George A MCCASKIE [????-1942]

In Macau when the Japanese attacked Honkong, McCaskie escaped from there into Free China along with some others in Spring 1942.  He was commissioned into the BAAG (not the BMM as reported) on 5th July 1942 as Intelligence Officer, and together with other BAAG officers in Waichow Advanced Headquarters, worked day and often long into the peanut-oil-lit night interviewing and  registering* the hundreds of Chinese servicemen who had served with the British Forces in the defence of Hongkong, had heard of the presence of British soldiers in Waichow and Kukong, and made their way out there rather than stay in occupied Hongkong.  It was from these interrogations that the BAAG formed their first Intelligence reports.   Later, in August 1942  he was left in charge of the Kukong post when BAAG moved from there to Kweilin.  A week later he fell fatally ill with typhoid fever, died on the 5th September and was buried in a lovely cemetery just outisde the town.  After the war LTR visited Kukong with some members of the War Graves Commission, and his remains were collected and brought to Hongkong, where they were reinterred in the Sai Wan Military Cemetery.

*These original documents can be seen in the Hongkong Heritage Project.