70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

The Shing Mun Redoubt, the key to the Gin Drinkers Line, is taken and the Royal Scots fall back to inadequate defensive positions on Golden Hill where they come under heavy attack. Indian regiments are fighting hard, and some of the young Canadians are sent into the battle, but as the fighting approaches urban areas, civilian casualties, mainly Chinese, start to mount.

The food situation in Kowloon's deteriorating. Yesterday the missionary Reiton family bought 'twelve large two and one-half loaves of bread'. Today their son-in-law Robert Hammond, also a missionary, finds that it's impossible to buy any bread at all.

Ellen Field goes to the Recruitment Centre and is told to leave Kowloon for the Island. She refuses:

I had the most fanciful notion of what would happen to me if I did remain where I was. I thought, for instance, that the Japanese would simply come up to me and say, 'We've won or something like that.' I believed they would behave decently towards British people.

After a heavy night of shelling, Arthur and Edith Hamson and their family decide to take refuge in the Kowloon hills for a few days. They head towards Lion Rock, passing other terrified families. Their servants Ah Moi and Ah Lee find them and bring food. Night falls 'and with darkness came the most spectacular light show'. From their elevated position they see Hong Kong Island covered in thick smoke, 'which took on an orange glow from the flickering light created by the bombs'. Lion Rock isn't comfortable, but at least it's safer than the city.

Diary of Dr. Isaac Newton:

Today has been one of the most trying that I have ever experienced. When I got to the hospital after breakfast, I found that there was a general air of tension and the nursing staff, sisters as well as nurses, had decided that in no circumstances would they stay put if the Japanese occupied Kowloon. As they had all agreed previously to do so when asked and our plans about stores etc. were based on that it was something of a blow to me.

Newton decides to cross to the Island and discuss the situation with the Director of Medical Services: on arrival he finds that  Selwyn-Clarke has just seen the Governor, and he tells him that it is his (the Governor's) wish that all the hospital's medical personnel remain in Kowloon:

It was the first time I have ever seen S-C really moved. He obviously felt that he was deserting us and he really minded it, particularly as we have borne the brunt of the whole thing up till now. However, we settled all the details we could and he followed me out and said goodbye. There were tears in his eyes and he couldn't control his face or let the words out and in the end he gave it up and just walked back to his office. I felt really sorry for him. Then {Dr. D. J.} Valentine came up and said goodbye too.

On Hong Kong Island Phyllis Harrop describes the problems faced by Food Control:

Something has gone radically wrong with the organisation. Reports are coming in that men have had no food for forty-eight hours. Office staff have walked out due to lack of supplies and messengers are threatening to follow them. The food is there but transport seems to be the difficulty. Conferences have been held to settle the matter.

But action is being taken to improve the food situation: to alleviate the shortages caused by rice and other food shops shutting down at the start of the fighting, the Government orders every undertaking selling food to keep open from 8 a.m. to sunset. A Food Control official broadcasts an assurance that there's plenty of food in Hong Kong, and to prove it food kitchens are opened.

Jesuit Superior Father Patrick Joy needs to keep his priests moving about the city, as some of them, although Irish and therefore neutral, are volunteering with Essential Services, while others are continuing to carry out spriritual duties - from early on they note an increase in people wanting baptism, confession and communion. But there are new problems:

To move about the city now required police permits, and a large part of Fr. Joy's time on the third day of the war was spent in arranging for these.

One of the Jesuits, Fr. Paul O'Brien, is sent over to Kowloon to open an office of the Billeting Organisation, as so few people have been rehoused in the first two days - only 200-300 on the whole of day 2. He considers the building completely inappropriate as it's made mostly of glass and is the office of a Taxicab Company with an assembly yard outside that's likely to attract bombing as a transport hub. It's rocked for three hours during the day by the explosions from a nearby air raid. No-one comes there anyway, and he finds out later that notices were not issued until after the Japanese had taken Kowloon.

The London press is doing its best to stay positive. These reports seem to give an idealised account of developments on the 8th and 9th:

Japanese trying to cross Hong Kong’s mainland frontier have been halted by our artillery fire, it is announced officially.

The border was manned by British troops at 5.30 a.m. yesterday and we started the demolition of roads and bridges.

Berlin adds that two Japanese Divisions are attacking Hong Kong.

Sources:

Shing Mun etc.: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 2003, 40-42

Reiton: Robert B. Hammond, Bondservants of the Japanese, 1957 ed., 16

Field: Ellen Field, Twilight in Hong Kong, 1960, 20-21

Hamsons: Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 73-74

Newton: Alan Birch  and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 24-25

Harrop: Phyllis Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 1943, 70

Action is taken: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 23

Joy: Thomas F. Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire In The Siege Of Hong Kong, 1944, 23

O'Brien: Ibid, 25

Press: The Daily Mirror, December 10, 1941, page 1

From the 10th. December 1941 onwards refugees living in huts and temporary quarters ((at the camp above Quarry Bay)) varying from 1,000 to 5,000 were fed two meals a day.

Shattering news that the Royal Scots have been driven from the important Shing Mun Redoubt and Golden Hill, threatening collapse of the whole Gin Drinkers' Line. Also supply lines to the front line are breaking down. It is apparent that withdrawal from the mainland is imminent.

Except for some heavy long-range artillery bombardment the night is quiet, broken in Happy Valley only by the ping of a rifle bullet as a curfew breaker is chased home. The Japanese planes made no night raids.

" ...it was not until the news of the sinking of the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse off Singapore on the 10th December 1941 was flashed to Hong Kong that the fate of these capital ships presaged our fate, devoid of air cover. Our faith in our requirement to hold out for 90 days was based on our relief by such ships, and now they were gone, it began to dawn even on the most optimistic of us that our position was hopeless. It was against this background ...  that the battle of Hong Kong island was fought, and it is against this backcloth ... that the record of the garrison should be judged. To be able to maintain any fighting morale at all under these conditions was only possible on a foundation of general heroism, and this made all those separate acts to which I have referred all the more heroic."

((Source L.T. Ride))

Following Mike’s departure we moved back up to the knoll looking over our former position and took cover among bushes as best we could, It was miserably cold. Tea had not been served out although it was available and for the first time among the troops I noticed decided “lack of morale”. Although only slightly noticeable at the time the next and subsequent happenings were soon to provide a reason for this. Already a Bren had been simply laid aside and with this as my weapon I became a Royal Scot. Cold it was – nothing was happening – a steady drizzle had begun and when we were withdrawn about 3-4 in the morning I for one went gladly. On reporting back, Fenwick assured me there would be no sport till morning, I contacted the C.Q.M.S – found it was Hendy – and proceeded to grab a bed.

On rising I found Fenwick had gone off up to his former position near the bungalow and luckily, finding a runner going the same way, I set off to salvage, if possible, any of our clothes only to meet Fenwick, thoroughly browned off, returning again on orders with no apparent reason and feeling pretty bloody minded about the whole show. By this time the indecision of the upper ranks was beginning to show in the troops and the spark of life had for the greater part left them. No one seemed to know what the position was and with trench mortar fire beginning from above the catchment, general depression was evident. 

There was still no telephone message or sign of Mike and in the late afternoon I set off to do a short reconnaissance up to the Shing Mun road to find out my best path for the evening. Approach to our farthest forward pill box was easy at first but, after a burst of Tommy gun fire from a Royal Scots sentry who fired without warning from about 20 yds. While I was hurling my 190 lbs. of weight into a ditch of stinking filth, I decided to become a Boy Scout and run and crawl. It was in the pill box, a fairly elaborate affair, that I first realised what really was wrong with the men – a feeling that they were shut in – even if in concrete and personally I did not feel too comfortable even as a visitor and if night had to be spent  there with the example of Shing Mun fresh in their minds little wonder signs of nerves were appearing. Quite a few too of the men were militia – not toughened for this type of war and most of the regulars seemed quite apathetic and looking all the time for guidance  and leadership which was forthcoming in only a few cases.

From this reconnaissance I arrived back at B Coy. H.Q. to find orders for withdrawal to the inner line. Just why they should withdraw then was vague as there had been no great pressure and the trench mortars, while constant, had done no great damage. However, going we were, and all attempts by phone failing to contact Mike, I reported back to Battalion H.Q. to find a phone to G.H.Q. The withdrawal itself seemed orderly enough but H.Q. was in a flap with people rushing about ineffectually apart from a few worthies who were going out to the Golden Hill area.

Luckily the Adjutant (Ely Guthbertson) told me that Mike was coming back later and in fact some “toys” were there. Those I duly took over and sat down to wait – passing my time by listening to the pipers recount what had happened and, for the umpteenth time, hear how the Japs. had climbed on top of the redoubt and dropped grenades down the air shafts.

Mike, as usual, arrived with a job – to mine the trails on Golden Hill, which job however, on the suggestion of Major Burn, was transferred to the left flank which was already unprotected. Off we set in brilliant moonlight with most of Kowloon lit up by a huge blaze on the waterfront in company with three Engineers who had volunteered for that special job. The location was a ridge from road to sea above Gindrinker’s Bay but, on arrival, we found the officer in charge had been fortifying himself too liberally against cold, the junior officers too were obeying orders which they felt were wrong and to crown it all, as the platoon to guard this stretch had been collected by the pipers, stretcher bearers, odds and sods under command of a L/Cpl. – all untrained men who walked to the top of the hill and lay on the skyline, visible in the moonlight for miles. Instead too of the tracks which we had been assured existed there was bare hillside; impossible country for our particular “toys”.

On arrival back at the road, we did another reconnaissance beyond the last road mine with the intention, if the Japs.. appeared to be there, of laying traps. There seemed no sign of them and the only other piece of excitement occurred when some Chinese came strolling up the road with the sentries allowing them to come close and only firing when Mike and I screamed about the mine. The speed with which ideas change – only two days and here, on the first realisation that saving a life might endanger my own, I was grabbing for my Tommy with only one idea in my mind, and swearing greatly the while. And so rather disappointedly to bed at 4.30.