70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

The Middlesex are living up to their regimental nickname - the Die-hards - stubbornly holding up the Japanese advance to Victoria.

Down on the Stanley Peninsula the Canadians and members of the HKVDC spend the evening in a bitter firefight with the invading troops. Today and tomorrow parts of what will soon become the Stanley Internment Camp are engulfed in violence, something the internees will never quite forget.

Bill Hudson and his fellow Stanley Platoon (prison officers) were involved in some of this fighting. They were called up on December 19 and have had a relatively peaceful time until today:

Then the nightmare came at 8.50 p.m. on Christmas Eve. They attacked the Village ((Stanley Village)) with small tanks and thousands of troops, it was hell let loose, machine guns every, {sic} some of the Volunteers defended the left of the Village and the Mary Knoll, but the attack came direct for us from the Beach and the Lower Beach Road, for three and  half hours we fought so, with lulls between, then they would come on again screaming their heads off, just to be mowed down....

Bill Hudson survives, and, like some of the other Prison Officers, is sent to Stanley in spite of being captured in uniform. {See tomorrow's entry.}

Conditions in town are deteriorating, as leading surgeon Li Shu-Fan testifies:

Towards the end of the eighteen days, most of the doctors had been in the city where the appalling health conditions frightened us. Malignant malaria, cholera, and other diseases were breaking out, and the hospital was getting its first quota of these. One had only to glance at the Hong Kong streets to see the reason for the epidemics. Stagnant pools of water, filthy tin cans, broken vessels and cesspools – all these, everywhere, were excellent breeding places for mosquitoes. The Sanitary Department had ceased to function and the coolies refused to work since the streets were unsafe during battle; so, too, anti-malarial squads stopped work and the scavenging coolies abandoned their rounds. Garbage and filth, accumulated in heaps everywhere, bred an unprecedented number of flies; and the thousands of decaying bodies scattered on the hillsides were additional breeding grounds….The swarms {of flies} brought on a wave of the four major bowel complaints – cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and diarrhoea.

Andrew Leiper and his fellow HKSBC Essential Workers open the Bank but very few customers appear.  Leiper goes shopping:

Lane Crawford was one of the few shops still open, and I went there through an almost deserted street to buy some tins of food, toilet articles, a few odds and ends of clothing, and a small canvas bag to hold all that remained of my worldly belongings. The Portuguese assistant who served me said that he regretted he could not charge the purchase to my account as usual, and I would have to pay cash as all credit sales had been suspended.

George Kennedy-Skipton and Henry Refo go into work and then try to get back to the house they were forced to abandon on the night of December 22. They're after supplies for their large group:

Christmas Eve the men went back to work {at the Billetting Office}. After work Henry and Mr. Skipton decided to go back to Mt. Cameron in the big car. Planes sighting it and supposing it to be an officer's car dived and bombed it. Hearing the roar as the plane dived down, Henry and Mr. Skipton attempted to stop and get out. The first bomb landed some fifteen feet to the rear but struck the embankment above the car. Had it struck the road it would have been really serious. As it was, only one piece of shrapnel hit the car. It went through the rear window and embedded itself in the front seat a half inch from Henry's back. The plane returned and dropped one or two more small bombs that went wide of the car and of the men who by this time were far down the road. A little later they returned to the car, anxiously looked it over, got in, turned around and returned home as fast as they could.

Gwen Priestwood, who's been driving a truck delivering food all through the fighting, realises that the great and the small intertwine to create the experience of war:

I drove the gray truck all Christmas Eve and got home that night tired and dirty. There was a small package on the table. Wearily I opened it up.

Six pairs of sheer American silk stockings!

I almost cried. Well, I suppose any woman would have. Here I was, at a great moment of tragedy in the history of the British Empire, a city in flaming ruin around me, surrender to the Japanese a few hours away - and to me the silk stockings seemed the most beautiful things in the world.

The civilians captured at the Repulse Bay Hotel are given five minutes to pack. Mathilde ('Mimi') Compton has to leave her 'paralytic' husband Albert Henry  ('Harry', the head of Sassoons since 1918) behind, and they are not to be re-united for months; some Chinese men are frantic at having to leave their wives and children in Japanese hands. The party is not told where they're going, but ordered to start marching.  They're taken on a long, hard walk, up past the dead bodies in the Wong Nei Chong Gap:

Near the top of the peak Mr Needa I think it was, commandeered a passing truck being driven by a Jap soldier and managed to get it turned around in the direction we were going. Into it were loaded the mothers and children, the sick and the aged, a few of the bags. I suppose that some of our group would have died along the road without the help of this truck.

They continue downward through Happy Valley, close to No Man's Land. A short halt gives them hope they might be allowed to pass through to British lines:

But that hope died quickly; we were kicked into motion again, and descended the hillside to the Tai Koo light plant at the east end of Victoria City. From the weakest to the strongest, all of us were done in...

Just before dark they are taken into the filthy, looted Duro paint factory on the waterfront to spend the night.

But at the Hong Kong Hotel regulars are still allowed to sign chits for their bar drinks.

And back in Britain - well, hope springs eternal:

Hong Kong Hammered, Hits Back

Though facing new onslaughts from freshly-landed Jap troops, and having suffered 'very heavy casualties,' the weary defenders of Hong Kong are striking back at the enemy with tigerish ferocity.

The page 1 report goes on to suggest that the Japanese have fallen into a clever trap: they were allowed to march almost unopposed 'across the Tytam Reservoir dams' down to Stanley. The dams 'form a causeway' which was then blown up and the Japanese, cut-off from their bases, were subjected to withering fire.

Although it reports the death of two senior Canadian officers, the paper's also upbeat about the problems the Japanese will face in wresting the western half of the island from the defenders. And the back page continuation of the article stresses Hong Kong's strategic importance and quotes sources in London to the effect that if the Colony is captured there will be a counter-attack.

The Daily Express story on page one also claims success on the southern front with the 'town' of Stanley being retaken by the defenders.

Sources:

Bill Hudson: http://blunderingblindlybackwards.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/amanuensis-monday-letter-from-bill_22.html

Conditions in town: Li Shu-Fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, 1964, 103-104.

Leiper: G. A. Leiper, A Yen For My Thoughts, 1982, 86

Kennedy-Skipton and Refo: Sally Refo's Letter, available to members of the Yahoo Stanley Group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stanley_camp/messages

Priestwood: Gwen Priestwood, Through Japanese Barbed Wire, 1943, 25

Repulse Bay - 'Five minutes to pack', the Comptons, Chinese men, 'Near the top': Gwen Dew, Prisoner of the Japs, 1943, 63-64

Repulse Bay - 'But that hope': Jan Marsman, I Escaped From Hong Kong, 1942, 95

Chits: Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 62

On the 24th. December, each carrying ones own baggage, we were marched to North Point Camp. The conditions there were very bad. Washing was done with sea water. Sanitation, nil, open air latrines only, water supply, 8 buckets daily for all purposes for 150 civilians and soldiers arriving. Food, rice and later soya beans. Medical supplies, nil. Wounded were constantly arriving.

Again out of bread, and no hawker around. We noted without enthusiasm that some of our neighbours are leaving the Valley to take up residence in a Central office building.

We had to do something about water. Among its preparations, the Government had made ready concrete slabs to be fitted into the nullahs which perpetually carry mountain spring water to the sea, thus to form little local reservoirs. One deep nullah runs past our front door. The slabs are there, but no one put them in position. The water anyway is not usable. The nullah is carpeted with garbage, and on this now rests a corpse. We explored our own flush water well, but oil from the pump had fouled it badly. Our neighbour was more fortunate; the water in his well was clear and sweet, and we drew from there.

In the afternoon, from a back window, we saw the Japanese coming over Broadwood Ridge near Warren's Castle, to Broadwood Road which would bring them down into the Valley. They offered a good target, and I phoned the defence headquarters. Then we watched to see our shells arrive. But none came, and the Japanese continued to pour over the ridge and move swiftly along Broadwood Road towards its junction with Sports Road. Sounds of battle came from Leighton Hill, at that end of the Valley. In the twilight the Japanese guns systematically shelled the civil servants’ quarters on Leighton Hill and set them afire. Then they methodically and very accurately shelled all the houses high up on the western side of the Valley above the cemeteries. The houses below Morrison Hill next received a hammering, and soon green flares went up at the Police Recreation Club corner.

We went up to the roof to ease our tension. The Japanese are in full possession of Broadwood Ridge, and flashes behind it tell of their guns firing across the racecourse to Mount Parish and Morrison Hill. Their guns in Kowloon are also firing, starting several fires in the headquarters area. Glares of older fires in Kowloon balance the awful picture.

The uproar quietened and we came down to hear the B.B.C. news. Then strident war cries as the enemy charge across the racecourse. In the large Jockey Club grandstand is a relief hospital to which civilian wounded and sick have been removed from other hospitals. My sister Flo is working there as an auxiliary nurse. There are about 150 patients. The building has been under artillery and machine-gun fire all day.

         On the morning of the 24th December the Japanese took a roll call on the lawn in front of the Hotel of all occupants of the Hotel including third nationals. 

On completion of the roll call we were ordered to our rooms to await examination of belongings etc.  We were told at the roll call that we should be vacating the Hotel.  We were not told our destination, but we were instructed that we should be allowed only one suit case each as we would have to walk to our destination wherever it was.

         Sister Mosey elected to remain upon the premises to attend to two seriously wounded British soldiers who had been brought in during the hostilities to the sick bay.

         At 10.a.m. on the 24th December we were again paraded with our baggage and walked off.  We proceeded by the Repulse Bay Road to North Point.  We halted outside the Commercial Press premises at North Point at about 2.30 p.m., and remained there until 6.30 p.m., when we were lodged for the night in the Duro Paint factory premises. 

         When I left the Repulse Bay Hotel the majority of the windows there had sustained breakage or other damage, and many doors were cracked and split, but the structure of the building was intact.

         With regard to the contents of the Hotel, stocks of food had completely run out.  Linen Stocks, crockery and glassware and silver stocks were of normal quantities as per stock sheets, and were intact when I left the Hotel.  Furniture, carpets and other fittings to the rooms were also all there.

On the 24th, heavy enemy artillery fire was directed on the Central District, the Naval Yard and Victoria Barracks, and there were many fires in the town.  Leighton Hill was in enemy hands, and the defence line ran from Canal Road in Wanchai, to the Lee Theatre, thence to Morrison Hill, Mount Parrish, Wanchai Gap to Bennett’s Hill.  The Stanley force was concentrated on to the Peninsula and awaited the final assault.   Two platoons of No 3 Company HKVDC were holding Chung Am Kok peninsula.  The first line of defence at Stanley ran from the village to Tytam Beach, and was held by the remainder of No 2 Company, the “Stanley Platoon” (the European warders of the gaol), “C” Company Middlesex and “B” Company Royal Rifles.  South of St. Stephen’s College was the second line, held by the gunners of First Battery HKVDC and “A” and “C” Companies Royal Rifles.  The residue of the Stanley force was manning the third line – from St. Stephen’s Preparatory School to Tweed Bay.             This force had been gathering since the 19th, and included survivors from Shek O, Tytam and Repulse Bay together with a large number of civilian refugees

By the 24th, the first defence line across the narrow neck of the isthmus was established and all troops not required for the operation of guns or other services in the Stanley Fort were utilized in this line.  The main attack came at ten minutes to nine on Christmas Eve.

((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))

Our vocabulary is now increasing and we have learned to use the expressions “Pongo” “Matloe” and “Pani” with accuracy. This was X’mas Eve and here we were again alongside our old friend the ferry, improving our speed in getting down especially when one shell hit the bow of the ferry, doing no damage.

There were one or two amusing incidents during the morning; the A.B. who, while carefully crossing the gangplank, was affected by the wave of a passing boat, fell in, and, on emerging, cursed the Navy, the War, the Japs, the Far East in general, and Aberdeen in particular, and, during the tirade, managed to find time for a detailed account of the Aberdeen sanitary system, with special reference to the ultimate destination of the sanitary engineer who had planned the same; the two small Chinese children whose air raid shelter consisted of a large wicker basket, the lid of which was closed during air raids and shelling; and our friend “Jixer” Prest (the Coxswain) who, while climbing out of the conning tower with the rum jar heard a shell coming – ducked – remembered the rum – reappeared, shielding the rum next his heart – and again carefully ducked to what shelter the thin planking of the vessel could afford. One last feat of gallantry worth recording is that of that gallant sailor Lieut. Ashby who, when a shell burst, instead of going flat, bowed gracefully showing a shiny polished blue serge “bottom” as his means of all round defence. Again, though, one had the feeling that it was good to be with such people. The whole business became a game played with Good Companions and a shell burst something to occasion a joke. By this time too, we had come fully to realise what Naval Hospitality means. In dealing with the army, one felt that they had no objection to your being with them but the navy somehow conveyed the impression that they would have objected to your not being with them.

And so, being Christmas eve a bottle of champagne was split among the two crews; the C.O.C. having warned troops against over celebration, and, under the impression that I was going on ahead that night with Parsons in 27 (the silent boat) as a scout I was looking forward to night, but again no orders, and so to bed, for what, although we did not know, was to be our last night in HK.