18 Dec 1941, Colin McEwan Diary

Today we had tiffin in town – a habit we were falling into as our activities took us more and more around town during day. Those meals were very interesting – seeing how the restaurants, formerly our haunts of tiffin dates and gins were now converted into set price canteens or, in the case of the Parisian Grill a canteen for the various organisations connected with the Civil Defence. As usual people tried to obtain extra helpings – I did myself – but, in fairness to the places concerned the regular helping of food was enough and more and more we realised how prone pre-war HK was to overeating.

Gone too were the three or four gins which used to be regarded as an indispensable part of tiffin and in the Café Wiseman, probably the best organised of all, tiffins were served with a speed and smartness which was missing in the old days of 10% tipping.

The hotel of course provided the biggest contrast of all. Now tiffins were fixed at $1.50 and the last sign of old HK had gone with large notices informing their clientele that chits could no longer be signed and meantime cash would be appreciated.

So rigidly was this adhered to that where previously one ordered one’s meal, sat over it in leisure – signed a careless chit and sauntered off; now cash was paid before even covers were laid and – shades of the ‘Gripps’ – a meal lasting over 10-15 minutes was looked upon with disapproval.

But we had still to find a boat for our own gun running and we proceeded to Aberdeen where our first impression of the Navy was most unfavourable. A very snooty 2 ½ striper barred Tai’s and my entry and with a definitely superior air informed us it was up to him whether we could see Mike who was seeing the S.N.O., or not. In the end however when repartee was growing heated his excellency unbent and allowed us to stand in the open about 3 yds. from cover. There was an air raid on while a P.O. covered us with a tommy gun which was clearly a new weapon to him. Our own guns being stacked in a corner in charge of some grinning ratings later to be our shipmates on M.T.B.’s. The fact that we had Betty with us made us more annoyed but his superior highness had not deigned to notice us any more and our tempers being a bit frayed, our pride was rampant and enter the sacred portals we would not.

In the end Colls – later to die in that magnificent raid in the harbour in daylight – showed us over the French – a snappy little cruiser on the lines of an M.T.B. – fast and fairly quiet. All that remained now was to make the Yee contact and we were off to see the Wizard.

Before leaving for Aberdeen that morning we – Tai and I – had checked our motorboat for the evening job but in the evening when we returned to St.Joan’s, Mike had one of his ‘hunches’ – ideas in which I had by this time grown to put a good deal of faith. The A.P.C. oil tanks were one blaze of light – Japs. Were shelling them continuously, obviously with a view to keeping it going and clouds of thick black smoke were billowing out – the night itself was pitch black – black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat – and there was a high tide. It was a perfect night for a landing – which was actually made and this time we decided that we would not start running about the harbour on a job which was now pointless.