16 Dec 1941, Sheridan's diary of the hostilities

We hear that the Japs have started shelling the waterfront by Causeway Bay and North Point, also we know that the Royal Artillery gun positions at Lyeemun, Pakshawan and Collinson are being heavily shelled. The distance across the harbour varies between a mile and a half and three miles at its widest point so it is quite easy for the Japs to get the range, now that they are in full control of Kowloon and the Mainland. We have some more air raids. The Jap planes are after the small gun boats anchored in Deepwater Bay. They are only about 500 or 600 yds from our bakery and cause a lot of disruption of the work. I have a bad time trying to hold my bakers to their work. Hammond, (Sergeant James Hammond, also an RASC Master baker) Tuck, Bonner (Ernest Tuck and Horace Bonner, members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps assigned to the Bakery) and myself waste a lot of time rounding them up when they take shelter in the nearby bushes which incidentally would not be much protection in the event of a bomb landing. So far the nearest bomb landed on the beach about 400 yds away. There were no casualties.

The 9.2 guns at Stanley and Mount Davis have been firing salvoes all day and all through the night, the noise is deafening. It keeps me awake most of the night so I was up at 4.30a.m. and got quite a bit of paperwork completed working behind a blacked out screen.