70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Douglas Ford, Hector Gray and Lanceray Newnham are together in a condemned cell at Stanley Prison. Ford is doing his best to care for the other two, who are seriously ill.

Lieutenant H. C. Dixon, who is awaiting trial, is carrying out cleaning duties in the corridor; he is struck by the way in which, inspite of his knowledge that today has been set for the executions, Captain Ford has made the interior of his cell meticulously neat. Dixon recives last requests from Lieutenant-Colonel Newnham (who wishes that his love be sent to his family) and Captain Gray (who asks that if possible his remains and his silver watch should be sent home), but he's then hustled away by warders. Soon after the guards come for the three condemned men.

The guards try to tie their hands behind their backs, but Ford successfully protests that his two companions are too weak to walk without his help.

They are driven in a van to one of the beaches on the south side of the island - probably Big Wave Bay - where they are tied kneeling with their backs to three wooden crosses.

All three will be awarded the posthumous George Cross for their refusal, under prolonged torture, to reveal anything about the resistance in the POW camps.

See also July 10, 1943: http://gwulo.com/node/19506 

Sources:

Raph Goodwin, Passport to Eternity, 1956, 188-190;

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2815357/NEWNHAM,%20LANCERAY%20ARTHUR

http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/jap_pows.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Bertram_Gray

Note:

Goodwin gives December 19 as the date of execution, but most sources give today.