8 Dec 1941, Don Ady's wartime memories

Now I guess I'll start telling you about the siege. In Hong Kong it broke out on Monday and the fighting began about 8 AM. But hardly anybody knew it. I was going to school on a bus. And after we had gone a few blocks, the driver stopped to listen to something, then he went on and repeated it twice, but the second time somebody got up and jumped off the bus. And soon the rest followed. I was sort of scared, because I didn't know what on earth had happened. So I asked one of the schoolboys if he knew what had happened, and he said "the Japs have come!" (Although there were quite a lot of kids in their teens, I didn't know any. In fact I don't think I ever saw anybody I knew personally!) At the time we were living on which is located at the end of Blendheim Ave which is the little street which if you are looking across the street from the Phillips House is on the left side. And at the end is Minden Ave. And at the other end of it, on the same side as Phillips House. Upstairs in the right flat, and our address was No. 1. Minden Ave.

And now I guess I'll go back to the bus. Well, we happened to be just opposite the Majestic Theater, and I ran all the way home! Mom and Dad told me the boy must have been mistaken, because they thought it must be a practice air raid. But Mom was teaching on the Hong Kong side, and she couldn't get across on the Star Ferry because it wasn't running. About ten o'clock they started shelling, so we knew that the Japs had really come.