Howard TO [????-????] | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Howard TO [????-????]

Names
Given: 
Howard
Family: 
To
Sex: 
Male
Status: 
Deceased

Comments

This is possibly a man known variously as Howard Tor, Torr, Tore, Tse and Tau, who also bore the nickname 'Call Me Howard'.

A pre-war dance hall manager, he was a known collaborator with the Gendarmes, and Wright-Nooth links his March visit to Stanley with the arrests that took place in June and July (Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 156-7).

He was believed to bring about the arrest of Portuguese nationals and then take bribes from their families to get them freed. This eventually led to his downfall in circumstances that are not entirely clear - both Emily Hahn and the wife of one of his victims, Marcus da Silva, seem to have been involved in denouncing him to the Japanese authorities - and he was imprisoned. Ironically he managed to avoid arrest by the British after the war. (Emily Hahn, China To Me, 417-8;  Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 299).