01 Jul 1943 - 14 Aug 1945, Paul Atroshenko's childhood memories of wartime Hong Kong

Life in the Italian Convent

We lived for the last two years of the War in the Italian Convent, half way up the peak of Mt Victoria. This gave me a dress circle view of the air war. Sometimes the American planes would come diving over the top of Mt Victoria, passing just a few feet away from where I crouched on the roof terrace. I would wave frantically to the pilots and other air crew and sometimes they would wave back. By today's standards, the planes flew very slowly and many were easy targets for anti-aircraft fire. If any of the pilots were captured, the Japanese would treat them very badly indeed, before executing them. In my view, those American pilots early in the War were the first kamikazes.