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

For the past three days the Japs have been shelling us very heavily indeed.  Mt. Davis have had the worst of it.  One of the A.A guns has been knocked out.  About 11 men were killed when the enemy scored a direct hit on one of the shelters.  A dud shell hit the muzzle of the upper 9.2” gun and it appears to be slightly bent.  The plug gauge bore will no longer pass through it.  A shell (9”) came in through the old canteen along the passage into the plotting room and came to rest under the command exchange.  The lights and the ventilating plant have been put out of action.  We are only through to them by one line which goes through their Regimental H.Q. at Felix Villas which they have had to move twice.

Courtlands has been lucky so far.  It is very close to the Peak Tramway which the enemy base succeeded in putting out of action.  The houses all round have been totally knocked about.  At breakfast this morning the base of a 150 millimetre shell came in through the window and landed under the table.  Buzz is standing up better than I expected.  He is puzzled, rather startled but so far not really frightened.

We have reorganised the command of the troops on the island.  East Inf. Bde. remains much the same.  Brigadier Wallis commands with H.Q. at Tytam Gap.  He has what is left of the Rajputs and the Royal Rifles Canada.  East Group R.A. remains the same and consists of the remnants of the Scots, Punjabis and the Winnipeg Grenadiers who are more or less intact.

R.A. West at Wanchai Gap have been closed down except for the exchange, and H.K. Regimental H.Q. are in support of West Inf. Bde.  Geoffrey Proes has been made C.B. Officer, he is being assisted by Crowe, Atkinson and Platts.  The Counter Battery office is at Wong Nei Chong on the opposite side of the road to the Regimental H.Q.  Up to now H.Q.R.A have been getting most of the shelling reports and have been swamped with information about suspected hostile batteries, all of which we have had to pass on to the Hong Kong Regt.  The new arrangement will work much better though really the C.B. office ought to be at H.Q.  However there isn’t room for it and the flash spotting exchange is already at Wong Nei Chong. 

What a pity it is that we never had a Counter Battery exercise in peace.  The present arrangement is a good improvisation but it is an improvisation.  It has done good work and we have knocked out quite a number of Japanese guns in what is a rather one-sided Artillery Duel.  None of our mobile guns have been knocked out.  The trouble has been to get the exact location of the 24 mm guns or Hows which are somewhere near the Japanese golf course at Shatin. Oh that we had some air to spot for us.  Yesterday, I think it was, we did put down a concentration of thirty rounds from Stanley which appeared to stop them for the time being, but they are busy again today. 

A day or two ago, I find I rather lose track of time in the Battle Box, I had to go round to Pok Fu Lam to warn the B.D. gun at Belchers point that a gunboat was coming in to lie off Green Island that night.  At the time nearly all communications had been put out of action by a bomb which cut the main cables at Magazine Gap.  I went round by Wong Nei Chong and Deepwater Bay, which was looking very peaceful and pleasant.  The turf is rather burnt up as it hasn’t been watered but I could see little of the supply depot or the Field Bakery which have been successfully hidden in the trees surrounding the golf course.

At Pok Fu Lam I found them all in good spirits despite having been shelled out of their H.Q. At Jubilee I was told that the damage to Belchers was much less than had been reported at first.  I was in rather a quandary as to what to do.  There were plenty of men in Jubilee (Stonecutters Personnel).  I hesitated to whether to order them to man Belchers or not.  They were bound to be heavily shelled in the morning if the Japs saw signs of life in the fort.  On the other hand there was only one Beach Defence gun in that sector.  However after a certain amount of dithering I remembered the gun boat and decided not to give any orders.

On my way back to H.Q. I nearly fell into a bomb crater.  There was the usual blackout.  I stopped the car when the road surface didn’t seem quite right, got out to look and found the front wheels on the very edge of a hole about twenty feet across and ten feet deep.  It was a small car and fortunately I was able to squeeze by on the right hand side.

Today the Japs sent over another demand for surrender.  They claimed to have destroyed by bombing or shellfire every military objective in the colony.  If we still refused to surrender they threatened to bring down the place about our ears.  The demand was summarily rejected.