70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Shows diary entries from seventy-one years ago, using today's date in Hong Kong as the starting point. To see pages from earlier dates (they go back to 1 Dec 1941), choose the date below and click the 'Apply' button.

  • 1 Dec 1943, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

    Submitted by brian edgar on Fri, 2012-08-03 15:50
    Book / Document: 
    Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Wed, 1 Dec 1943

    Just before 10 a.m. the Gripsholm is guided by tugs to pier F in Jersey City. At 12 noon the passengers start to come down the gangplank, but before they can leave they’re interviewed by military and FBI agents looking for spies and collaborators. The interviews take so long that two hundred passengers, including Emily Hahn and her daughter Carola, have to spend another night on the ship. Thirty repatriates are taken to Ellis Island for further questioning.

    Hahn herself is one of those under suspicion: her interrogators want to know why she wasn’t interned like the other Americans, why she received favours from the Japanese and why she fraternised with high-ranking enemy officials.

     

     

    The Canadians are kept on the ship waiting for the Canadian authorities, who are finding American security and intelligence hard to deal with. And there are a number of Canadians suspected of collaboration. It takes twenty hours to get everyone off the Gripsholm and on to a sealed train controlled by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

     

     

    Father Charles Murphy is met by a reporter who hands him some cuttings from Canadian newpapers - he modestly disclaims the title 'the hero of Hong Kong' some of them have awarded him. He gives a long interview on his work running a refugee camp for 2,000 Chinese displaced by the fighting. The camp was set up by the Government Medical Department in the grounds of the Maryknoll Mission on December 10 (1941) and all of the occupants quietly slipped away on December 24, as if forewarned.

    Sources:

    Hahn: Ken Cuthberston, Nobody Said Not To Go, 1998, 278-279

    Canadians: Daniel S. Levy, Two-Gun Cohen: An Autobiography, 1997, Kindle Edition, Location, 5583

    Murphy: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19431202&id=RS8rAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zpgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5523,235264

    Note:

    See also December 2, 1943

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  • 1 Dec 1943, Harry Ching's wartime diary

    Submitted by Admin on Sat, 2013-03-23 17:31
    Book / Document: 
    Harry Ching's wartime diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Wed, 1 Dec 1943

    Big air raid while I with Kotewall in China Building Full of glass. Felt very nervous. Big explosions. Home to find family very scared. Paper says ten planes. Alleged twenty P40s protecting bombers and seven shot down. Mrs Amy Madar killed, George Manley's sister from Shanghai. Connie Lum's sister nurse in Matilda also killed. Taikoo 200 casualties. Kowloon a mess. Hillwood, Kimberley, Cameron, Granville, Canton Roads. Two dud 200 lb bombs in Hillwood Road in Kowloon. Dud 500 lb bomb in Chungking Arcade.

  • 1 Dec 1943, R. E. Jones Wartime diary

    Submitted by Admin on Wed, 2013-11-27 22:30
    Book / Document: 
    R. E. Jones Wartime diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Wed, 1 Dec 1943

    Wrote music all day.

    Raid at 3.50 pm Kai Tak direction. No opposition. Fine. Another raid 5pm.

    With Steve pm.

    (Guff as heard. HK to be retaken by 8th inst. Women & kids to leave 20th inst. & general repatriation next Jan.)

  • 1 Dec 1943, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong

    Submitted by Admin on Sun, 2014-02-23 04:14
    Book / Document: 
    WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Wed, 1 Dec 1943

    Here's how the raid is reported in the following day's Hong Kong News:

    Air Raids on Hong Kong-1943

  • 01 Dec 1943, Eric MacNider's wartime diary

    Submitted by Admin on Sat, 2015-12-05 16:19
    Book / Document: 
    Eric MacNider's wartime diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Wed, 1 Dec 1943

    Raid at 3.50 p.m.

  • 01 Dec 1943, Barbara Anslow's diary

    Submitted by Barbara Anslow on Thu, 2016-05-12 12:52
    Book / Document: 
    Barbara Anslow's diary
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Wed, 1 Dec 1943

    My 25th birthday.

  • 01 Dec 1943, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China

    Submitted by ssuni86 on Mon, 2019-02-11 22:49
    Book / Document: 
    WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China
    Date(s) of events described: 
    Wed, 1 Dec 1943

    OBJECTIVE: Bomb Tai Koo dockyard and HK & Whampoa dockyard

    TIME OVER TARGET: ~2:00 p.m.

    AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT:

    • Six B-25s from the 11th Bomb Squadron (341st Medium Bomb Group)
    • Six B-25s from the 2nd Bomb Squadron (1st Bomb Group, Chinese American Composite Wing)
    • Eight P-40s from the 74th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
    • Six P-51As from the 76th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
    • Seventeen P-40Ns from the 3rd Fighter Group (Chinese American Composite Wing)

    AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW:

    • P-40s (74th FS): Col. Rouse; Lt. Colonel Norval C. Bonawitz; Major Denney; Captain Bell; Lt. Lundy; Lt. Hendrickson; Lt. Morello; Lt. Morin
    • P-51s (76th FS): Lt. Col. David L. “Tex” Hill; Captain James M. “Willie” Williams; 1st Lt. Dale Bell; 1st Lt. Robert T. Colbert; 1st Lt. Harry G. Zavakos; Flight Officer Wilson
    • B-25s (2nd BS): Lt. Colonel Branch; Captain Conrad; Captain Harper; Captain Carson; Captain Churchill; 1st Lt. Seacrest; Sgt. C.C. Wei
    • B-25s (11th BS):
      • B-25 #38: Flight Officer Richard M. Gramling; Flight Officer William R. Monroe; Sgt. Rafael C. Arellano; Corporal Everett F. Hamilton
      • B-25 #46: 2nd Lt. John M. Overstreet; 2nd Lt. Stanley A. Johnson; 2nd Lt. Ralph Kamhi; Sgt. Frederick C. DeWitt; Private Charles J. Wilder
      • B-25 #57: 1st Lt. Edgar N. Gentry; 2nd Lt. Harold E. Sparhawk; 1st Lt. Paul J. Diekman; Sgt. William H. Johnson; Staff Sgt. Robert D. Shaak; Corporal E.Z. Mann
      • B-25 #68: 1st Lt. William A. Brenner; 2nd Lt. Delwyn F. Ritzdorf; 1st Lt. Frank H. Gibson; Staff Sgt. Ray T. Hamilton; Sgt. Alvin A. Stainker
      • B-25 #88: 1st Lt. George T. Grottle; 2nd Lt. Harold Rochelle; 2nd Lt. Robert B. Fischborn; Staff Sgt. Golden U. Gallup
      • B-25 #92: Lt. Col. Joseph B. Wells; 1st Lt. William M. Henry; 1st Lt. Charles J. Bethea; 2nd Lt. Herbert I. Robinson; Sgt. Joe D. Josserand; Sgt. Harold J. Coleman; Corporal Arbun K. Griffen

    ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 72 x 500-pound bombs

    RESULTS: Bombs hit the Tai Koo and HK & Whampoa dockyards.  At Tai Koo, the 2,645-ton Teiren Maru is damaged beyond repair.

    JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: Ki-43 and Ki-44 pilots from the 85th Sentai

    AIRCRAFT LOSSES:

    • Pilots of the 85th Sentai shoot down two P-51As (pilots Colbert and Williams) and damage a third (pilot Hill)
    • One B-25 gunner claims to shoot down one enemy fighter and Lt. Col. Hill damages one Ki-44

    SOURCES: Original mission reports and other documents in the Air Force Historical Research Agency archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.

    Information compiled by Steven K. Bailey, author of Bold Venture: The American Bombing of Japanese-Occupied Hong Kong, 1942-1945 (Potomac Books/University of Nebraska Press, 2019).

    Tags: 
    air raids

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