Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp: View pages

In Tokyo there's an important development.

The cabinet has been discussing the Japanese response to the American oil embargo. In early September the army and navy agreed that the state of the oil reserves and seasonal weather conditions meant that any campaign in south-east Asia would have to start not later than December. This requires a political decision in October, and the cabinet is deadlocked. The Foreign Ministry wants one more attempt at compromise, the armed services want the go-ahead.

Today Premier Konoe  is replaced by War Minister Tojo Hideki. This doesn't necessarily mean war, as discussions continue (see November 2), but it does make it more likely.

Source:

W. G. Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, 1987, 232

This afternoon Soong Ching-Ling (Madame Sun Yatsen) opens a carnival on the naval recreation ground at Caroline Hill. The purpose of the event, which is scheduled to run for a month, is to raise funds for the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, (Gung Ho) an organisation set up by New Zealander Rewi Alley and others to create a network of small-scale industrial enterprises to contribute to the Chinese war effort.

Madame Soong is received by T. B. Wilson, head of the American President shipping line, and Morris 'Two-Gun' Cohen - Wilson's head of the Carnival Organising Committee and Cohen's a member.

The event features an exhibition of Gung Ho products and a Philippine circus group brought over from Manila. Rewi Alley has come in from China to be present and leaves for Chongqing in the nick of time - December 6.

Source:

Rewi Alley, An Autobiography, 1997, 147

Note: George Wright-Nooth considers that the famous 'Stanley Tiger' was 'probably from a circus that had been located at Causeway Bay'. Could this have been that circus? (Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 98).

Note:

For Wilson see also December 6, 1941.

Walter Scott, Assistant Commissioner of Police, is hunting in the New Territories with leading surgeon Li Shu-Fan. They hear the sound of a formation of planes: Scott tells Li that they are protecting a transport loaded with Canadian troops.

We climbed to the top of the hill in silence, and looked down upon a huge, three- funnel Canadian Pacific transport steaming toward the entrance of Hong Kong harbor. Walter commented that these would probably be the only reinforcements allotted to us.

Later Scott writes to his wife, an American who's returned to the United States.

Soon after 8 a.m. Kay Christie and Anna May Waters, the two military nurses who've come with the Canadian contingent (just under 2,000 men) are taken to Bowen Road Military Hospital by Matron E. M. Dyson:

All the sisters had a room of their own - quite comfortable. After having breakfast we unpacked what little luggage we had with us.

In the afternoon they're taken for a drive round the island by Miss Thompson {probably Kathleen Thompson}, the senior Sister, and a friend of hers, Colonel Lamb. They're told the island's impregnable.

Sources:

Li Shu-Fan, Hong Kong Surgeon, 1964, 92

Nurses: Report by Miss Anna May Waters Nurse with the Canadian Forces at Hong Kong, as given on board the MS Gripsholm, November 1943,  points 16-17, 19

The Medical Department holds a major exercise designed to test the system for getting food to hospitals and first aid stations in the event of an emergency.

It seems that the general plan is that food will be cooked at a 'supply centre' and sent out hot to each First Aid Post, although some places will cook their own food. The lorry delivering the food will be accompanied by a supervisor and two workers, and also carry two baskets of chopped firewood in case re-heating is needed.

My guess is that this is pretty much the scheme that was put into operation on December 8. It may or not be significant that one place we know the food supply arrangements never worked was the emergency facility at the Peninsula Hotel (Kowloon) which doesn't feature in the surviving record (papers belonging to Auxillary Nursing Service member Florence Robinson).

These papers show that regulations for the ANS made it clear that, whether in an exercise or an 'emergency', its members were only allowed to give first aid when specifically instructed to do so by the Medical Officer in charge of their station.

Source:

Hong Kong PRO, HKMS77-1 - 'St John's Ambulance Brigade Exercise...'

Readers of The Yorkshire Post might spot this Reuter's report on the first page:

Hong Kong. A Government communiqué urges that persons not required for duty in the colony in event of an outbreak of hostilities, should take any existing opportunity of leaving now. Reuter.

But in Hong Kong itself most people don't seem worried. Jardine, Matheson & Co. make the following announcement:

Owing to insufficient response, the special steamer which was to have been allocated for the purpose of evacuating residents who desired to leave Hong Kong has been withdrawn.

In the evening Chief Justice Sir Atholl MacGregor and Lady MaGregor attend a celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Sir Robert and Lady Ho Tung held at the Gripps (Hong Kong Hotel). Also present are Major-General C. M. Maltby, Governor Sir Mark Young and a host of other dignitaries. It was the largest private function ever held at the Hotel.

Nevertheless, things are going on behind the scenes. Today the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation approves plans to move the Head Office from Hong Kong to Singapore, considered an impregnable fortress. But nothing will happen before the attack, perhaps partly because Governor Mark Young asks Sir Vandeleur Grayburn not to leave the Colony for fears that this would start a panic. Grayburn, who had planned to step down from the chief position, had agreed in 1940 to remain because of the serious position in the Far East; he allows himself to be convinced that the situation in Hong Kong is under control.

Sources:

Jardine, MacGregor: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 12-13

Grayburn: Frank King, The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation,  1988, Volume 3, 205, 568

A day of bright sunshine. Many of the HKVDC leave their offices to take part in weekend exercises.

Crowds flock to Happy Valley for the races.

Barbara Redwood is taken to the cinema to see 'My Life With Caroline' by her boyfriend Arthur Alsey a bandsman with the Royal Scots who has a day's leave. They watch a newsreel with comforting images of US planes 'in formidable formation'.

In the evening the 'Tin Hat Ball' is held at the Peninsula Hotel: the purpose is to help raise the £160,000 which would complete the purchase price of a bomber squadron the people of Hong Kong had presented to Britain.

Sources:

HKVDC, Ball: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 14

Races, Cinema: Mabel Winifred Redwood, It Was Like This..., 2001, 68-69

In the first hour after midnight the Pacific War begins: the Japanese fleet, which has been making its way towards Malaya since December 4, begins to bombard the beach defences at Khota Bharu at 00.30 a.m. and a quarter of an hour later four lines of landing craft are headed towards the beach. The Japanese air force is still half an hour away from the American base at Pearl Harbour.  An Indian force, the 3/17 Dogras, pours an intense fire on the invaders with both artillery and machine guns. These are the first shots fired against the Axis in the Pacific.

In Hong Kong small bombs - probably planted by Chinese fifth columnists - explode during the first two hours of the morning.

At 1.30 a.m. Japan's 2nd China Fleet and 23rs Army army are ordered to attack Hong Kong

At 4.45 Major Charles Boxer of Military Intelligence monitors a Japanese radio broadcast announcing the attack. This is soon confirmed by a British broadcast from Singapore. The order goes out to demolish roads and bridges in the northern New Territories - Hong Kong's first acts of resistance are carried out by men from the Royal Engineers, the Puinjabis, and the Volunteers. At 5 a.m. work starts on the demolition of the Kowloon to Canton Railway, and by 5.30 the forward bridges are blown.

At 7 a.m. Kai Tak airport is warned of an imminent raid, and the enemy aircraft arrive there at about 8 and destroy a few antiquated planes (most but not quite all of Hong Kong's air force). At 10 a.m. a Japanese ground assault from southern China begins: troops are headed for a number of points, including the defensive 'Gin Drinkers Line'. This means that the first British civilians to encounter the invading army are the relatively few in the New Territories.

Mildred Dibden, a 34 year old missionary, is running the Fanling Babies Home, which she founded in 1936. She receives an early telephone warning and gets the 34 older children into a lorry that's sent for them. The lorry hasn't returned for the remaining 54 infants when Japanese soldiers arrive to confront Miss Dibden, her assistant Ruth Little (aged 27) and 17 Chinese nurses and amahs.

A Japanese soldier strikes her across the face with a rifle butt when she tries to stop the rape of  a young amah. Cots are overturned and a baby is trampled to death.

Dibben and Little are not interned and the orphanage stays open throughout the war.

The first thing most Hong Kong civilians know about the war is that Japanese planes are attacking Kai Tak airport at about 8 o'clock in the morning.

What happens next depends on where you live and what role you will play in the response to the attack. 

In Kowloon, which bears the brunt of the first shelling and air attacks, Aileen Woods and her twin sister Doris are dressing for work when, at about 8 a.m., they hear planes, ack ack guns and the sounds of people running about. At first they think it's a practice, but Aileen eventually picks up a radio broadcast from Singapore saying that there they've been bombed. The sisters make for the ferry but are turned back because they don't have a pass. They return home, and listen to the radio: ZBW (Radio Hong Kong) broadcasts the usual 12.15 prayers and there's dance music between 12.30 and 1.0'clock when the radio goes dead because another raid is starting.

Dr. Isaac Newton has been rung at 6. 25 a.m. and informed that a 'precautionary stage' has been declared, but as he's told that doesn't mean taking any action, he goes back to sleep. He hears the air raid sirens at 8 a.m. and goes quickly to the Kowloon Hospital, arriving at 8.15. The first case is in the operating theatre by 9 a.m. He's hampered by lack of staff for about an hour and a half after that, as no public vehicles are allowed to travel while the raid is on. Over the day the hospital will admit 103 casualties and perform 27 operations.

On Hong Kong Island they're also starting to put emergency plans into operation.

Violet May Witchell is on her way to Bowen Road Military Hospital to start a fortnight's scheduled duty as a volunteer nurse. She's walking along Pok Fu Lam Road to catch the bus when Japanese planes fly over. An army truck pulls up and gives her a lift to the hospital. She doesn't return home until after liberation in 1945.

Thomas Edgar came to Hong Kong in April 1938 as manager of the new Lane, Crawford Bakery in Stubbs Rd, having falsified his birth certificate to seem three years older and more experienced. He's almost certainly already at work by 8 a.m.,  and begins putting into operation plans he's been making since November 1938 when he was told not to join the Volunteers but to get his bakery ready for any 'emergency'. Some time during the day he's officially appointed Deputy Supply Officer Bakeries.

Government employee Phyllis Harrop is woken at 5.30 by the telephone and told that 'the worst had happened':

In the course of the last few weeks I have been taken off my hospital job and told that I was required for more important work, but nothing else had been said to to me except that if and when anything happened I was to report to Police Headquarters immediately.

She's ordered down to the shelters for the first air raid; in the afternoon she takes Andrew Gilmour of the Malayan Colonial staff to the Naval Dockyard and then drives to her Chief's house on the Peak to collect blankets and clean clothes for him - he's decided they're all sleeping in the office that night as they're too busy to go home. The last raid is at about 9.30 p.m., and they turn in on camp beds at about 11.

The Irish Jesuits, although technically neutral and soon to be busy with their religious duties, will show themselves ready to help the defence in non-military ways.  Father O'Mara volunteers to help Billeting Headquarters. They're already having problems because it's hard to get petrol. He's at HQ (the Nippon Building, close to the Naval Dockyard, one of the main targets for shelling), waiting to take some Volunteer dependants to their billets; cars are promised:

The people arrived, women and children and old men, but the cars did not. It was 6.15 ((p.m.)). An hour passed. It was quite dark and no one knew when an air-raid might come. (It turned out fortunately that there was no night bombing, but we did not know that then). The people sat on their luggage and waited; some of the babies cried. At 8.15 the buses arrived.

That was billeting on the first day. It was an inauspicious beginning.

Food Control has its problems too. Under Emergency Powers all food supplies are under government control and institutions with resident inmates - hospitals, children's homes, boarding schools etc. - are supplied from government depots, an allocation being made for each resident after forms are filled in. Members of the auxillary defence services, including Essential Workers, can eat at certain restaurants, including the Cafe Wiseman, in the Exchange Building, the Lane, Crawford headquarters in Des Voeux Rd. The poorer Chinese, many of whom now lose their day-labouring jobs, are to be fed from food kitchens. There's plenty of food in Hong Kong, but, as the civilian transport system breaks down quickly, it's hard to get it to where it's needed, as the next section indicates.

The Redwood family are woken up by a Chinese clerk at 6.30 a.m. Barbara's told to be at the ARP office at 7. Soon after they hear the air raid sirens and are now certain what's happening. Olive hurries off to the Food Control Office and Mabel to her Army job. Mrs. Redwood eventually takes up her post at the emergency hospital in the Happy Valley Jockey Club. Before the end of the day the problems faced right from the start by the wartime administrators have become clear to her:

The Food Control Department had long since made plans for emergency feeding, and godowns (warehouses) all over the Colony were well stocked with food, but the suddenness of the attack and consequent congestion on the roads caused delays in deliveries. Eventually some sacks of rice arrived, but by the time we managed to get it cooked and distributed, the time was seven in the evening.

But not everyone has an assigned role in the defence.

Quaker missionary William Sewell has just been reunited with his wife Mary and their three young children (two girls and a boy). They are with friends at a house at the foot of the Peak, getting ready to fly to Free China. As they are only passing through, they have no role in the long-prepared plans for the defence of the colony. The Sewells' task is to comfort and care for their children.

In the UK the headlines are of course about Pearl Harbour. But The Daily Mirror does offer this snippet on its last page:

The Governor of Hong Kong issued a proclamation calling out volunteers.

That was yesterday. Today those Volunteers have started to go into action.

Sources:

Times of early events in Hong Kong Tony Banham, Not the Slightest Chance, 2003, 26-28; The Battle of Hong Kong 1941: A Spatial History Project at https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/1941hkbattle/en/map.html

Dibden and Little: Susanna Hoe, The Private Life of Old Hong Kong, 1991, 275; see also http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/mildred-dibden/

Woods: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 39

Newton: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 7; 17

Witchell: Lady May Ride, in Sally Blyth and Ian Wotherspoon, Hong Kong Remembers, 1996, 11

Edgar: Article in British Baker, September 13, 1946, viewable at http://brianedgar.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/thomas-edgar-some-documentation/

Harrop: Phyllis Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 1943, 67-68

Father O'Mara: Thomas F. Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire In The Siege Of Hong Kong, 1944, 16

Food Control: G. B. Endacott and Alan Birch, Hong Kong Eclipse, 1978, 111; Cafe Wiseman - Wenzell Brown, Hong Kong Aftermath, 1943, 24

Redwood family: Mabel Winifred Redwood, It Was Like This, 2001, 71

Sewell family: William Sewell, Strange Harmony, 1948, 11-14

The Shing Mun Redoubt, the key to the Gin Drinkers Line, is taken and the Royal Scots fall back to inadequate defensive positions on Golden Hill where they come under heavy attack. Indian regiments are fighting hard, and some of the young Canadians are sent into the battle, but as the fighting approaches urban areas, civilian casualties, mainly Chinese, start to mount.

The food situation in Kowloon's deteriorating. Yesterday the missionary Reiton family bought 'twelve large two and one-half loaves of bread'. Today their son-in-law Robert Hammond, also a missionary, finds that it's impossible to buy any bread at all.

Ellen Field goes to the Recruitment Centre and is told to leave Kowloon for the Island. She refuses:

I had the most fanciful notion of what would happen to me if I did remain where I was. I thought, for instance, that the Japanese would simply come up to me and say, 'We've won or something like that.' I believed they would behave decently towards British people.

After a heavy night of shelling, Arthur and Edith Hamson and their family decide to take refuge in the Kowloon hills for a few days. They head towards Lion Rock, passing other terrified families. Their servants Ah Moi and Ah Lee find them and bring food. Night falls 'and with darkness came the most spectacular light show'. From their elevated position they see Hong Kong Island covered in thick smoke, 'which took on an orange glow from the flickering light created by the bombs'. Lion Rock isn't comfortable, but at least it's safer than the city.

Diary of Dr. Isaac Newton:

Today has been one of the most trying that I have ever experienced. When I got to the hospital after breakfast, I found that there was a general air of tension and the nursing staff, sisters as well as nurses, had decided that in no circumstances would they stay put if the Japanese occupied Kowloon. As they had all agreed previously to do so when asked and our plans about stores etc. were based on that it was something of a blow to me.

Newton decides to cross to the Island and discuss the situation with the Director of Medical Services: on arrival he finds that  Selwyn-Clarke has just seen the Governor, and he tells him that it is his (the Governor's) wish that all the hospital's medical personnel remain in Kowloon:

It was the first time I have ever seen S-C really moved. He obviously felt that he was deserting us and he really minded it, particularly as we have borne the brunt of the whole thing up till now. However, we settled all the details we could and he followed me out and said goodbye. There were tears in his eyes and he couldn't control his face or let the words out and in the end he gave it up and just walked back to his office. I felt really sorry for him. Then {Dr. D. J.} Valentine came up and said goodbye too.

On Hong Kong Island Phyllis Harrop describes the problems faced by Food Control:

Something has gone radically wrong with the organisation. Reports are coming in that men have had no food for forty-eight hours. Office staff have walked out due to lack of supplies and messengers are threatening to follow them. The food is there but transport seems to be the difficulty. Conferences have been held to settle the matter.

But action is being taken to improve the food situation: to alleviate the shortages caused by rice and other food shops shutting down at the start of the fighting, the Government orders every undertaking selling food to keep open from 8 a.m. to sunset. A Food Control official broadcasts an assurance that there's plenty of food in Hong Kong, and to prove it food kitchens are opened.

Jesuit Superior Father Patrick Joy needs to keep his priests moving about the city, as some of them, although Irish and therefore neutral, are volunteering with Essential Services, while others are continuing to carry out spriritual duties - from early on they note an increase in people wanting baptism, confession and communion. But there are new problems:

To move about the city now required police permits, and a large part of Fr. Joy's time on the third day of the war was spent in arranging for these.

One of the Jesuits, Fr. Paul O'Brien, is sent over to Kowloon to open an office of the Billeting Organisation, as so few people have been rehoused in the first two days - only 200-300 on the whole of day 2. He considers the building completely inappropriate as it's made mostly of glass and is the office of a Taxicab Company with an assembly yard outside that's likely to attract bombing as a transport hub. It's rocked for three hours during the day by the explosions from a nearby air raid. No-one comes there anyway, and he finds out later that notices were not issued until after the Japanese had taken Kowloon.

The London press is doing its best to stay positive. These reports seem to give an idealised account of developments on the 8th and 9th:

Japanese trying to cross Hong Kong’s mainland frontier have been halted by our artillery fire, it is announced officially.

The border was manned by British troops at 5.30 a.m. yesterday and we started the demolition of roads and bridges.

Berlin adds that two Japanese Divisions are attacking Hong Kong.

Sources:

Shing Mun etc.: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 2003, 40-42

Reiton: Robert B. Hammond, Bondservants of the Japanese, 1957 ed., 16

Field: Ellen Field, Twilight in Hong Kong, 1960, 20-21

Hamsons: Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 73-74

Newton: Alan Birch  and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 24-25

Harrop: Phyllis Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 1943, 70

Action is taken: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 23

Joy: Thomas F. Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire In The Siege Of Hong Kong, 1944, 23

O'Brien: Ibid, 25

Press: The Daily Mirror, December 10, 1941, page 1

For most people in Kowloon the night of December 11-12 is one of terror. Ruthless gangs, some of them armed, descend on private houses and anywhere else that offers the prospect of loot or 'protection money'. Six Irish Jesuits were on that side of the harbour and their history of the hostlities describes the situation vividly

All through the night the din and pillage continued....Gangs 'worked' certain streets or districts. They went to shop after shop and house after house, breaking down the doors if they were not open, and going through every floor and every room swiftly and violently. The slightest resistance brought savage attacks that were often fatal. Ear-rings were torn away brutally; fingers were chopped off when rings did not slip off easily; and a blow with an iron bar was the most common reply to any attempt to bar an entrance. Shots were frequent during the night....None will ever know how many people died during that terrible period.

Those in the hospitals are probably the best off - these offer few temptations to looters when so many other buildings are available. Robert Boris Levkovich is sleeping in the emergency hospital at the Central British School close to the Kowloon Hospital:

There was dead silence around the district, and only the far-away shouts of the mobs, in Kowloon City, and occasional shots were heard.

Father Ryan sums up:

In the history of Kowloon no dawn was ever awaited with greater eagerness than that of Friday, December 12th.

Early in the morning Levkovich is summoned to Kowloon Hospital by Dr. Newton. He is told to join the Rev. Wittenbach and Mr. McGowan on a trip to find petrol and to look for the Rev. Wittenbach's wife and two children. They leave about 8 a.m. but don't get far: they're set upon by a bus-load of Japanese soldiers and become part of the incident involving the Hamsons and the Hardwicks ((see below)).

At 8 a.m. the Hamson family are joined by their friend Mrs. Hardwick and her teenage son Ronnie. They leave in their car for the ferry to Hong Kong Island, passing through a Kowloon that's become 'a ghost town'. They arrive on Nathan Road, where most of the shops have been looted, and which is full of people fleeing in cars or on foot - 'hysterical people clambered onto our car and pulled at the locked doors, trying to get in'.

Suddenly they are surrounded by Japanese soldiers. Arthur Hansom and Ronnie Hardwick are taken aside and Arthur is beaten up. The women and children are told to go. In the confusion of the streets they lose contact with Mrs. Hardwick. Edith and her younger sister Leilah decide to try to join their mother at Kowloon Hospital. They pass sometimes limbless corpses on the way. While climbing a hill leading to the Hospital Edith is attacked by Chinese bandits, Leilah managing to get away with the children (Richard and May). Edith is rescued by the sudden appearance of a group of men, and makes it to the hospital. Leilah and the children have found Mrs. Hamson, and she comes rushing out as soon as Edith arrrives.

Meanwhile, Arthur Hamson and young Ronnie Hardwick, now in a group that includes R. B. Levkovich, are saved from further beatings by a Japanese army doctor. The Jesuit Father Gallagher arrives, along with his associate Mr. McAsey: they've been moving around Kowloon trying, without success, to find a Japanese officer who understands Ireland's neutrality. They're taken to the Kowloon Hospital in a decrepit bus driven by an American named Wilkins, but they're told they'd be in too much danger there, so they're loaded back onto the  bus and into some private cars and taken to a building where, they are told, they will spend the night before continuing their journey to a safe place:

The building revealed itself to be an old godown converted into a school.

It turns out to be the Hing Wah College, and, although it's not at all safe, it's where they're going to stay.

In the afternoon, Dorothy Geen, the Matron of Kowloon Hospital, calls the nurses together and tells them the Mainland is being evacuated, but they must stay. ((Miss Geen was to become Matron of Stanley's Tweed Bay Hospital.))

At about 5 p.m. the Japanese begin to occupy the Hospital. That evening Dr. Newton and all the other 'European and American men and women' are told they must leave (Miss Geen and seven sisters seem to remain at the Hospital nevertheless). They are taken to join those at the Hing Wah College in Castle Peak Rd.

Elsewhere in Kowloon, Australian Harold Bateson is shot after surrendering.

There are dramatic events on Hong Kong Island too.

At 2 a.m. F. W. Shaftain, Director of Criminal Intelligence in the police, meets with Triad leaders to try to talk them out of a plan to massacre all the 'whites' in Hong Kong at 3 a.m. on December 13. ((After complex negotiations, involving influential Chinese citizens, a sum of money will be paid and the plan called off. Most people won't know about these events until after the war.))

Air Raid Precautions Warden Noel Croucher comes off duty, and has a snack at the Gloucester Hotel. While he's eating, a yachting friend asks him to take part in a 'secret mission'. He's been on duty all day - it's now past 7 p.m. - so declines on the grounds of tiredness. This decision saves his life.

The mission was to escort the P & O tug Jeanette as it pulled a barge filled with nine tons of dynamite. Through a misunderstanding the dynamite is accidentally exploded in the harbour by shots from men of the Middlesex Regiment and all involved are killed.

That night Aileen Woods is woken by the sound of the explosion of the Jeanette.

So was Noel Croucher:

I had gone along to the Chartered Bank after my meal, pulled two benches together and laid down. About eleven o' clock, I was awakened by a terrific explosion. I thought a bomb had dropped close by, but no further explosions occurred.

The Maryknoll Fathers hear it at their mission in Stanley, which suggests that almost everyone on the island does too.

The situation in Kowloon is dire, but there's good news on the back page of the Daily Mirror:

Chungking radio announced last night that heavy fighting had been in progress for forty-eight hours….The Japanese had suffered heavy casualties, estimated so far at 15,000 with the Chinese forces attacking along the whole front.

Sounds promising. And the Latest News section at the bottom of the page sounds better still:

Chinese Cutting off Japs at Hong Kong

General Chiang Kai Shek is personally directing large Chinese forces coming to the aid of Hong Kong.

Chinese are cutting off the Japanese from rear and flank, and the enemy power is diminishing.

Sources:

Looting: Thomas F. Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire In The Siege Of Hong Kong, 1944, 49

Hamsons: Allana Corbin, Prisoners of the East, 2002, 76-82

Levkovich - silence and petrol mission: Statement, page 3 (in the Ride Papers, held at the Hong Kong Heritage project and kindly sent to me Elizabeth Ride); some details of the 'petrol mission' taken from Dr. Newton's diary, cited in Captive Christmas, 50 - he calls Levkovich 'a third person'.

Gallagher and McAsey: Thomas F. Ryan, Jesuits Under Fire In The Siege Of Hong Kong, 1944, 65-67

Kowloon Hospital entered, Newton: Alan Birch and Martin Cole, Captive Christmas, 1979, 50-51

Bateson: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 2003, 64

Geen: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 2003, 61

Shaftain: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 2003, 59

Croucher, Woods: John Luff, The Hidden Years, 1967, 49-50

Jeanette: Tony Banham, Not The Slightest Chance, 63.

Note 1:

John Luff (and Phyllis Harrop in Hong Kong Incident, 73) dates the Jeanette explosion to the night of December 11, but I have followed Tony Banham's December 12 dating. Wright-Nooth seems to put the 'monstrous explosion that shook the whole of Victoria' on the night of December 14 (Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 53).

Note 2:

Captain Freddie Guest claims that he and others made up a rumour about a Chinese army marching to the relief of Hong Kong in order to cheer people up when 'about December 17' they were forced to finally release news of the sinking of the H. M. S. Repulse and H. M. S. Prince of Wales and thus crush hopes of naval relief from Singapore. However, reports in the UK press prove that the rumour pre-dated the 17th. There was a Chinese army marching towards Hong Kong, although there was never any prospect of it arriving in time to relieve the Colony. The press reports in Britain seem to have been based on real but not always accurate reports from Chungking of the movements of this army. It would, for example, have been correct to say that Chiang Kai-Shek had directed forces to come to Hong Kong's aid, not suggest that he was directing them in action.

See Freddie Guest, Escape From The Bloodied Sun, 1957, 39 and Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong, 2003, 63