70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Today the Japanese defeat the last attempt to relieve Wong Nai Chung Gap and the island is now irrevocably cut in half. Japanese troops land in Causeway Bay headed for Victoria {now Central}. Governor Sir Mark Young sends a telegram to the Admiralty saying that the enemy holds key positions and soon the defenders will be reduced to holding 'a small pocket in centre of city leaving bulk of fixed population to be overrun'. He seeks permission to 'ask terms' before that happens. He's told that his telegram crossed a message from Churchill - 'we expect you to resist to the end'.

The general conditions are becoming critical too:

In Victoria, electricity and gas are cut off.  The civilians now have no light, heat or water.

The absence of electricity - and probably the advance of the Japanese westwards towards Victoria - forces Thomas Edgar and his fellow bakers to abandon the Lane, Crawford Bakery in Stubbs Rd. Edgar has previously placed hops and other supplies in various Chinese bakeries, and he now opens the Yoke Shan and Qing Loong bakeries in Queen's Road East. These are too small to produce the bread needed, and more bakeries must be opened, so army help is sent for. 

Joan Crawford and the other survivors of the Power Station siege finally get to eat in the evening - 'a handful of rice cooked on the beach'. This ends four days without food, and the men are allowed to go back to the Station to get clothes and bedding. 

They watch the soldiers being brought to the clearing point 'in pitiful condition', but they are not allowed to approach them.

They're kept at the North Point Camp until the end of hostilities and then sent to The French Hospital - 'where the sisters were so good to us'. From there they go into Stanley on January 29.

In Government House they've burnt all the codes and ciphers. Sir Mark Young's secretary, Joyce Bassett, is asked by a friend to rescue his wife and mother-in-law from an area being mortared by the Japanese. Mr. Butters, forbids her to go, but Police Commissioner Pennefather-Evans lends her a car, and she manages to get the two women, and 'another American lady' down just in time - a Canadian soldier tells her the position will be abandoned to the advancing Japanese in an hour.

The Repulse Bay Hotel comes under heavy mortar fire all morning. Major C. Templer is given overall command in the area. He arrives at the Hotel, does his best to organise the defenders and talks to Major C. M. Manners (retired) about the situation of the civilians.

Sources:

Military situation, messages, conditions in Victoria: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 2003, 187-193

Edgar: Thomas Edgar, Article in The British Baker, September 13, 1946

Crawford: Austin Coates, A Mountain Of Light, 1977, 49

Bassett: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 129-130

Repulse Bay Hotel: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 109-110

Note:

For further developments in baking see Staff-Sergeant Sheridan's hostilities and escape diaries. Sheridan and Sergeant Hammond arrived on December 23 after an eventful journey: http://gwulo.com/node/13844

On the 21st. December 1941 a Gendarme Officer came and all Chinese were ordered to return to town and the party left under Dr.Choy. At about 5pm. the Europeans left Woodside by car and were taken to the Tsang Fook Piano companies office before being taken to the Duro Paint Factory on Marble Road. Our quarters there were on the concrete Mezzanine office entrance floor. We were joined by other refugees, Strive ((possibly R A Stride)), 2nd. Officer of the SS Marazion and the Beck family. There were 17 in all and the floor was fully covered when we lay down.

All the furies broke loose. The battle at Wongneichong Gap has reached decision point. We have now to expect shelling from two directions, from Kowloon in the north and Quarry Bay in the east. Above our flat, high but not too far away laterally, the road through the Gap is an obvious target. A burnt-out truck stands gaunt at the corner to remind us of that.

A lively bombardment of the road began. The first shells hammered the road, but successive missiles fell short until they were landing about our ears. My wife took the terrified children down to the ground floor, where an Indian family lived. Our guests joined them. I went on the front verandah to take a look at the road, and a shell exploded on the corner of our roof, some fifteen feet away, shaking me severely. I retreated, went to the back of the flat and decided to close the shutters. As I leaned out to clutch one, another shell took a corner off the back of the building, again a short five yards away and again rattling our hero. I scuttled downstairs where they told me I looked as green as I felt. The women prayed and moaned and would not be heartened, and the children cried while the house bounced again and again. But quite suddenly the protracted ordeal ended.

At sunset a grimly silent procession passed our back door going up Shan Kwong Road - mules with Indian soldiers carrying five mountain guns. These were emplaced on an empty lot at the corner of Village and Sing Woo Roads, almost under the noses of the Japanese in the hills above. The Indian gunners opened up on the Japanese, and they peppered our district furiously in reply.

In the northern sector, the Japanese had pushed forward vigorously at Mount Nicholson and Black’s Link, and by 8.15 on the morning of the 21st, were dug in on the Eastern slope of Mount Nicholson.   

The enemy followed up this success by attacking strongly down King’s Road while they directed a heavy mortar fire on to the Naval Yard.  Another enemy landing in force was made at Causeway Bay (and a section of No 6 Portuguese Company HKVDC, in Watson’s factory, was cut off).  By noon the enemy had made considerable headway along the north shore and every gun in the Naval Yard had been knocked out.

On the 21st, an attempt was made by troops in the Stanley sector to link up with troops in the northern part of the island.  No 1 company HKVDC formed the vanguard of the attack, with their carrier platoon ahead, and Canadian Rifles in support.  They moved out along Island Road at 9 a.m. towards Tytam Crossroads, the first objective being Red Hill, the peninsula separating Tytam Bay and Stanley Bay.

On the night of the 21st a message from Repulse Bay Hotel said the troops there were retiring that night on Stanley and if those on the Ridge could join them by scouting the hills they should do so before midnight.  The main body of troops on the Ridge left after dark but the majority failed to reach Repulse Bay.

((Source - a dramatization of the history of the Hong Kong Volunteers, which was broadcast over Radio Hong Kong on 31st May 1954 as part of the HKVDC Centenary Celebrations))

This morning saw us out early at Aberdeen, Betty Kendal having been installed in the Gloucester with her friends of the previous evening. Arriving there we found it a pretty lively spot with what seemed to me a fair amount of trench mortar and serial bombing going on. Since the French was not available, arrangements had been made for us to use M.T.B.10 (Lieut. Commander Gandy) and we loaded her with the ammunition and Brens that we had left. When this was completed Tai and I returned to town, receiving one nasty shock on the way, as we passed the A.A. guns at Pokfulam, just as they were going into action.

We made St.Joan’s Apartments, retrieved our “toys” and a box of guncotton and made our way back, still with an air raid on. Stopping at Pokfulam on the way however, we benefited by the current lack of transport to the amount of roughly a gallon of Dairy Farm milk, which could not be conveyed to town.

Our arrival back coincided with the arrival ashore of the survivors of the Cicala, which had been caught at last, after the thirty seventh raid, raked from stem to stern with a stick of bombs, from the last plane of a flight of nine. Incidentally the story of how five bombs hit her in line, without completely sinking her, and causing only one death (The Gunner’s Mate) changed my idea of the effectiveness of bombs, and told as it was by “Tom Thumb” later to prove the best of good fellows, gave us a good impression and a lasting one it proved of the Navy in general and also gave us a new phrase for our repertoire “Bloody Rubbish” denoting anything unfortunate, unlucky, badly managed, nonsensical, etc.

Dinner we had on board and an eye-opener it proved to us, after our experience at army feeding stations during the last week – plenty of good and well-cooked food on the dot.

We were soon appointed to our various boats – evidently our original party was growing – and I found myself aboard ‘11’ with Collingwood and Legge while Tai landed on ‘07’ with Ashby and Gee. For some measure of safety the boats were “spread” at the harbour approaches and when, in the evening after dusk they congregated we found ourselves in the midst of old friends Parsons, Kennedy and Brewer. During the same evening too, the “Navy” unwillingly played us the only dirty trick of the campaign by leaving us on Parson’s boat, while they went off on an expedition up the harbour to machine gun landing craft. They were, however, gone a short time only and on their return we made Telegraph Bay for the night, and my last sensation was one of complete comfort as I sank off to sleep in one of their super beds. Definitely the Navy had something.