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

Last night there was a false alarm that the Japs had landed.  It arose in this way.  It was decided to bring over all the explosives, chiefly dynamite, from the government Magazine on Green Island.  The navy arranged to send a launch to fetch it last night, and the pillboxes along the Praya were warned about it.  However the navy instead of sending one of the little launches which used to operate between the dockyard and Stonecutters and which is the average troop’s mental picture of a launch, and which individually would have been much too small, sent a ferry.  About midnight, on its way back, it was spotted by one of the pillboxes, the troops of which seeing a ferry approaching the island supposed that the Japs were attempting a landing and opened fire.  The ferry detonated with a colossal explosion and a panic seems to have started amongst the pillboxes along the Praya.

I was asleep at Courtlands at the time and even slept through the explosion.  Someone woke me up and called me to the telephone. Bramble was at the other end. “The Japs have landed” he said, “come down to H.Q at once”. Courtlands was one of the H.Q messes. I thought that probably quite a number of officers were sleeping there and it would be hardly fair to leave them all unsuspecting if the Japs had landed so I woke them up.  As I went round two civilians, a man and a woman, sitting in the passage, heard me.  The woman gave a gasp, clutched my arm and whispered “God bless you”.  What a grim lookout there is for them.  Still, in many ways it’s their own fault, they would not obey the evacuation order.

As soon as every one was ready I led them down to H.Q.  The harbour was lit by the blaze from the burning godowns (warehouses) in Kowloon.  The water was calm with scarcely a ripple, except for the intermittent surge of a machine gun fire in the distance, all seemed quiet.  On our way down we met not a soul.  The Battle Box was packed with people in a great state of excitement.  The C.R.A seized on me “Did you see anything on the way down?  Any boats coming across?”  I told him that I had seen nothing and that I had had a good view of the harbour.  “I bet it is a false alarm” he said.  Then Peffers got hold of me and I volunteered to go on a patrol to find out really what was happening.  Ian Macgregor the A.D.C and a small party of military police came with me.  We went down to Queen’s building then along to the club where we were challenged by a party of the Punjab Regiment, then along the Praya keeping to the arcade in front of the shops, to a point about ¼ of a mile west of the Fire Station.  Every window in the place seemed to have been completely shattered.  The road is a mass of broken glass.  We met a mobile patrol of police but of the Japs there was no sign.  We came back via Des Voeux Road to the club from where after waking up the cooly in charge of the telephone I reported to H.Q.  So ended the great Dynamite Flap.