70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

The AA fire which had been quite intense, slackened off and stopped and the raid seemed to have come to an end. Then, while we still stood watching the departing specks, we heard two or three heavy detonations. We thought they might be the explosions of delayed action or time bombs. Black-out was ordered for that night and the next night, though later we discovered that this had been ordered as a punishment because internees had stood in the open and watched the raid, pointing up to the sky. This apparently enrages the Japanese authorities, for an order has been sent around to the effect that, should an air raid take place, internees must go indoors and not remain outside looking at the raid. Failure to observe this rule will result in prison sentences for the offenders!

On the following day at about 10.30 a.m. there was another raid, about 8 bombers, and I counted 5 fighters this time. Three AA shells burst simultaneously in a line not far from the last two fighters but they seemed to be unworried by the attention from the enemy. They were the closest shots I have seen so far; most of the shooting having been quite ineffectual. It would be horrid to see one of the planes brought down. In none of these raids has any Japanese fighter plane gone up to engage the Americans, though, periodically Japanese patrol planes cruise around. Well; three raids in two days provided a lot of excitement for the camp.

On Monday 30th August at about ten or eleven o’clock in the morning we saw two very heavily laden tramps making their way out to sea, going East on their way North. They, while we watched them, were unescorted. Later, at about 2 o’clock we saw three almost empty cargo ships going slowly out, escorted by a destroyer. An hour or so later we heard (by now familiar) drone of the American bombers and about 5 of them flew over the camp, going due East. As they were passing over camp there was a short burst of machine gun fire. This caused some excitement as we thought we were about to see a dog-fight, but apart from that one short burst and the drone of engines, there was silence – no AA fire from our battery or any batteries on this side of the island at all. They had passed out of sight very high up and that was all we saw. But, great excitement! About 1½ hours later we saw a destroyer come creeping back, hugging the coast right in amongst the islands, and after it came the three almost empty tramps! The convoy had evidently been attacked and a lot of people seemed to think that one or both of the first two ships had been hit. At all events, next morning a whole fleet of little tugs and small craft put out to sea in the same direction. It is possible they were salvage vessels. Planes were out on patrol too.

But yesterday’s raid (Thursday Sept 2nd) was the most exciting yet and it seems to have brought serious repercussions on the camp already.

Yvonne and I had been rehearsing our one act play at St Stephen’s on the stage between 11 and 12 and consequently we were late for lunch and did not lie down for our nap till about 1 p.m. About half an hour later when we were dozing we suddenly heard a distant drone of engines and then, almost immediately, many heavy detonations. We all leapt up and craned over the balcony and then ran to Wilcox’s room from where we can get a good view of the proceedings. There were a couple of belated rounds let off from an AA gun somewhere, but apart from that there was practically no reply to the raid – if raid it had been – and we were at a loss to know what it was about. Someone passed below who said they had definitely seen eight bombers climbing into the clouds and flying off. We were just about to depart when someone said excitedly,  “Look, look, look, look!! And over the high knob of Stanley Mound began to appear a thick and very dense billowing cloud, white on top and grayish beneath. 

“It’s a cloud,” said someone, but it grew and grew – an immense cloud of smoke, thick smoke, rising up in spite of quite a brisk wind. Something highly inflammable had been hit! There was great jubilation about it. The Indian guards, with their rifles, came pounding along to see if anyone was outside looking at the sky! Smoke belched up all afternoon and that night, after lights out, all kinds of people were to be found creeping about, having a look at the red glow reflected on the clouds that kept flaming up and dying down and flaming up again, every few seconds.

I woke up at about 4.00 a.m. next morning and the first thing I did was to go onto the balcony to see how the fire was: it was still blazing away fiercely. Everyone guessed it must be an oil dump, but opinion differed as to which it was – APC at North Point, Standard Oil across the harbour at Lai Chi Kok or an oil tanker. By daylight the fire seemed to have died down – no more smoke was visible – perhaps it was a tanker that had finally sunk.

Later in the morning, news dribbled in. Apparently this is what happened: a flight of bombers with fighter escort came gliding down from a great height out of the sun, their engines cut off, and took the defence quite by surprise. They dived low over Stonecutters Island, which they bombed, apparently hitting an ammunition dump; they bombed and hit a merchant ship and a big oil tanker, sinking both and firing the oil; they bombed the big oil depot at Lai Chi Kok and though the tanks received no direct hits, the concussion of the heavy caliber bombs fractured many of them and a lot of oil was lost; finally the Gas works in Kowloon had a bomb aimed at it but sad to say it exploded nearby in Woosung Street, an over populated Chinese coolie quarter and killed and wounded scores of unfortunate Chinese. That alas, is what we are always afraid may happen. Anyway, if this news is correct it was certainly a bumper raid and the raiders accomplished their task and were off practically before anyone knew what had happened.

This evening a notice has come round from Mr Gimson who stated that Mr Maejima had visited him this afternoon and stated (a) there was no further news about repatriation; (b) the consumption of electricity was still too great; (c) in future no one is to be allowed to spend more than Y25 per month in the canteen and (d) owing to the breakdown of our ration lorry it is possible that no rations will come into camp for 3 or 4 days. (!!) Mr Gimson has taken this matter up very seriously with the Japanese. We are considerably underfed as it is and if they start that sort of game we might as well start selecting our sites in the cemetery! Mr Gimson is, apparently, very worried. Perhaps he fears this is the beginning of really bad times. The Japanese have also suggested that, in view of the difficulty of obtaining firewood now, we should have only one meal per day. It really is monstrous. It makes one shudder to think of the plight of the majority of Chinese in HK. This is the Grand New Order in East Asia!