 63-64

Repulse Bay - 'But that hope': Jan Marsman, I Escaped From Hong Kong, 1942,95

Chits: Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 62

24 Dec 1941, Sheridan's diary of the hostilities

Posted: 31 Oct 2012 03:13 AM PDT

Date of events described: 

Wed, 1941-12-24

As soon as it got dark last night my job was to collect the European bakers and bring them to the Exchange Building. The Chinese bakers made their own way to wherever they lived or were going to stay the might. Some remained at the bakeries and we supplied them with rice and vegetables. My No. 1 Baker, Leung Choy had located us yesterday and brought a few more bakers with him. We can make use of them. In the Exchange building our sleeping accommodation was on the Mezzanine Floor which is normally the bedding and furniture showroom. We have single mattresses to sleep on, quite a luxury. Evening meal and breakfast in the basement Café Wiseman. There are a lot of people in the building including women and children. The top floor of this seven storey building is the Main Telephone Exchange. A lot of the European men who work in the Exchange are in the H.K.V.D.C. and I think some of the women and children are their families.

We are up and away at daylight and take the men to the bakeries. Our first job is to ask the Fire Brigade to bring water to the Bakeries. Edgar and I with the help of the Hong Kong Police break into a janitor's shop in Queens Road central and remove two new household baths, beautiful sky blue ones to hold a supply of water on our Chinese bakeries at No. 62 and 84 Queens Road. We expect to produce about 5000 lbs of bread today, less than half of what is required. Edgar and I decide to risk a trip to Stubbs Road Bakery in Happy Valley as we need more flour, yeast and other supplies. I drive the big Bedford van. The Japs are on the far side of the racecourse. Bullets and shrapnel are flying about, and we get some through the sides of the van. An occasional shell lands on the roadway but does not do much damage as they are mostly anti-personnel shells, and only pockmark the surrounding buildings. I drive fast across any open spaces and we make the shelter of the buildings without mishap. We load up with flour, yeast, etc. and as Edgar has the keys of the cold storage, we load frozen turkeys, chocolate, Xmas cakes and sundries, including a crate of beer and cases of tinned fruit. We try and dodge the flak on the way back, and meet some lads of the Middlesex Regiment in Tin Lok Lane. We stop and give them a bottle of beer each and some tinned fruit. They look tired but are in good spirits. We make two more trips during the day, and bring out a lot of perishable goods, especially butter, meat, eggs and such like. It is all placed in the cold storage next to the Café Wiseman which is not dependent on electric power, and has a diesel generator, which also supplies light and power to the building as well as to the Telephone Exchange on the top floor. This is a very busy and exhausting day, both Edgar and I have not even stopped for a drink. On our last trip to Happy Valley we nearly had our chips. The Middlesex Regts. lads had gone and on our return we spotted some Japs behind the Cricket Club building ((probably the CSCC)). They opened up on us with a machine gun as we crossed an open space, but the Bedford was travelling so fast we were not hit. I had the accelerator hard down on the floor boards and zigzagged in and out of the debris on the roadway. Water is still a great problem, but the Fire Brigade are doing their best. I don't know where they get it from as the main water supply from the Mainland has been cut off by the Japs.

Shells are also landing on the roadway near Garden Road, the Cheerio Club and in front of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. I put a good spurt on through this area, but still get a few holes through the bodywork of the Bedford van. While Edgar does another job I take supplies to Nos. 62 and 84 and collect some bread and take it to the Queen Mary Hospital, also to the Hong Kong Hotel which is used as a temporary hospital. Things are now becoming acute, no electric power and a grave shortage of water. Quite a number of dead bodies lying about with no one available to bury them.

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

Posted: 27 Nov 2012 11:46 PM PST

Date of events described: 

Wed, 1941-12-24

On the 24th. December, each carrying ones own baggage, we were marched to North Point Camp. The conditions there were very bad. Washing was done with sea water. Sanitation, nil, open air latrines only, water supply, 8 buckets daily for all purposes for 150 civilians and soldiers arriving. Food, rice and later soya beans. Medical supplies, nil. Wounded were constantly arriving.

24 Dec 1941, Laura B Ziegler's wartime memories

Posted: 04 Dec 2012 01:05 AM PST

Date of events described: 

Wed, 1941-12-24

On Christmas Eve we brought in a potted tree and trimmed it. The children had memorized a few hymns with Reverend Buuck's help. They had also learned some recitations, so on Christmas Eve we had a short children's service. The children had decorated a house plant with tinsel and called it our Christmas tree. This "tree" was in the hall or entry. Mother had a candy bar for each of us and the Buuck's also had a small gift to be placed under the tree. Rev. Buuck was delegated to place the gifts in their proper places mainly because his cot was nearest the door.

24 Dec 1941, Harry Ching's wartime diary

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 06:28 AM PST

Book / Document: 

Harry Ching's wartime diary

Date of events described: 

Wed, 1941-12-24

Again out of bread, and no hawker around. We noted without enthusiasm that some of our neighbours are leaving the Valley to take up residence in a Central office building.

We had to do something about water. Among its preparations, the Government had made ready concrete slabs to be fitted into the nullahs which perpetually carry mountain spring water to the sea, thus to form little local reservoirs. One deep nullah runs past our front door. The slabs are there, but no one put them in position. The water anyway is not usable. The nullah is carpeted with garbage, and on this now rests a corpse. We explored our own flush water well, but oil from the pump had fouled it badly. Our neighbour was more fortunate; the water in his well was clear and sweet, and we drew from there.

In the afternoon, from a back window, we saw the Japanese coming over Broadwood Ridge near Warren's Castle, to Broadwood Road which would bring them down into the Valley. They offered a good target, and I phoned the defence headquarters. Then we watched to see our shells arrive. But none came, and the Japanese continued to pour over the ridge and move swiftly along Broadwood Road towards its junction with Sports Road. Sounds of battle came from Leighton Hill, at that end of the Valley. In the twilight the Japanese guns systematically shelled the civil servants' quarters on Leighton Hill and set them afire. Then they methodically and very accurately shelled all the houses high up on the western side of the Valley above the cemeteries. The houses below Morrison Hill next received a hammering, and soon green flares went up at the Police Recreation Club corner.

We went up to the roof to ease our tension. The Japanese are in full possession of Broadwood Ridge, and flashes behind it tell of their guns firing across the racecourse to Mount Parish and Morrison Hill. Their guns in Kowloon are also firing, starting several fires in the headquarters area. Glares of older fires in Kowloon balance the awful picture.

The uproar quietened and we came down to hear the B.B.C. news. Then strident war cries as the enemy charge across the racecourse. In the large Jockey Club grandstand is a relief hospital to which civilian wounded and sick have been removed from other hospitals. My sister Flo is working there as an auxiliary nurse. There are about 150 patients. The building has been under artillery and machine-gun fire all day.

 

 

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