Ian MCNAY [c.1931- ]

On the Stanley Camp discussion list, Ian writes of being evacuated to Australia in 1940:

I was a 9 year old schoolboy at Quarry Bay School and remember the announcement  on Friday and the hasty departure  on Monday on  the ironically named Empress of Japan.  My father was in the Naval Dockyard Police and there were no arguments  My mother ((Leah McNay)) and I were going  The Empress had a destroyer escort but with the typhoon weather they had to turn back to Hong Kong.  Like you we went first into Fort McKinley and  I recall the camp beds and the lines for meals  But then we were transferred to the hills; Baguio ; and stayed in cabins.  No school and freedom to roam  was just what we children wanted.  There was a roller skating rink we went to almost every day.

I do not know when the decision was taken to finally  locate us. Must have been about a month  We were asked to choose between Brisbane Sydney and Melbourne.  Another mother had been to Sydney on leave and liked it,  we chose Sydney.  So on the advice of a friend our future was decided.  In Sydney there were many others disembarking and we were told that arrangements were made to go to a billet in Randwick an inner eastern suburb  Others went  to Clovelly, Coogee and Bondi.  also eastern suburbs   But in fact there were pockets of refugees scattered  around Sydney  After a while an organisation was started, called something like Asian Refugees.Society   There was an employee of the Hong Kong  Goverment who took charge  and covered matters like accommodation , money  We learned later that a number of evacuees had found billets on the Northern beaches , we went to explore and decided to move  to Manly    Gradually we brought some order into our lives

So we lived throughout the war;  but  that is another story,  until Hong Kong was liberated in August 1945 and we were repatriated to HK towards mid 1946.