70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries
20 Aug 1943, R. E. Jones Wartime diary
Submitted by Admin on Fri, 2013-07-26 01:35Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Fri, 20 Aug 194320 Aug 1943, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp
Submitted by brian edgar on Thu, 2013-09-05 17:24Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Fri, 20 Aug 1943Sir Vandeleur Grayburn is serving the second half of his three month sentence in Stanley Prison. He's been in poor health, suffering from fever and outbreaks of boils, but has received no treatment from the Japanese.
In the morning, Sir Vandeleur feels better. After the evening meal he talks to Police Sergeant Vincent Morrison about his travels in Norway and his brother's time as a tea planter in India. He interrupts the conversation to try and urinate into a tin, but fails twice to do so. He drops the tin and collapses. Sergeant Morrison, himself weak, helps him to bed as best he can. Grayburn apologises - 'That was very remiss of me' - and sinks into a coma.
Morrison spends the night by his side.
Sources:
George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 175
Morrison's evidence to war crimes trial, China Mail, April 4, 1947, 2
Note: Wright-Nooth misdates Grayburn's last illness and death to August 6/7, perhaps following Morrison's misdating of Grayburn's transfer to the hospital to 'the first Wednesday in August'. For more information see
http://brianwedgar.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/wystan-auden-christopher-isherwood-and_4.html
20 - 21 Aug 1943, Tom Hutchinson's Wartime Diary
Submitted by barbaramerchant on Sat, 2013-09-14 15:23Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Fri, 20 Aug 1943 to Sat, 21 Aug 1943
Notes:
21/8/43 "Newspaper .10" This would have been the Hongkong News, as the family could not read Chinese.
Supporting information:
20 Aug 1943, Eric MacNider's wartime diary
Submitted by Old Man on Tue, 2014-08-19 11:20Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Fri, 20 Aug 1943"Goodness, How Sad" by Robert Morley ((see 19th for details))
20 Aug 1943, WW2 Air Raids over Hong Kong & South China
Submitted by ssuni86 on Mon, 2017-09-18 07:07Book / Document:Date(s) of events described:Fri, 20 Aug 1943OBJECTIVE: Bomb Tien Ho airfield at Canton
TIME OVER TARGET: ~2:37 p.m.
AMERICAN UNITS AND AIRCRAFT: Six B-25 medium bombers from the 11th Bomb Squadron (341st Medium Bomb Group) and ten P-40s from the 74th Fighter Squadron (23rd Fighter Group)
AMERICAN PILOTS AND AIRCREW:
- P-40s: Colonel Bruce K. Holloway; Major Norval C. Bonawitz; Captain Arthur W. Cruikshank; 1st Lt. George W. Lee; 1st Lt. Samuel P.M. Kinsey; 1st Lt. Fennard Herring; Lt. Hendrickson; Lt. Lawrence W. Smith; Lt. Bennett; Lt. Sinclair
- B-25s: Tech Sgt. George W. Gouldthrite
ORDNANCE EXPENDED: 48 120-pound M-3 fragmentation clusters and 24 100-pound general purpose bombs
RESULTS: Results unobserved due to interception by Japanese fighters
JAPANESE UNITS, AIRCRAFT, AND PILOTS: American pilots report up to 20 intercepting Japanese fighters. These were likely Ki-44-IIs from the 85th Sentai.
AIRCRAFT LOSSES:
- Japanese fighter aircraft inflict minor damage on three B-25s.
- American fighter pilots and B-25 gunner Sgt. Gouldthrite claim to shoot down up to seven Japanese fighters, though this is likely an inflated total.
SOURCES:
- Original mission reports and other documents in the Air Force Historical Research Agency archives at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.
- Japanese Army Fighter Aces, 1931-45, by Ikuhiko Hata, Yasuho Izawa, and Christopher Shores.
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).
