11 Dec 1941, Major John Monro MC RA diary of the Battle of Hong Kong

Last night the enemy began shelling the town with a long-range gun.  They didn’t do much damage, what there was mostly at the hospital where one man was killed, two more and a nurse wounded.  It was my night off duty.  I was in bed and woken up by one of the first shells they sent over at about 1:00am.  I tried hard to sleep but it is an unpleasant feeling to lie still, while periodically in the distance you hear the first whisper of a coming shell, rising in a crescendo to shriek and ending in a tremendous crash.  There is the feeling that this one may be going to get you.  However after a few have exploded harmlessly, so far as you are concerned, you become quite fatalistic. Buzz was very puzzled by the whole affair.

Things have gone badly for us on the mainland.  Two companies of the Scots holding the line in front of Golden Hill more or less broke and ran, the Japs getting as far as Lai Chi Kok.  No one seems to know quite why they ran.  They were subjected to a preliminary bombardment of heavy mortars before the Japs attacked but such a bombardment is almost to be expected before any attack and is no reason for running.

Stonecutters has been heavily shelled all day.  There are not many casualties.  A Havildar (Indian NCO) and two men were killed on the 60 Pdrs down on the parade ground.  Alan Mills has been doing damned well.  The Sikhs were rather shaken by the death of the Havildar but Alan by his example, has steadied them.  So far as I know no one has been hurt in West Fort though the O.P. has been badly knocked about and one shell landed in a cartridge recess, setting them off but fortunately without doing any damage.  This afternoon orders were given for the evacuation of Kowloon and Stonecutters tonight.  We started getting over the guns straight away.  The H.Q. of the Hong Kong Regt. and the 6” Hows got away early and easily.  It took rather longer to get the 4.5 Hows out as it took time to collect the transport but Tai Wai battery had a bad time.  They were told to retreat through the tunnel.  On their way to its northern entrance they were caught in the open by the Jap gunners and shelled.  They lost one subsection complete and a few mules and men from the others.  I suddenly realised that 1Bty who were rather “cats that walked by themselves” jealous of their own property, might not have sent over their section books to the island.  Fortunately I managed to get hold of Troy Atkinson at Gun Club Hill.  He and Crowe spent a long time trying to open 1Bty’s safe by shooting into the keyhole with their revolvers.  They failed to open it but Duncan tells me that he has got the books.  I might have known that Ted Hunt would not be so stupid as to leave them behind.

Colonel Yale and Jack Fox visited the Battle Box on their way to Wong Nei Chong.  Daddy Yale is in a bad way, his nerves have completely gone.  Jack tells me that it has been impossible to get any decisions out of him.  He is obviously, at the moment, in no fit state to command so the C.R.A. has sent him off to Stanley for a week’s rest and put Tim Temple in command instead of him.

Later at about 7:00pm Tony and Crowe came in to report that after a very long wait they had at last got the three remaining guns of Tai Wai with their mules across the ferry.  I gave them each a bottle of beer.  It was a pleasure to watch them drink it.  About 11:00pm as Bramble and I were officially off duty we went down to the dockyard to direct the ferry loads of men coming from Kowloon to their unit assembly positions.  Actually we found that very few were coming, the bulk having already got safely across, but the Navy were still sending “touring” ferries to cruise slowly by the embarkation points and pick up any stragglers they could find.  I stayed down to meet the Stonecutters party.  Arthur Goring was down there and we had a long discussion on the reasons for the Scots to break.  He put it down to the Celtic temperament.  Perhaps so, but I am a Scot myself.  He reckons that only the Cockney or English county Regiments are sufficiently stolid to be invariably steady in battle.  He himself comes from the depths of Sussex.

The Stonecutters party came in about 1:00am.  The British seemed alright, the Sikhs a little shaken but the Chinese mess servants were in a pitiable state of fright.  Their one idea was to collect their bundles, baskets of chickens and bedding and disappear into the homes of their relatives in the town.  They plainly thought that if the end of the world had not exactly arrived something quite as bad had come upon them.  I wonder what atrocities are being perpetrated in Kowloon tonight.  I hear reports that our men as they retreated through the streets were shot at from the Chinese quarters by 5th Columnists arrived with rifles and Tommy guns.  At present it is quite dark, very occasionally there is a shot but I imagine that behind this impassive façade the criminal elements in the Chinese population are looting, raping and murdering their wealthier fellow countrymen.