The Great Escape from Hong Kong with the 2nd MTB Flotilla in 1941 | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

The Great Escape from Hong Kong with the 2nd MTB Flotilla in 1941

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Submitted by Unknown user (not verified) on Mon, 2009-12-21 14:20
Just found this web site: http://www.hongkongescape.org It is interesting to note that there is an exhibition at the Museum of Coastal Defence, and that there will be a re-enactment of the escape: http://www.hongkongescape.org/Escape_09.htm
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Submitted by Admin on Thu, 2010-01-07 21:11.

Tomorrow's RAS talk (free to all) is about this incident.

Speaker: Mr Tim Luard
Date/Time: Friday, 8 January 2010 6.30pm
Venue: 8th Floor, City Hall High Block, Central
Booking: This lecture is free and open to the public, with no booking required

Description from the RAS newsletter:

LECTURE: Flight of the One-Legged Admiral: Re-enacting the Christmas Day 1941 Escape from Hong Kong

On December 25, 1941, within hours of Hong Kong's surrender, a group of 68 British and Chinese officers and men made a daring breakout through the encircling Japanese forces. Leaving Aberdeen under heavy gunfire, they sailed by night in five motor torpedo boats to Mirs Bay and landed on the mainland.

Guided by Chinese guerrillas and fed by villagers, they walked for four days and nights across rough country frequented by bandits and Japanese patrols to the Chinese Nationalist held town of Huizhou, where they were welcomed as heroes.

The escape party included China’s top representative in Hong Kong, the one-legged Admiral Chan Chak, the future Colonial Secretary, David MacDougall and a number of senior British intelligence officers. The
main party of almost fifty Royal Navy sailors continued their journey by river, road and rail across China to Burma and India, finally reaching Britain five
months later.

How this unlikely group came together and how they managed to get away as the rest of Hong Kong prepared to buckle down to long years of occupation are the topics of this talk by Tim Luard, who has been
researching the escape for a book. He has also been helping to prepare an exhibition which brings together for the first time written records, photographs and mementoes of this remarkable episode and will be
shown for the next two years at the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence.

Tim Luard graduated in Chinese at Edinburgh University in 1973 and spent the next seven years in Hong Kong, living on Cheung Chau and working as a freelance journalist. Highlights of his 23-year career at the BBC included
covering the events in Tiananmen Square during a spell as Beijing Correspondent from 1987-89 and making a 6-part radio series on the history of Hong Kong to mark the handover.

Tim and his wife, Alison – whose father Colin McEwan was a member of the escape party – retraced the escapers’ route on foot to Huizhou last year (see full report in our March 2009 newsletter). This Christmas they will be joined by some seventy other descendants as part of a much bigger event being staged both in the SAR and on the mainland by the Hongkong Escape Re-enactment Organisation (HERO) and its Chinese partners.

Submitted by Admin on Sat, 2010-01-09 10:31.

Last night's talk by Tim Luard was excellent. The content was interesting, as you'd guess from a journalist the presentation was excellent, and it was illustrated throughout by photos. They had managed to collect an impressive number of photos from the different families of the original escapees. eg there was even a photo of two MTBS on Christmas Day 1941, lying camouflaged in Telegraph Bay.

There's a second chance to here about it today. The Museum of Coastal Defence is hosting a talk in Cantonese betwen 3-5pm. Tim will be showing the photos again, but this time the talk will be given by Mr Donald Chan, son of the Admiral Chan who was the most senior chinese member of the original escape party.