18 Dec 1941, Harry Ching's wartime diary
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The heaviest shelling and bombing so far. The Island's waterfront was declared out of bounds to all unauthorised persons. It has been just a week since Kowloon was abandoned; and the final crisis is at hand. In the eleven days there have been 53 air raid alarms. This day a stick of bombs fell across Queen's Road Central, and one of them went through the roof of the South China Morning Post Building, exploding in the lift machinery.
Harder to bear, shells or bombs hit the oil stores of the Asiatic Petroleum Company (Shell) on the waterfront at Whitfield near North Point, and started a great fire. A huge column of black smoke rose high and has blown slowly spreading - a depressing pall as the sun went down. Heavy shelling has continued into the night, then becoming intermittent accompanied by heavy machine gun fire.
