The courage of Godfrey Bird, the Royal Engineer who endured the water torture for three weeks in June 1944, was recognised by the award of the George Medal.
A number were appointed Officers of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) including Donald C Bowie, the captive surgeon who ran the British Military Hospital for five years, saving so many lives. Another was the New Zealander, Lieutenant Commander R B Goodwin. He was one of those who smuggled the British Army Aid Group’s secret messages into and out of Argyle Street. (John Harris was the first to do so.) Goodwin had been one of the radio operators before he escaped from Hong Kong in July 1944, the only one to get away successfully in the last 22 months of the war. (He wrote two books entitled Hong Kong Escape and Passport to Eternity in 1953 and 1956 respectively.)
The number of Honours and Awards mentioned above are, literally, only a fraction of the total.
Major Charles Boxer was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) because of his role in preparing and disseminating news bulletins at the Argyle Street POW Camp and for his conduct during his subsequent imprisonment. Before announcements are made in the London Gazette, the Servicemen concerned are not consulted. Boxer responded by asking that the award be cancelled; he said he was merely doing his duty. Moreover, he added that he and others had recommended for honours two members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps “who were deeply involved in all underground work in the POW camps… neither of whom have received any official recognition”. Boxer announced, “I have neither the wish nor the intention to receive any decoration whatsoever whilst the far greater services of these and others whom I could name have gone unrewarded.”
Boxer had a good point: Honours and Awards, particularly in wartime, are strictly limited. A poorly written or mishandled citation, or an act of extreme gallantry witnessed by practically nobody, is unlikely to lead to recognition. Boxer, who died aged 96 in 2000, was not referring to Major H R Forsyth whose “fine leadership, courage and devotion to duty… ” led to Brigadier C Wallis writing a citation for a Victoria Cross for this mortally wounded Volunteer who refused to leave his post. Forsyth received nothing. (Oliver Lindsay, however, was able to send a photostat copy of the citation to his son.)
The Military Secretary at the War Office ignored Boxer’s plea that others be given honours and told him that “refusing an award which has been approved would constitute an act of grave discourtesy to His Majesty The King”. Nevertheless Boxer did not back down: a subsequent edition of the London Gazette cancelled the MBE. When asked, an official at St James’s Palace was unaware of any other Serviceman who refused an Honour after it had been gazetted.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Boxer helped the Japanese during the war, as has been alleged. He became the leading foreign historian of the Portuguese Empire and of Dutch exploits overseas. In 1984 it was twice suggested to Sir Keith Joseph, the Minister of Education, that Boxer be placed on the New Years Honours List, but this proposal was met with stony silence because of earlier negative responses. A knighthood was also considered appropriate later, but was not pursued.
Paradoxically, while Boxer declined his MBE, it was widely felt that one name was missing from the awards. “After the war, when the Hong Kong Despatches came out, I found out that either Maltby or the pundits at the War Office had watered all my recommendations down,” remembers Wallis. “But I noticed that Maltby had been given no recognition. I felt that this was a slur on the whole force which had by and large fought with great gallantry, and also I had observed that, as our chief POW, Maltby had stood up well to the Japs.” Wallis was unaware that, with Colonel L A Newnham and Captain D Ford, Maltby had played the pivotal role in dealing with the British Army Aid Group’s spying organisation. Its vital contribution in smuggling medicines into the POW camps saved many lives and it provided military intelligence of considerable value to the Allies.
“Seeing that Maltby’s name was not to be found in the UK awards, I at once contacted all the senior survivors I could reach and I wrote to the War Office to complain,” wrote Wallis. “I pointed out forcibly that General Maltby had inherited a hopeless assignment and had done his best.” As another survivor of the campaign put it: “Maltby did not have a hope in hell of undoing the lethargy and blindness of the past, nor of trying to remedy and reorganise the Defence Scheme in a few months.”
At last the appropriate recognition was given: Major General C M Maltby received the award of the Companion of the Bath, which was not given to many Second World War Generals.
Wallis ended the war in Manchuria and was moved to Manila. He displeased the authorities there by refusing to be flown home, insisting instead that he must return via India as he was determined to see the survivors of his old Battalion, the 5/7 Rajputs, who had fought so bravely in Hong Kong, endeavouring to hold the waterfront against three regiments of Japanese troops. Wallis rejoined them briefly near Lucknow where he was given a great welcome. He addressed the battalion; a special Guest Night and sports events were held in his honour. Wallis received a Mention in Despatches after returning to England. He later emigrated to Canada and became a prosperous Business Consultant. Oliver Lindsay was able to discuss the campaign with him over two years when they were in Canada together.
Due recognition was also given to those who had played a very different part in the war against Japan.
Lindsay Ride had held the post of Dean of the Medical Faculty in Hong Kong Hospital before the war. He was the first to escape from Shamshuipo after commanding the Volunteer Field Ambulance during the fighting. For over three years, when organising the BAAG, he had endeavoured to maintain Britain’s prestige in South China. He was an outstanding person: his subsequent extremely successful career culminated in a knighthood.
With spectacular timing, F C Gimson, the Colonial Secretary, arrived in Hong Kong the day before the Japanese invasion. He laboured far-sightedly throughout the internment at Stanley to form a shadow administration and was able to put it into effect immediately the Japanese surrendered. The British Government recognised that Gimson had done extraordinarily well. He was rewarded with a knighthood and later became Governor of Singapore.
Throughout the Japanese occupation, until his arrest on trumped-up charges, Doctor P S Selwyn-Clarke, the former Director of Medical Services, had been deeply committed to the welfare of Hong Kong’s Chinese citizens of all classes, and also to the POWs and internees. He then survived 20 months of intense interrogation in the utmost squalor. Frail and crippled as a result of Japanese tortures, he thought he would never survive. Nevertheless, after the war he re-established medical and health control in the Colony. In 1947 he became Governor of the Seychelles – an unparalleled honour for a doctor and a tribute to his surreptitious relief work. He, too, was knighted. As with the military honours, the number of the names recorded here are only a fraction of those civilians who were recognised for their outstanding endeavours in terrible circumstances.
On 30th April 1946, Sir Mark Young, the first post-war Governor of Hong Kong, returned to the Colony. The King had re-appointed him as he had shown such outstanding leadership during the battle and as a prisoner of war, despite being subjected to every humiliation by the Japanese; during one period he was tending goats. Sir Mark’s return to Hong Kong gave great pleasure to many.
One other person received an unexpected reception. He was the Japanese guard Kyoshi Watanabe, who had risked his life smuggling medicines and money to the POWs, doctors and internees. Through him, some POWs were able to keep in touch with their families in Stanley Camp; he was a Lutheran Minister and put Christian charity ahead of his own survival. Tragically, his entire family was killed in Hiroshima. According to several reports, he appeared in the programme This is Your Life in London, receiving considerable applause.
Some Chinese in the New Territories and beyond had very bravely helped the POWs and internees who had escaped. They received the appropriate thanks and financial rewards after the war. This ap
plied also to those Chinese who had hidden the three survivors from the Lisbon Maru and later taken them to Free China, thereby enabling everyone to know the truth of the terrible atrocity when the Japanese did their best to drown and shoot the POWs.
* * * * *
The military lessons learned in Hong Kong were not lost on the new generations of British, Gurkha and Chinese Servicemen in the Colony. Just as Staff College Camberley students studied the 1944 Normandy battles, so two-day battlefield tours in Hong Kong were occasionally run by Oliver Lindsay until 1995. Colonel A G Hewitt MC MBE, who had escaped from Shamshuipo and died in 2004, was the principal speaker for the Island battle, while J A Ford CB MC was among those who covered the battles for the Mainland and the Wong Nei Chong Gap. John Harris spoke on the smuggling of messages to and from the British Army Aid Group. Gurkhas played the part of the Japanese; they were dressed appropriately and quoted the precise reminiscences of the surviving Japanese regimental commanders who had been brought back to Hong Kong in 1946 to be charged with the atrocities. Thanks to the Commander British Forces in Hong Kong in 1990, Lieutenant General Sir Peter Duffell, steps were cut up to the Shingmun Redoubt for the veterans and their wives; coloured smoke, blank machine-gun fire and charging Gurkhas re-enacted the Japanese attack at the redoubt. The splendid lunch in glorious sunshine which followed was a more gentle affair, with a Regimental band serenading us. The battlefield tours usually finished with a Canadian playing the part of Brigadier Lawson staggering in, riddled with ‘gunshot wounds’, to tell the spectators that criticism was ludicrous when there was no air cover, inadequate ships, communications, transport, mortars, mobile artillery and so on.
Some of the guest speakers were members of the Argyle Street POW Association, which has met for lunch or dinner in London every year since the war. Major General Maltby regularly attended until his death. Derek Bird, the son of Godfrey Bird GM TD, took over as Chairman of the Association from John Harris TD in 2004. In November 2005 members of the Association and other Hong Kong veterans plan to participate in the Remembrance Day Service and Parade at the Cenotaph in Whitehall for the first time. The High Commissioners of Canada and India have been asked to publicise this participation in the hope that some of their veterans and descendants will join us.
* * * * *
Many of the battles in Hong Kong deserve to be legendary. The gallantry of the Canadians has already been described. Their last desperate charge was at Stanley Peninsula on the orders of a thoroughly controversial, newly promoted Indian Army Brigadier who was totally out of touch with reality, contemplating shooting those Canadian officers who wanted to surrender, complaining about a “bloodless mutiny” and considering blowing up Stanley Fort where the wounded were sheltering! The Canadian Battalions had earlier been considered in Ottawa as “not recommended for operational consideration”.
Then there were the two Indian Battalions who fought gallantly; many of them remained loyal, despite horrific conditions in the POW camp and relentless pressure to join anti-British organisations.
The men of the Royal Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps deserve special mention. Their motto was ‘Second to None’. Their fighting was certainly consistent with such a motto. The truly epic defence of the Volunteers at the North Point power station and their participation in some of the fiercest fighting, particularly at Stanley, reflected their extraordinary gallantry throughout the battle for Hong Kong. The Regiment received 37 decorations. The Corps was created ‘Royal’ after the war in recognition of its achievements.
The Middlesex Regiment owed their enviable nickname, ‘the Diehards’, to the encouragement of a former Commanding Officer who lay mortally wounded on the battlefield of Albuhera in 1811, during the Peninsular War. “Die hard, my men, die hard,” he was heard to shout. Their courage was such that Wellington exclaimed: “Cockneys make the best Troopers.” They lived up to this reputation in Hong Kong.
Finally, we come to The Royal Scots (the Royal Regiment), the First of Foot; the Regiment which enjoys the prestige and privilege of being the oldest and senior British Infantry Regiment of the Line, tracing its unbroken service to the Charter given to it by King Charles I in 1633.
The reputation of the Royal Scots was needlessly maligned by Brigadier C Wallis. On no occasion did he or Major General Maltby ever visit or witness the Battalion in action throughout the entire battle. They relied instead on telephone calls to assess the Battalion’s progress. These calls were logged in battle diaries which were then destroyed to prevent the Japanese capturing them.
The two Colours of the Middlesex Regiment, presented by The Prince of Wales in 1930, were hastily and secretly buried in boxes in the grounds of Flagstaff House by Captain I MacGregor, the General’s ADC. Exhaustive and unsuccessful efforts were made to find the Colours after the war. It was assumed that ants must have eaten them. The brass parts of the pike and staff were recovered and are now in the Regimental Museum. Field Marshal Sir John Harding presented new Colours to the 1st Battalion in Austria in 1953. They bear the battle honour ‘Hong Kong’. The Middlesex amalgamated to form The Queen’s Regiment in 1966, which in turn amalgamated in 1992 with The Royal Hampshires to form The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. In each case the new Regiment proudly continued to have Hong Kong emblazoned upon its Colours.
In 1940 the Colours of 2nd Battalion the Royal Scots had been sent to the vaults of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in Singapore for safekeeping; they vanished when the Japanese captured the Island. Four years and eight months later, Captain A S Carr Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers was “going along a street just behind the waterfront when we were attracted by colourful embroidery”, he reported. “We found on closer examination that it was a Regimental Colour. It was lying amongst a pile of old clothing on a wayside vendor’s barrow; I bought it for one dollar.” The Royal Scots Regimental Colour is now in the Regimental Museum in Edinburgh Castle.
When Princess Mary, the Princess Royal, presented the new Colours to the Battalion in 1948, there was no Battle Honour ‘Hong Kong’ upon it because the War Office said the Royal Scots did not deserve it. (The Regiment also fought in Burma 1943–1945 for which Battle Honours were received, but that is a different matter.)
There is no doubt that the Royal Scots, however belatedly, deserve the same recognition as the Middlesex Regiment. The Royal Scots had a much higher number of officer casualties than any other unit – no fewer than 27 officers out of 35 were killed or seriously wounded – brave men who really were leading from the front.1 While virtually no ‘outsiders’ witnessed the Royal Scots’ gallantry when three highly trained Japanese battalions launched their ferocious Mainland attacks upon only them, there were those who saw the repeated assaults, led by Pinkerton and others who tried to clear the Japanese from the Wong Nei Chong Gap, the vital ground. The Japanese battalions on the high ground overlooking the Gap were thrown into confusion, and “suffered heavy losses in a fierce battle with the Royal Scots”, according to Colonel Shoji Toshishige.2
A campaign should be launched in Scotland to obtain the Battle Honour. True, it is too late for most of the veterans. However, their descendants, the few survivors still alive and the Regiment today, would be well satisfied if this injustice was addressed.
Five days before the last shot was fired in Hong Kong, Winston Churchill had signalled Sir Mark Young on 21st December 1941: “The enemy should be compelled to expend the utmost life and equipment… Every day that you are able to maintain your resistance you and your men can win the lasting honour which we are sure will be your due.”3 He later wrote in his history of the war: “These orders were obeyed in spirit and to the letter… the Colony had fought a good fight. They had won indeed ‘the lasting honour’.”
“There was,” as the Official History has it, “no lack of good and gallant leadership.”4
That, then, almost brings this account to an end – the final curtain, the ultimate accolade, the end of the book. But not quite.
In April 19
46 King George VI approved the posthumous award of no fewer than four George Crosses. It was an unprecedented number for one small theatre of war. They were in recognition of the most conspicuous gallantry of four men who were tortured most cruelly in Hong Kong’s cells for many months.
The recipients were
Colonel Lanceray A Newnham MC
The Middlesex Regiment
Captain Douglas Ford
The Royal Scots
Captain Mateen A Ansari
7th Rajput Regiment
Flight Lieutenant Hector B Gray AFM
Royal Air Force
“I had recommended Gray for the Victoria Cross,” recalls Wing Commander H G Sullivan. “The Air Ministry reminded me that this was awarded for bravery in the face of the enemy, to which I replied that many VCs were won in the heat of battle surrounded by one’s comrades. Gray, Newnham, Ansari and Ford had deserved theirs in the cold of the torture chamber.”
Colonel Newnham had been starved and tortured for five months. In spite of his acute suffering, both physical and mental, he refused to implicate any of his brother officers or connections, thus undoubtedly saving their lives. (Had he named John Harris, this book would never have been written!)
Captain Ford, like Colonel Newnham, had been in touch with the BAAG agents. He received the same treatment. “Throughout his terrible ordeal his behaviour ‘was superb’”, reads his citation. “He refused to implicate any of the others. He maintained his spirits and those of his fellow prisoners until the end.”
Captain Ansari, Indian Army, “steadfastly continued to counteract all traitorous propaganda and resolutely opposed all attempts at undermining the loyalty of his compatriots. In May 1942 he was thrown into Stanley Gaol, where he remained until September 1942, by which time, owing to starvation and brutal ill-treatment which is alleged to have included mutilation, he had become unable to walk.” On return to the POW camp, he not only resumed his previous efforts, but also organised a system for aiding escapers, before he was betrayed. Ansari and over 30 other British, Indian and Chinese were executed in horrifying circumstances by beheading on 20th October 1943.
The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Page 28