21 Dec 1941, A. H. Potts' wartime diary

The next morning (21st) was a better day.  The Japanese by this time were using the catchwater like a highway;  they had erected a tent just below the Pillbox, and they had their flags spread out on the slopes of Mount Nicholson to indicate their position to their airmen who were flying around all day as they wished.

Planes came over “The Ridge” several times and took a look but dropped no cards.  They were dropping pamphlets by this time, mostly for the benefit of our Indian troops and others, to the civilian population pointing out the futility of holding out any longer.

There is no doubt that once they held Wongneichong Gap they had the whole island at their mercy as this was more or less the centre and by holding it they had already split us in two.  They also had a light field gun firing from the gap at the river gunboats anchored in Deepwater Bay;  this gun was very inaccurate and the ships steamed out without being damaged.

All this we watched patiently.  I rang up HQ house as I thought it possible they could not observe what was taking place but found I was mistaken.  They had seen everything but we were still to hold fire!!

Later on that day we were told to barricade the bottom windows as it was thought the Japanese might attack us at dusk.  This was done very effectively with the many bales and boxes of stores and a hole broken in the wall between the two semidetached houses so that we could move from one to the other without going outside.

Late that afternoon we saw a party of Canadian Rifles straggling up the Repulse Bay Road;  when they reached the approach road to “The Ridge” they turned up and came up to the houses.  A sort of cheer went up as they arrived – one would have thought we were being relieved after a tremendous siege instead of which scarcely a shot had been fired since the morning of 20th.  We were then told that we were to go off in parties of around a dozen and make towards Aberdeen but after getting organized this scheme was dropped.

As night came on Larry Andrews, Cedric Blake and I went outside to get some fresh air and Larry produced a loaf of bread, a tin of butter and some bully beef which he had put in his car the morning we first called at Deepwater Bay.  This was a grand meal which we all thoroughly enjoyed.  We eat [ate?] it on an open verandah overlooking Deepwater Bay and discussed the situation at some length.

We were of the opinion that the action taken by the HQ house was strange to say the least and we were also of the opinion that GHQ might just as well chuck up the sponge for it was obvious to any one with half an eye that the island was already overrun.  Perhaps that was the trouble, for the GHQ staff was safely below ground and owing to the almost complete disruption of the telephone service, were quite ignorant of the true position.