The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945

by Oliver Lindsay

  6. Forbes, Patrick, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, Vol. I, Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1949, p. 14.

  7. Carroll, David, The Home Guard, Stroud: Sutton, 1999, p. 5.

  CHAPTER 4

  An Ocean of Change

  Our ship was luxurious! SS Viceroy of India was the flagship of the P & O line. She proved to be the last civilian passenger ship of her type to go to Japan before hostilities. The civilian passengers on board were largely colonials with their families returning to India and Malaya. The Servicemen and women included Queen Alexandra’s Military Imperial Nursing Service (known as QAs), TA Gunner officers and we three Royal Engineer 2nd Lieutenants – Dickie Arundell, Micky Holliday and me.

  We sailed from Liverpool on 27th July 1940 bound for Gibraltar, Cape Verde, Cape Town, Mombasa, Bombay, Colombo, Singapore, and, for us, Hong Kong.

  Almost precisely 64 years later I had a great friend, ‘Bunny’ Browne, to lunch in London who told me of his adventures when posted to Hong Kong, travelling on the Empress of Australia, which sailed from Southampton in mid September 1939. He is one of my very few Hong Kong contemporaries still alive. Horace Wilfred Browne, subsequently appointed CBE, was a civilian auditor working for the Army. His destination was meant to be secret and he was told to mark his baggage ‘Q4’. At Waterloo station everyone seemed to know what ‘Q4’ indicated. “It’s the Indian boat,” the porters told him. The ship had a swimming pool; the food was excellent and all looked promising.

  The Empress of Australia was accompanied by the Franconia, Alcantara, Athlone Castle and a Destroyer. After leaving Gibraltar, three of the ships were zigzagging in line abreast to avoid any enemy torpedoes when two of them inexplicably collided in broad daylight, crushing all the lifeboats hanging on one side of one ship and buckling the bows of another. At Bombay Bunny wisely insured his possessions. Most unexpectedly, the passengers were then told that their ship was returning to England and they would have to proceed across India by train. On reaching Calcutta, he was put on board the Sedana, a small cargo ship carrying some passengers. All went well, apart from a flood in his cabin which soaked all his possessions. He had accidentally left a tap on a little earlier when there was no water in the pipes.

  On leaving Singapore on 13th November 1939, Bunny suddenly heard at 6.00 a.m. a big bang on the port side, followed by screaming. The Sedana had strayed into a British minefield, watched by a Gunner Battery on shore which did not have the authority to warn the ship. The minefield had apparently been marked in the wrong place on Sedana’s charts.

  Bunny came up on deck, properly dressed, wearing his topee and life jacket, clutching two possessions which first came to hand – his new camera and an alarm clock. The ship was sinking fast and the crew useless. Lifeboats were capsizing as too many Indians, and the Chinese being deported from Singapore, crowded into them, standing on the lifeboats’ oars. The one European woman bound for Hong Kong was thrown into a lifeboat while Bunny descended a ladder which suddenly flipped over leaving him hanging upside down ten feet above a heaving, tightly-packed lifeboat. Attempts to rescue the survivors were handicapped by the unwillingness of anyone to enter the minefield.

  Bunny was met in Hong Kong by a violent typhoon, but he was a happy man: his insurance claim amounted to £100 which enabled him to buy his first yacht and a dress suit.

  To revert to our own voyage, I was immediately struck by the luxury of SS Viceroy of India. Indian stewards served us cucumber sandwiches and marvellous cream cakes when we boarded her at teatime. There was a Palm Court orchestra to entertain us at tea and in the evening. I had a cabin to myself: all officers travelled first class. A Royal Artillery officer, the highly respected Lord Merthyr, was in charge of us. We were to become great friends in dire circumstances later.

  Italy had entered the war on 10th June. Following the formation of the pro-Nazi Vichy Government, most of the French ships at Oran, their crews having refused to come over to the Allies, were sunk by Admiral Somerville after a bitter engagement.

  Before the war it had been anticipated that, should Britain and France find themselves at war with both Germany and Japan, much of the British Mediterranean Fleet could be spared for the Far East. But now – with Italy’s belligerence and no French Fleet to fight alongside us – the few Royal Navy ships at Singapore and Hong Kong would be largely on their own. Transferring the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet to the Indian Ocean, or to relieve Singapore, “would entail the complete loss of the Middle East, and all the prospects of beating Italy in the Mediterranean would be gone,” Churchill told the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand on 11th August 1940.1 Naturally, I and my friends were quite unaware of this sinister warning or the repercussions for us in Hong Kong.

  We reached Gibraltar and stayed at sea all night. On receiving the news of Oran, the Vichy Pétain Government ordered retaliation by bombing the harbour at Gibraltar from their African bases. Their bombing was spectacular as were the British warships’ anti-aircraft guns, but both were equally ineffective. The following day we went ashore and met the apes, who seemed quite indifferent to having been under fire the previous night.

  I must refer to one meeting of greater consequence. An architectural friend had been posted with the Royal Artillery to Gibraltar and was now in uniform. He told me quite categorically that, as everyone apart from me seemed to know, there was a major problem in both Singapore and Hong Kong: all the artillery – the great fortress guns – pointed out to sea to the south to safeguard against a seaborne attack, rather than to the northwest, north or northeast should the Japanese attack overland.

  In 1991 the authoritative book, The Guns and Gunners of Hong Kong, was published: it addressed this point. The book shows quite conclusively that the above rumour was quite untrue as far as Hong Kong was concerned. The arcs of fire and range of the coast batteries at Stone Cutters, Mount Davis, Jubilee, Devil’s Peak and Pakshawan between them could and would engage the enemy advancing upon Hong Kong.2

  As far as Singapore is concerned, General Wavell told Churchill on 16th January 1942 that “the fortress cannon of heaviest nature have all-round traverse, but their flat trajectory makes them unsuitable for counter-battery work.”3 (It was true that there were no permanent fortifications covering the landward side of the naval base, but that was a different matter.) And so my architectural Royal Artillery friend’s demoralising information was wrong on both counts.

  The harbour at Cape Verde, where we stopped to refuel, provided a perfect setting for a dance on deck, with cheerful coloured lights instead of the usual blackout because the country was neutral.4 There were a number of nice girls on board. It has been said and is undoubtedly true that the longer one is at sea, the more alluring and beautiful the girls seem to become, almost by the hour. One girl, educated at St Swithuns, whose father was a senior director of Dunlop, became a particular friend but there was no serious romance for me.

  Ten days before reaching Cape Town, I went down with pneumonia. Lord Merthyr had a look at me and said, “You know, you’re not really fit. I don’t think we need you to carry on; we will unload you in Cape Town.” Fortunately the ship had penicillin. After a week I was out of the ship’s hospital and so not abandoned in Cape Town, swept into the 8th Army and possibly killed in the desert. A different fate awaited me.

  When we reached Cape Town, we were told that we couldn’t land because the Australian Army on the Queen Mary en route to England had earlier had a happy time creating havoc everywhere. In the end, as the passengers on the Viceroy of India were mainly civilians, the authorities relented and we had two very excellent, enjoyable days due to the overwhelming South African hospitality.

  British Servicemen travelling to fight in North Africa who stopped at Durban had an equally memorable and marvellous time. This was just as well because so many of them were killed in the relentless battles in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.5

  Three days before we arrived at Cape Town we had come across the large, disabled Ceramic. Sh
e had been hit by another ship in the darkness; no ships carried navigation lights because of the threat of German submarines and raiders. The numerous women and children en route from Britain to Australia were transferred from the Ceramic to our ship. My beautiful cabin was surrendered to a woman with a band of children, leaving me to sleep with others on the ballroom’s floor.

  Our next stop was Mombassa where there was a swimming party one night at Port Reitz with the by now devastatingly beautiful QA nurses. At Bombay, on the other hand, we were berthed alongside a hospital ship which was unloading dead and wounded from Berbera – yet another timely reminder that we were in the corridors of war.

  Colombo was worth a visit and then we reached Singapore with its legendary Raffles Hotel. Sadly, we were there for only one night but the beach club which I and my friends visited was truly splendid.

  Six days later, on 11th September 1940, the Viceroy of India entered Hong Kong’s fabulous harbour. My first exciting impressions were of the sheer beauty of the place – the bright green hills descending to the yellow sands of the picturesque bays. Even by the standards of the late 1930s, everything looked serene, beautiful and, yes, extraordinarily peaceful.

  Notes

  1. Churchill, W S, The Second World War, Vol. II, London: Cassell, 1949, p. 385.

  2. Rollo, Denis, The Guns and Gunners of Hong Kong, The Gunners’ Roll of Hong Kong, 1991, p. 123.

  3. Churchill, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 42.

  4. Wiseman, E P (‘Bill’), Hong Kong: Recollections of a British POW, Ontario: Veterans Publications, 2001, p. 15.

  5. Hawes, Sid, ‘Durban 1942’, in The Guards Magazine, 2004/5 Winter edition, p. 232

  CHAPTER 5

  Visions of Delight

  On arrival in Hong Kong on 11th September 1940, we were met by Major D C E Gross who commanded 22nd Company Royal Engineers. Being so junior, I was expecting to be put up in some dingy barracks, but instead Micky Holliday, Dickie Arundell and I were taken to the Hong Kong Club. It was on the waterfront of Hong Kong harbour and enjoyed the exclusive, dignified atmosphere of a 19th century London club; it had an historic air about it. The imposing premises overlooked the Cenotaph, an exact replica of Lutyens’ Cenotaph in Whitehall. Membership was strictly controlled.

  The Royal Engineers in Hong Kong amounted to two Field Companies and Royal Engineer Services, with a total strength of 465. There were also two Auxiliary Force Engineer units. In 1939 an Engineer Field Company in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps was formed to carry out when necessary certain initial demolitions. Then there were plans for a Hong Kong Engineer Corps to be formed to consist of over 1,500 Chinese.1

  My appointment sounded very grand to me – Garrison Engineer West! I worked with half a dozen other Royal Engineer officers in Major W W Parsons’ office in Victoria on building works such as repairs to military roads, constructing some pillboxes and preparing defences. To be more precise, I was in charge of hard working Chinese contractors whose responsibilities included constructing and maintaining the water supplies in the Colony. These reservoirs were of vital importance, as were the pumping stations. Without water, Hong Kong could not hold out for a week. So concrete pumping stations and drains became my business. This does not sound very exciting when it comes to war, but, as a fledgling architect, it suited me well as I knew something about it all. My two great friends, Holliday and Arundell, were sent to R.E. Field Companies.

  I became familiar with the western part of Hong Kong Island which included the important Mount Davis gun position completed in 1912 and manned by 24th Coast Battery, 12th Coast Regiment Royal Artillery. It consisted of 115 Gunners and three massive 9.2 inch guns. They were well camouflaged and surrounded by barbed wire. Also there were the Headquarters of Western Fire Command, a Fire Control Position Finder, Fortress and Battery Observation Posts, Plotting Rooms and much else. I looked after the engineering part of the batteries, seeing that the mechanical equipment was working. I rebuilt some gun emplacements which needed attention. I also installed a water supply there, with some difficulty because it needed a special water pump. Three times the pump was ordered from the UK: the first ship bringing it out was sunk, as was the second one. Fortunately the third got through.

  All the guns were able to fire at an enemy target at any one time. The targets might include Japanese ships approaching Victoria Harbour from the west where the sealane was 3,600 yards wide, or Japanese soldiers approaching from the northwest area of the Mainland.

  After some 13 weeks of greatly enjoying life in the Hong Kong Club, Holliday, Arundell and I were lucky enough to be allocated a flat on May Road, which lay halfway up the exclusive Victoria Peak and about a mile from Mount Davis. We had our first Hong Kong Christmas there. The Peak is the highest point of Hong Kong Island and overlooks the capital, Victoria, which stretched in a narrow strip along the northern shore for about four miles. The Peak also overlooked other mountains, tortuous valleys and precipitous slopes covered by dense vegetation.

  Gradually, I got to know the British Crown Colony. It consisted of the Island, and, to the north, across a narrow channel and Victoria Harbour, the Hong Kong Mainland which bordered China. The Japanese were in occupation beyond the border. North of Kowloon were the New Territories of about 360 square miles. They had been leased to Britain in 1898 for a period of 99 years. The only airport was at Kai Tak to the east of Kowloon; it was used for both commercial and military purposes. Since the dockyard in Victoria Harbour was vulnerable to attack from the Mainland, an alternative naval base had been prepared to the southwest of the Island at Aberdeen. This area also came under me for some engineer support.

  Hong Kong and the New Territories 8th–12th December 1941

  It is difficult to describe the pre-war beauty of Hong Kong, the New Territories and the islands both large and small amidst the sparkling sea. The stunning crimson sunsets and the bobbing lights of the distant fishing fleet sailing into the darkness before delivering their catches to us the following morning, coupled with the cheerful optimism of the friendly Chinese – of such delightful visions are memories made. Our family motto is ‘I strive cheerfully’. I felt that it was not difficult to abide by it when I arrived in Hong Kong.

  Some Chinese girls wore Chinese style traditional cheung sarm tight fitting dresses with slits up the sides, exposing their pretty thighs, while on the other side of the street one might see middle-aged Chinese women with walking sticks hobbling along on tiny bound feet.

  On the Peak, it was commonplace to hear barking deer at night on the hillside. At Fanling near the border, the only sounds were the whooping calls of coucals and the black-necked starlings. (Compare that to the continuous roar of traffic there now.) Then, for those who enjoyed them, there were the formal Chinese meals of 12 courses; they traditionally started with small bits and pieces before moving on to soup, then to meat (pork, beef, pigeon, poultry and fish), shark’s fin soup, fried rice and a sweet dish. Apparently the menu should contain something that swam, something that flew and something that crawled. Guests, usually all men, were served brandy or whisky and were called upon to drink numerous toasts with cries of “yum shing”, meaning “drink it all”.2

  Soon after our arrival in Hong Kong, Arundell, Holliday and I, together with Bill Wiseman, pooled our resources to buy an old yacht, Diana. Wiseman had come out to Hong Kong on the Viceroy of India with us. He was a remarkable character. “As usual the Summer term at King’s School Canterbury ended with the annual Officer Training Corps camp.” So began his memoirs. “I never got there. Instead, thanks to fooling about on the train, I found myself minus a foot in Andover Cottage Hospital. I returned for the Easter term managing quite well on a ‘tin’ leg… Prior to the railway accident, a Service career had seemed probable – and I had never thought of anything else. Choice of work was no problem as no one wanted me.” Nevertheless, four years later, Wiseman was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps (TA) and posted to Hong Kong.3

  Diana cost only 20 pounds pl
us the boat boy’s wages. We used to sail regularly together, but, for some reason, Wiseman had to celebrate his 23rd birthday alone. “However, with the aid of Ah Su and a bottle of Gordon’s Gin, I managed to circumnavigate the Island in record time, or so I always claimed,” he wrote. “By October 1941 mounting debts forced us to sell Diana. Her massive lead keel brought in a small fortune, settling our debts just in time.”

  Meanwhile I, with my father’s financial help, had bought a 25-foot Sparkman Stephens yacht with a cabin for two. At weekends I visited most of the bays on or around the Island. My friends and I slept on the boat.

  I also had a small Morris car and so enjoyed travelling across the ferry to the New Territories or driving gently on the few roads on the Island. I often walked around the water catchments and reservoirs and so came to know the Island pretty well. I still kept up my painting which I had started at Harrow.

  There was ample time to do what we liked because we seldom worked in the afternoon. As Bill Wiseman put it: “Off duty life was great. Although my pay and allowances totalled less than 300 pounds a year, I lived like a lord! I lodged in a comfortable and respectable Kowloon hotel, belonged to three or four clubs and went ‘on the town’ most weekends.”

  Anthony Hewitt, the Adjutant of the Middlesex Regiment, fondly remembered that Hong Kong was still “a festive place, a refuge for enjoyment. The top hotels and restaurants were the best anywhere, the night life exciting. ‘The Grips’ was a social centre where dinner jackets were mandatory. Overlooking an exquisite coastline, the Repulse Bay Hotel with its old fashioned style was the epitome of colonial living. In Kowloon, the Peninsula Hotel was our nearest haven, only two miles from our barracks at Shamshuipo.”4 The Peninsula was built at the end of the Trans-Siberian railway which would link Dover with Hong Kong.