02 Dec 1943, John Charter's wartime journal

(Day 705 of captivity). We have started yet another month of internment. How long, Oh Lord, how long?

To continue with air raids: a daylight raid followed the night raid at about 11.30 a.m. next morning, while we were in the middle of our meal. As usual, we dashed along to the end room. After much banging everything seemed to have died down when, suddenly, through the gap by Mount Parker, roared a single two engined bomber. It flew down Tytam Bay and seemed to be loosing height (much to my dismay) but as it got further out to sea it turned East-ward and started to climb again. Both raids were reported to have been driven off by AA fire with negligible damage inflicted.

Yesterday, at 3.50 p.m. we were rehearsing ‘Laburnum Grove’ in St Stephen’s ‘lower kitchen’, the roofed over, open drill space that is part of St Stephen’s school. We heard the deep droning of planes and presently another raid was under way. We saw AA shells bursting and then heard the crumps of some extremely heavy detonations. We could hear the wail of a distant air raid siren and then the whine of planes going into a dive, followed by more heavy explosions – the heaviest we have yet heard, I think. We saw two planes high up and making off to the west and a little fighter following. Then two big planes came zooming round the corner of high point and, flying over Stanley Village, made for Tytam Bay and out that way to sea. They were evidently two of the dive bombers. We saw their markings – a white star on a blue circle – and believe this must be the marking of American planes attached to the Chinese forces. We waved excitedly and then were sent scuttling under cover by a couple of rifle shots and a burst of machine gun fire from the direction of the Maryknoll Mission (now used by the gendarmerie or Japanese Militia).  We thought at first, they were firing at us as we are not allowed in the open during a raid, but they must have been having a potshot at the planes. All seemed to have quietened down, when, suddenly, there was a tremendous explosion which echoed and reverberated amongst the hills and presently, over our ridge, rose a vast column of white smoke or vapour which gradually blew away. It sounded like an ammunition dump or something.

Today we heard (unofficially) that the Taikoo Docks and Kowloon Docks had been heavily bombed and that a cargo ship had received a direct hit and had simply blown up. Perhaps it was a munition ship which had blown up after catching fire, or perhaps the delayed explosion was from a time bomb. Any way, it was most exciting. Then at about 5.30 p.m. that same afternoon, either nine or ten planes sailed in to deliver another attack (probably the same ten coming back with another load of bombs) and again our meal was interrupted. This time the explosions were much more distant and were over the New Territories somewhere.