19 Dec 1941, Sheridan's diary of the hostilities

((Note: In the long entry for today Staff-Sergeant Sheridan describes the evacuation of the Field Bakery at Deep Water Bay and the chaotic conditions as the crucial struggle for the Wong Nai Chung Gap Came to an end.))

No sleep whatever during the continuous firing racket all night. Twice during the early hours we had a stand to. Heavy automatic and rifle fire can be heard from the direction of Wong-Nei-Chong Gap where the Canadians are being attacked. It is only a quarter of a mile away from the Golf club. Before daylight tracer bullets zoom over my Aldershot ovens. I get the bakers on mixing doughs in the shelter of the club house verandah. As soon as it is light we fire up the ovens. There is a lot of mortar explosions from the direction of the Gap. Tracers still go flying past. With the help of Leung Choy ((‘No. 1 Baker’)) we calm the Chinese bakers and keep them working.

Some wounded Naval men limp into the ((Golf club's)) club house. We give them first aid. They had been in a convoy of trucks taking food and ammunition up the Repulse Bay road to the Canadians at the Gap. The convoy had been ambushed by the Japs, some of the sailors had been killed and wounded. We were now in the line of fire, as tracers and mortars began to explode everywhere.

Orders are now given for everyone to be ready to move out at a moment’s notice. The Bakery carries on working until about 10a.m. then we get orders to leave everything and move out at once. I enquire of the Senior officer if we are to take any equipment. The answer is no. Empty lorries, cars, and me all leave like lightedning. I dash up to the first floor of the Golf Club to collect some small kit, but when I return I find everyone had left. I take a last look at the doughs in the verandah in the wooden mixing troughs. In a few hours they will be rotten. The makings of about 8000 lbs of good bread gone west. Hammond, Tuck, Bonner and all the bakers are gone. I make my way along the road towards Pokfulam. I meet some Ordnance Corps men who have also evacuated the Shouson Hill area which is the underground ammunition storage area. I meet up with all the others on the roadside near Bennets Hill. We are all piled along the side of the road, R.A.S.C., R.A.O.C., H.K.V.D.C. nearly all technical personnel. No one seems to know for what purpose. We hang about here until evening, then we all muster by the food store at the bottom of the Pokfulam road. The R.A.O.C. are ordered back to Shouson Hill. The R.A.S.C. and H.K.V.D.C. and all others who are armed with rifles and bayonets make their way to Bennets Hill which we are supposed to defend against the Japs. As much ammunition and grenades as we can carry are issued. We climb up the steep hillside, and are supposed to find positions to defend this hill. It is thickly overgrown with scrub bushes. No one seems to know in what direction the Japs are likely to attack from. An unusual weather feature for this time of the year is that it has started a light drizzle of rain. Hammond, Tuck, Bonner and I find a place with a forward view of the land sloping down to the road. We also find some Canadians and Naval men in similar positions, but there may be others above and below us on the hillside. We are worried about the situation when darkness sets in. If any firing starts then we could be shooting at each other. We are all very inexperienced men at this type of warfare and are no match for the Japs who have been fighting a war in China since 1937.

However orders come through for us to move back to the road where after a short wait some lorries arrive which we board and set off back towards Deepwater Bay. It is pitch dark and no lights are allowed. It is a nerve wracking job for our driver. He is a man of 60yrs (H.K.V.D.C.) named Mr Sleap. ((Probably Corporal Sydney Alfred Sleap, who was aged 55.)) We nearly crash over the side of a bridge and further on hit a parked car, with no serious damage. We pass within 30yds of the Golf club, I can smell the doughs which would now be rotten. No sign of anyone about the Golf Club area. The Japs could be there, but we do not stop to investigate, but continue on up the Repulse Bay road towards Wong-Nei-Chong Gap. Our destination is a house called The Ridge which is well off the road. ((On December 22/23 The Ridge became the scene of one of the worst massacres of the Hong Kong war – Tony Banham estimates that at least 47 people were killed.)) We disembark about ½ mile from the house and set out to walk the rest of the way. Everyone is warned to keep quiet, no cigarettes are allowed, and we walk on the grass verge to deaden the sound. Sgt.Tuck, Sgt. Hammond and I stick together, we seemed to have lost contact with Bonner. ((Horace Bonner was killed at Overbays on December 22)). We can hear a lot of automatic firing going on up towards the Gap and an occasional tracer bullet passes over our heads.

Just as we near the entrance to the house called The Ridge we hear a Naval man enquiring for any R.A.S.C. men. I tell him we are from that unit. He asks for volunteers to go up the road towards the Gap to help with some wounded Naval men. These would be the men who were ambushed that morning with the convoy of ammunition trucks to the Canadians at Wong-Nei-Chong Gap. Tuck, Hammond, a Pte. Kingsford and I volunteer. We set off up the road in the company of the Naval man. We find our Naval men lying in a typhoon nullah (drain) by the side of the road, they are calling for water. We stop and give them some. They are all badly wounded and we discover they have been there since about 8a.m. and it is now 10p.m.

It seems no ambulance could get up this road during daylight. One of the men had been shot through the throat and when we gave him a drink the water ran out through the wound. We made them as comfortable as possible and left them a full water bottle. We continued up the road towards the gap and found several lorries still loaded with small arms, ammunition and grenades slewed across the road. Some dead Naval men are in the cabs, others lie on the road or in the back of the lorries. There are also dead and wounded coolies. This is the result of the heavy firing we heard this morning. They must have been sitting ducks for the Japs’ ambush. We continue on, but as there is no grass verge we are making quite a bit of noise on the roadway. All of a sudden a voice calls out of the darkness “Halt, stand where you are”. I answer “friend” and a Canadian officer emerges from the bushes at the roadside. He is armed with a Tommy gun and warns us to go quietly as the Japanese are dug in above the road and may open up at any moment. He says he is trying to get back to the Gap to his men and accompanies us as far as the house where the wounded Naval men are. This is a large house on the left hand side of the road about 400 to 500 yds short of Wong-Nei Cheong Gap. It is known as the White House.

Hammond and Tuck stand guard outside while Kingsford and I and the Naval man enter the house. We find about 15 people wounded, mostly Naval men, some civilians, and two women, one a Chinese shot through the chest, the other a European was dead. We could see most of the wounded needed urgent attention. I call Kingsford and the Naval man outside to discuss what could be done to get these people to Hospital as soon as possible. The Naval man suggested starting some of the cars which were parked outside the house. However, some were damaged by shell fire, and none had any ignition keys. But then a vital thought struck me, that if we managed to start a car or two and put the wounded in, the noise would alert the Japs and there would be more casualties. We decided that lorries or ambulances were needed to transport the wounded. So Tuck and Hammond decide to go back down to the house called The Ridge to see if any transport could be arranged.

Kingsford and I remain outside the house listening to sporadic automatic fire up towards the Gap, which was now only a few hundred yards away. Then we heard the same Canadian Officer calling softly, I answered and went towards him. He said there was a wounded sailor lying in the middle of the road further up and would I attend to him.

Although I was carrying a Lee Enfield 303 rifle and about 300 rounds of ammunition slung in bandolier fashion, I thought it best to get down and crawl towards the wounded man.  It was about 50yds and I found he had a smashed hip and was unable to move.  He had been in the first lorry and his mate had been killed in the cab of the lorry.  He had been lying there all day and had feigned death when he heard the Japs talking during the day.  I asked him if he could bear me lifting him on to my back to carry him to the White House.  He replied he would stick any pain to get off the road way.  After a struggle I managed to get a firemans lift across my shoulders but he groaned with pain.  He must have weighed about 12 or 13 stone but I got him as far as the door of the White House.  Just as the door was opened from inside, a shot ran out in the still night air, and a bullet hit the wall of the house above my head.  I rushed in and dropped the poor devil on some more wounded men inside the door.  I rushed out and got down prone on the ground with my rifle cocked, when Kingsford came running towards me.  He said he had been jumped on by two Japs and that he had dropped his rifle, which was cocked with the safety catch off.  It had gone off and it was the bullet from it that had hit the wall of the house above my head.

Nothing happens for a few minutes, then we hear the Canadian Officer calling again.  He came out of the bushes near the roadside and enquired who had fired the shot.  I told him that Kingsford had been jumped by two Japs and that his rifle had gone off.  The officer said that they were not Japs but two scouts in their bare feet from one of the Indian Regiments.  We search about and recover the rifle. The real danger now is that we have alerted the Japs and anything could happen.  Se we decide we can do no good here and that it would be best to return to the Ridge. 

We set off down the road, and meet an armoured vehicle trying to manoeuvre between the ammunition lorries.  It is accompanied by a British Officer and some Indian troops all in their bare feet. They are about to stage a raid on the Jap positions near Wong-Nei-Cheong Gap.  Further on we meet a Naval surgeon and two RN ambulances.  He enquires how far to the White House and how many wounded.  We give him all the information, and ask if he requires any help.  He said he had sufficient in each ambulance and continues up the road.  We also find he had attended to the wounded men on the roadside near the entrance to the Ridge and would pick them up on his way back. 

Kingsford and I made our way up the drive to the house called the Ridge.  We find hundreds of men there, all from the technical branches of the Services.  No one seems to know what is going on.  I sincerely hope the Japs do not attack here as it would be mass slaughter.  After a search round the grounds in the dark we come across Hammond and Tuck.  It starts to drizzle rain and as it is now midnight we shelter under a large tarpaulin. 

About an hour later I hear Lieut. G. Wood ((Warrant-Officer Master Baker in the RASC )) calling my name. He says we are to report to Fort Stanley to issue rations which are stored there. The party consists of Capt. Escott, Lt. Wood, Sgts. Martin, Hammond, Tuck and myself. Sgt. Martin drives the truck with no lights showing, a very risky business, where there are steep drops on one side of unfenced roads. We decide to take a chance and return to the Clubhouse at Deepwater Bay to collect some hurricane lamps and some of our kit. We find that the stores have been looted and scattered about the place. We wasted very little time in collecting what we needed, as we were not certain whether the Japs were in the vicinity or not. I could smell the bread doughs that had been mixed that morning and were now spewed all over the Golf Club verandah. We set off for Stanley, everything was very quiet, no firing or explosions, even the R.A. guns were silent. We picked up a Canadian soldier, who asked for a lift into Stanley Fort.