Rifleman Ray Jackson - a WW2 soldier's watch found in hills of Hong Kong

A wrist watch found in the hills of Hong Kong, once owned by a Canadian soldier who was killed in action during the Battle for Hong Kong in December 1941, is returned to his family in Canada 

On Monday 27 March 2017, Dave Willott, one of the military history group in Hong Kong, was searching the hillside of Stone Hill, near Stanley, when he found and unearthed a wrist watch. There is nothing particularly unusual about finding a watch, except that in this case, when he cleaned it, he found engraved on the reverse, the name and rank of a Canadian soldier who had served with the Royal Rifles of Canada (RRC) in the Battle for Hong Kong in December 1941. The watch had once belonged to twenty-one-year-old Rifleman Ray Donald Jackson who served with 'D' Coy RRC.

At noon on Monday 22 December 1941, two platoons from  'D' Coy had been redeployed to Stanley Mound, from their positions at Chung Hom Kok. At 1700 hours Battalion HQ, at Stone Hill Shelters, ordered the two 'D' Coy platoons to move to Stone Hill in order to strengthen the centre of the battalion front. Rifleman Jackson was part of this force.  Later that evening the 'B' Coy and 'HQ' Coy platoons on Stanley Mound were pushed off the crest by Japanese infantry supported by mortar and artillery. The  crest was re-taken after a Vickers machine gun barrage was opened on the crest of Stanley Mound on Tuesday morning (23 Dec) from 1/Mx positions in Stanley Village.

Pre-war map showing location of Stone Hill and the Royal Rifles of Canada Bn HQ at Stone Hill Shelters

The 'D' Coy platoons remained at Stone Hill during  the night of 22 December. Throughout the following day they were involved in fire-fights with Japanese troops. The amount of spent ammunition found on Stanley Mound and Stone Hill testify to the extent of fighting that took place on 22 and 23 December on these two hills on the Stanley perimeter. The hills were strategically important  because they overlooked Stanley where British and Allied forces had concentrated and were preparing to fight a last stand. Possession of these hills by the Japanese permitted observed and therefore accurate fire to be brought down on the military positions on Stanley Peninsula.

The Canadian infantry had been in continuous action since the Japanese landed on the Island on the night of 18/19 December. The  battalion had been seriously depleted by battle casualties, and the men were physically exhausted. A decision was made to withdraw the battalion to the flatter ground around Stanley. At dusk on Tuesday 23 December, the battalion, withdrew from the hills on the Stanley perimeter, under cover of darkness, to new positions near Stanley Village. A new battalion HQ was established at Bungalow 'A', one of the staff bungalows in the grounds of St Stephen's College, Stanley.

Rifleman Jackson was reported as missing in action and was "last seen on Stone Hill" (source Tony Banham Not the Slightest Chance). He was most probably killed at the location on Stone Hill, where the watch was found, and this may have occurred during their evacuation under fire in the evening of Tuesday 23 December, two days before the colony surrendered.

The photograph below, by Stuart Woods shows the reverse of the watch after being cleaned by Leigh Hardwick both members of the military history group. The engraving reads:  "Pte. Ray D. Jackson B68205." The rank of Pte rather than Rifleman on the engraving denotes that Ray Jackson was in a different unit before joining the Royal Rifles in 1941, although his Army service number was unchanged.

Very often those reported as missing in action have no known grave. However in Ray Jackson's case his body must have been recovered because he is buried at Sai Wan Military Cemetery. His grave is shown in the photograph below. He may have been given a battlefield burial by his own troops during the battle, or may have been buried after hostilities ended by Allied burial parties allowed out from initial incarceration at Stanley Fort,  to collect wounded and bury the dead. Such burials would take place at the location where the body was found. Those buried either during hostilities, or after hostilities ended, were exhumed after the war and reinterred in one of the two military cemeteries, which were located at Sai Wan and Stanley. 

Ray Jackson's grave (Courtesy Craig Mitchell)  

Dave wanted to return the watch to the soldier's family and our small group of history enthusiasts rallied round to help. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission on-line records confirmed that Ray Jackson  died on 23 December 1941, and that his next of kin were George and Charlotte Jackson from Wiarton, Ontario, Canada. Tony Banham's web site www.hongkongwardiary.com contains a list of garrison members, Ray was listed as being in 'D' Coy which fitted with his being killed in action on 23 December on Stone Hill.

The next step was to contact Jim Trick and Lori Atkinson Smith of the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association in Canada (HKVCA). They worked with Lillian Randall, a researcher in Canada, and within twenty-four hours had discovered a family member. There was no direct descendant as  Ray was killed whilst still a young man, and before he had a chance to marry and have children of his own. It appears he was adopted by George and Charlotte Jackson who were from a farming family in Ontario. I think he may have been adopted within the wider family, as his birth parents  appear to bear the same family name. George and Charlotte Jackson only had one child, a daughter Ida Pearl Jackson born in 1904. She was seventeen years older than Ray her adoptive brother. She married Clifford Burgess in September 1925 when Ray was still a young child. We found that Ray's closest surviving family member is Steve Burgess who is the grandson of Ida and Clifford Burgess. He was astonished to be contacted by the HKVCA and told about the watch which had been found on a battlefield in Hong Kong only twenty-four hours earlier.

Ray's Attestation Record (Ancestry.com)

Leigh Hardwick, a professional modeller, and member our group made a beautiful walnut presentation box to hold the watch with the emblem of the Royal Rifles of Canada engraved on the lid. 

Presentation box made by Leigh Hardwick with photo courtesy Stuart Woods

The HKVCA presented the watch  to Steve Burgess in May 2017. It is very rare to find something with a name on it. It is good to think that this personal item that one belonged to a young Canadian soldier, who gave his life in the service of his country,  fighting in the hills on Hong Kong Island, is finally going home, after seventy-five years, back to Canada, and back to a member of his family. 

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HMS Rattlesnake

Wandering around the enchanting Hong Kong cemetery at Happy Valley ones finds the memorial stone for William Brodie, RN, the commander of HMS Rattlesnake. He died aged fifty-six in June 1841. His grave is the oldest in the cemetery dating back to only five months from the de facto possession of Hong Kong in January 1841, during the First Opium War (1839-1842). Dr Edward Cree, the Surgeon onboard Rattlesnake, recalled Brodie's delirious death in his diary. He died from malaria, a debilitating disease that still effected British soldiery on the Gin Drinkers Line one hundred years later in December 1941.  The painting, below,  by Dr Cree depicts the military procession to the burial place in what was then an unspoilt Happy Valley.

Edward Cree (Forgotten Souls - A social history of the Hong Kong Cemetery) 

He was buried at that place before the Happy Valley Cemetery became an official cemetery in 1845, and at some stage, his coffin was exhumed and he was reburied at the Wan Chai Protestant Burial Ground and then relocated again in 1889 to Happy Valley. The Wan Chai cemetery was only used from 1841 until 1845 when Happy Valley was officially opened. At the time of the closure of the Wan Chai cemetery, some fifty graves (all from 1841-1845) were relocated to Happy Valley. The name Happy Valley was thought to have been derived from its use as a euphemism for cemeteries. 

   I wondered what was HMS Rattlesnake's story with such an aggressive but memorable name. The ship's artistic Surgeon, Lt Edward Cree, prolifically produced such beautiful watercolours of the pre-digital world of the early 19th century. It turned out that the ship was a 28-gun sixth-rate corvette launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1822. She had been ordered for the Royal Navy in 1818, and her keel laid down in 1819. She was one of a class of fourteen similar vessels known as Atholl class corvettes. The corvettes were similar to a frigate with one main gun deck, and further guns placed on the quarterdeck. Rattlesnake had ten 32-pdr cannons on each side of her main gun deck,  and six 18-pdrs on her quarterdeck and two 9-pdrs on her forecastle deck. Here's how she looked in 1853 as depicted in the Illustrated London News.

 HMS Rattlesnake depicted in Illustrated London News February 1853

We know that during the period 1827-1829 she was stationed off the Greek coast during the Greek War of Independence. The war was fought to liberate Greece from the Ottoman Empire. Britain, France and Russia supported Greece. Rattlesnake's commander was Captain The Hon. Charles Orlando Bridgeman who later became a Vice Admiral. The ship's logbook for this period,  kept by Midshipman Talvera Anson, still survives in the New York Public Library. 

   In 1834, HMS Rattlesnake under the command of Captain William Hobson was serving on the East Indies and China Station. A naval station that covered the Indian Ocean and the China Coast. In 1836, Rattlesnake was dispatched to Australia and New Zealand. In 1838 she returned to England. We next see her on the China Station during the First Opium War (1839-1842) at that time under the command of William Brodie and with Surgeon Dr Edward Cree recording her adventures through his diaries and watercolours. Other corvettes of the Atholl class on the China Station included North Star, Alligator, Samarang and Nimrod. A monument in Happy Valley Cemetery commemorates the death of Lt Benjamin Fox who died in May 1841 following cannon shot wounds incurred whilst leading a landing party during the attack on the high ground north of Canton. HMS Nimrod was the last survivor of her class being broken up in 1907.

   When Hong Kong was acquired by the British Crown in January 1841 - Palmerston had criticised Captain Elliot the Plenipotentiary and Superintendent of Trade for not getting enough concessions from the Qing dynasty court. He regarded Hong Kong Island as a "barren rock with hardly a house on it",  and which would "never be a mart for trade." Dr Edward Cree on Rattlesnake took a similar view. "a mountainous, desolate-looking place with only a few fishermen's huts to be seen." The main habitation was a placed called Chek-chu, now known as Stanley. The oldest graves in Stanley Military Cemetery date back to this precarious time on the edge of empire. 

   In 1845, Rattlesnake was converted to a hydrographical survey ship and between 1846 and 1850 took part in a voyage of discovery and marine survey in the Antipodes, under the command of Captain Owen Stanley, and which was documented in detail in a journal by John MacGillivray, the botanist and in paintings by Oswald Brierly the ship's artist. The Assistant Surgeon Thomas Huxley was a naturalist and the papers he wrote on Rattlesnake established his reputation as a scientist. He later worked closely with Charles Darwin and was one of his strongest supporters. It was during this voyage that Rattlesnake rescued Barbara Thompson (1831-1916) from a small island north of Queensland. She had been shipwrecked from the cutter America some five years earlier and had lived amongst the local tribes who were thought to be cannibals. One of the tribe members had taken her as plunder for a wife, but she had been treated well by the tribe. She would have been about 14 years old when taken. She had come out to Australia as a child with her family on the immigrant ship John Barry travelling in steerage class. At the time of her shipwreck, she was living with a sea-captain in Brisbane. The Rattlesnake brought her back to Sydney where she was reunited with her family.

HMS Rattlesnake in 1853 by Oswald Brierly

As for Rattlesnake, she was finally broken up, where her life began, at Chatham Dockyard in 1860. 

John Christian Boldero

I had an email from William (Bill) Anderson who served as a HKVDC dispatch rider during the Battle for Hong Kong.  He published a book about his life in Hong Kong and China before the war, his experiences in the Battle for Hong Kong, and his post-war career with NCR. He later became the CEO of NCR. His book is titled Corporate Crisis - NCR and the computer revolution.

After having been liberated from POW Camp in Japan, Bill Anderson was repatriated to the UK in 1945.  It was difficult getting back to Hong Kong in 1946, and all such passages were controlled by the Ministry of Transport. Bill eventually took passage on the SS Samsoaring which was a general cargo liner bound for Shanghai from the Port of London. The vessel had room for three passengers. One of these was forty-six-year-old John Christian Boldero, who being the most senior of the three had a cabin to himself.  The other was Donald William Jarrett Clark, an employee of Jardines, heading out to Asia for the first time. 

The SS Samsoaring was a former liberty ship, which were mass produced in wartime and used by the United States and also provided to UK as part of the lend-lease assistance to Britain who needed to replace freighters sunk by German U-boats. Samsoaring was slow with a speed of less than ten knots and Bill describes the journey in his book as being on a "slow boat too China."

This prompted me to do some more research into John Boldero. I found he was born on 28 December 1899 in Caterham, Surrey. He was the son of Tempe Stanley Drew and Richard Christian Benedictus Hamel Wedekind who had married in 1897.  Richard Wedekind, died in 1899 without ever seeing his son John who was born in December of that year. Tempe had been married previously (1893) to Harold Montague Browne. He died  in 1895. Tempe had one son from this marriage. John Boldero was born John Christian Wedekind, but at some stage he and his mother must have changed their name to Boldero which was his mother's grandfather's name on the maternal side.

John Boldero joined the Royal Navy during WW1. He was a sixteen-year-old Midshipman at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 serving tin the battlecruiser HMS Inflexible.

Battlecruiser HMS Inflexible

In 1921 he married Marjorie Agnes Wise (1899-1994) at Battle, in East Sussex. They had two daughters Cynthia Madeline (1923) and Priscilla Mary (1927). In 1922 as a result of cuts to the services Lt John Boldero left the Royal Navy then aged twenty-two. His naval record is not very complimentary as to his abilities,  but nevertheless he won the DSC at the age of nineteen for his gallantry and leadership during the engagement with the Bolshevik fleet at Kronstadt. 

In 1922 after having been laid-off from the Navy he took passage to Vancouver, Canada where he found work as a skipper on the Vancouver ferry. He returned  to UK in 1924 and then found employment in Shanghai with the Shanghai Waterworks where he was employed from 1926 until 1939 by which time he had become Company Secretary. On the outbreak of war in 1939, at the age of thirty-nine, he was recalled for service in the Royal Navy in Hong Kong  and given the rank  of Lt-Commander. Initially he was appointed  commanding officer  of the MTB flotilla. In 1941 he lost his right arm in an accident when one of the MTBs collided with the destroyer HMS Thracian. In July 1941 he was appointed as commanding officer of the gunboat HMS Cicala.  This small,  but well armed ship fought very gallantly throughout the battle of Hong Kong until she was sunk by Japanese aircraft in the East Lamma Channel. John Boldero survived incarceration and was repatriated back to England after liberation in 1945. 

In 1946 John Boldero received a bar to his DSC. He was demobilised after the war.  Then we see him again with Bill Anderson and Donald Clark heading back East in July 1946 on the SS Samsoaring. He  returned to his old job in Shanghai, but not for long as China became involved in a civil war that led to formation of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. There is a record of him returning to UK in October 1948. He may have remarried as passenger manifests after the war show him travelling with Emily Boldero.  He died in 1984, at the age of eighty-four, near Weymouth in Dorset. 

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Captain Eric Wiseman, RASC - Recollections of a British Prisoner of War

On 7 February, I was delighted to receive a copy of Hong Kong: Recollections of a British Prisoner of War published by Veterans Publications in Canada (2001) and written by former Captain E. P. Wiseman, RASC. Eric Philip Wiseman, always known as Bill Wiseman, was born in December 1917 in Kuala Lumpur. He attended Kings School Canterbury, and whilst there and whilst "fooling around on a train," he was involved in an accident that resulted in the loss of a foot. Notwithstanding this he was able to join the Territorial Army as 2nd Lt in the RASC. He was mobilised in 1939 following the outbreak of war in Europe. In 1940 he was posted to 12 Coy RASC, China Command, Hong Kong.

When war started in Hong Kong on Monday 8 December it was Wiseman's 24th Birthday. He was responsible for the Vehicle Collection Centre (VCC) at Happy Valley. Two days after the Japanese landings he was ordered to relocate the Transport Pool to Sassoon Road, Pokfulam. Here he was shot in his un-amputated leg by friendly fire. There is a reference to his being wounded in the RASC war diary.

During this night of heavy rain (20th/21st December), fire from Tommy Guns of Indian units on Sassoon (Road) was sporadic especially on the occasion that a visit to Miramare’s  telephone was necessary and in the house itself Capt Wiseman was wounded. (Source: Lt Howell, RASC War Diary).

Cover of Bill Wiseman's book (Veterans Publications, 2001)

Captain Bill Wiseman (from the book)

Wiseman's book contains an account of his experiences during hostilities and subsequently as a POW. It has interesting bio details on some of his fellow POWs including Major Boxer and Lt-Cdr Boldero. It also has some interesting sketches including one of the gallant gunboat HMS Cicala. This warship was in the thick of the action until she was sunk in the East Lamma Channel. She was small but powerful, her armament consisted of two 6-inch guns (forward and aft), a 3-inch high angle gun and a 2-pdr pom-pom AA gun. She was commanded by John Boldero who had served at the Battle of Jutland in WW1.  He lost his right arm during a collision between an MTB and Cicala. Here's a pre-war photograph of Cicala in dry dock.

HMS Cicala in dry dock (Writer's Collection)

Another interesting sketch was of WDV French. This launch was one of the WD (War Department) vessels operated by the RASC, under the blue ensign. French was used in the evacuation of troops from Devil's Peak Peninsula and throughout the period of hostilities.

A fine looking launch - WDV French (From Bill Wiseman's Book)

After being wounded, Bill Wiseman was admitted to the nearby Queen Mary Hospital. In the next bed was Major Charles Boxer, the head of the combined forces intelligence unit. Boxer, a Japanese linguist, was well known to the Japanese from his liaison role with the Japanese Army. He received visitors from senior Japanese officers who were impressed when Major Boxer introduced Captain Wiseman and implied that he had lost one leg and been wounded in the other during the fighting.

Stanley Internment Camp Notes from Bill Wiseman's book

From Bill Wiseman's book I discovered that Captain John ("Jack") Gordon Whitaker Adjutant of 5th AA Regiment, Royal Artillery,  had married Wendy Winnifred Willcocks in Hong Kong shortly before the war. He was held in military POW camps and she was incarcerated in Stanley Camp with her parents Major James Lugard Willcocks and Muriel Kathleen Willcocks. A quick search of old Hong Kong newspapers revealed that the marriage between Jack Whittaker and Wendy Willcocks took place at St John's Cathedral on 25 October 1939. A reception was held at the Hong Kong Club Annex and the honeymoon was in less than exotic Fan Ling. H.E. the Governor was represented at the wedding by his Aide-de-Camp Captain Sydney Batty-Smith. Batty-Smith died in February 1945 whilst interned at Stanley Camp. 

Major Willcocks was born in India the son of an Indian Army officer. Major Willcocks had served with the Black Watch in WW1 during which he was awarded the DSO and MC. He married Muriel Price in 1916. Their daughter Wendy was born in Bermuda in 1919. She was 22-years-old when she was interned at Stanley Camp. Major Willcocks was serving as Commissioner of Prisons in 1941 and was a member of the HKVDC. He commanded the Stanley Force and was the right hand man for Brigadier Wallis in the Battle for Stanley.

Bill Wiseman also mentions Lt. Michael H. Turner who was married to fifty-three-year-old Daisy Turner who was incarcerated in Stanley Camp with her married daughter Beryl Daisy Skipwith (nee Turner). They shared a room in the Indian Quarters with Joyce Bassett.  Bill Wiseman writes that Lt Turner was known as "Pop" in POW Camp on account of his age (thought to be around 55). He had been the Head of prominent law firm Deacons before the war and the family had lived in a villa at Skek-O. He had been called to serve as a 2nd Lt in the 5th AA Regiment, Royal Artillery in 1941. His daughter Beryl Daisy had married Captain Patrick Skipwith, Adjutant of 8th Coast Regiment based at Stanley Fort.

Joyce Bassett had been a secretary working for the Colonial Secretariat. She had been based at Government House during hostilities. Her widowed mother Florence Eva Thornhill was also in Stanley Camp. Her bother Sub-Lt John Thornhill was serving with HKRNVR and was incarcerated in POW camp. 

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Major Douglas Dewe, Indian Medical Service, a POW in Singapore and the Burma Railway

This post is about a British Indian Army Medical Doctor, Douglas Dewe, serving with the Indian Medical Service in Singapore who was captured after the Fall of Singapore in February 1942. He was incarcerated at Changi and was later transhipped to work on the notorious Burma Railway. Douglas Dewe was born 17 January 1908 in Somerset. He first married in 1933 at the age of twenty-five to Winnifred Warren. Tragically she died in February 1934, within a year of their wedding, as a result of a ruptured appendix. In August 1934, Douglas Dewe married Rosanna ('Rona') Gorrie Heggie (1912-1972). They lived initially in India and later moved to Taiping and Singapore. They had two children Roderick (1935) and Michael (1940). I became interested to learn more about Major Douglas Dewe when I happened to run across an article in the Hong Kong Daily Press dated 19 August 1941. The article reported on the breakdown of  Douglas and Rona's marriage and cited infidelity on the part of Rona with a forty-year-old rubber planter by the name of Oswald  Cutler. 

Hong Kong Daily Press 19 Aug. 1941

Being interested in family history, the article caught my attention, and  I reflected on the fact that war was already imminent and that all three parties, Douglas, Rona, and Oswald would have ended up as POWs or civilian internees. I was curious to find out more. 

After the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, Major Dewe was incarcerated initially in the military POW camp at Changi. Rona and Oswald were interned in the civilian internment camp also located at Changi. Unlike Stanley Camp in Hong Kong, the civilian internees in Singapore were segregated and placed either in a men's camp or a separate women's camp. Rona registered herself in the name of  Rona Cutler although they were not married. I was able to make contact with Major Dewe's youngest son Mike who helped me with much of this information. Mike believes that by taking on the surname of Cutler, Rona may have been able to obtain visitation rights to Oswald. 

The court hearing in August had awarded Major Dewe with custody of his two sons. The marriage had broken down in 1937/1938, Major Dewe had by that time become engaged to Peggy Winifred Frampton (nee Jeffries), a divorcee whose name is mentioned on his POW record (below). Peggy had previously been married to Commander Pendarvis Lister Frampton. He died while making a dramatic escape attempt from Singapore on a Royal Navy motor launch ML 310 in the days just before the capitulation.   

In the Japanese POW record sheet, Major Dewe gave his specialisation as gynaecology and obstetrics, although he was, in fact, a general practitioner with good diagnostician skills and a strong understanding of tropical diseases. Mike thought this was done in order to avoid undesirable postings by his captors, but unfortunately, it was to no avail as he was transferred to the worst location of all - the Burma railway.

In April 1945, Major Dewe was transferred from the Burma railway, together with some 1,000 emaciated POWs to a new camp called Mergui Road in the south of Burma. The POWs were to be used as slave labourers to help build a road south into Thailand as an extrication route for the Japanese Army out of Burma. Major Dewe was both the senior officer in camp and the senior of the six medical officers assigned to this camp. The conditions here were said to be worse than on the Burma railway and over a third of the POWs died under the atrocious conditions. 

POW Record (National Archives)

When the war started, Peggy Frampton gathered her daughter, Rae (b. 1929), and Major Dewe's two sons, Roddy and Mike,  and set off from Kuantan on the east coast in the nick of time. The Japanese were landing in that area. Peggy drove a black humber with the three children down to Singapore with the British Army blowing up the road bridges behind her. At the time, Mike was only 16 months old, Roddy was 5 and Rae was 12.  They were able to get out of Singapore on one of the last evacuation ships to leave before the Japanese overran the colony. Peggy moved to India and looked after both the boys. She must have given up on Major  Dewe, perhaps assuming he was dead, or perhaps unwilling to wait and find out, because she remarried during the war years. The boys, despite their young age, were sent to the famous Bishop Cotton boarding school in Simla, India. After being liberated in 1945, Major Dewe returned to India and collected his sons, and took them with him to Afghanistan where he had been posted as Medical Officer to the British Legation in Kabul. 

Oswald Cutler and Rona's relationship did not last through internment. He married Margaret Bell in February 1946 and returned to Malaya where he resumed his pre-war occupation as a planter. Rona also remarried quite soon after being liberated. This marriage did not last, and later she remarried Colonel Christopher Harold Miskin and settled in Jersey. She passed away in 1972.

After Indian independence in 1947, Major Dewe retired from the Indian Medical Service and emigrated to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with his wife June Fox (nee Martin) who he married in 1947 and his two sons. The marriage to June did not last, he married again to  Paloma Hone but this marriage only lasted a year or two. In 1954 Douglas Dewe married Barbara Ward, the marriage lasted and they continued to live in Rhodesia until he retired to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa in 1975, where he passed away in 1978.

Peggy settled in Kuala Lumpur after the war where she started the Cheshire Homes in Malaysia, an institution that she worked tirelessly for much of her life. It followed a meeting with Group Captain Leonard Cheshire,VC.

Major Douglas Dewe had lived on the edge of empire, at a time of change and in a very different world to that which we know today. He had served in India, Malaya, Singapore and Afghanistan when they were still part of what was the British Empire. He and his fellow medical officers saved countless lives of British and allied servicemen during the brutal incarceration in Singapore and Burma. The Medical Officers had to keep working, despite their own debilitating weakness from malnutrition and the tropical heat. They were constantly exposed to diseases like diphtheria and dysentery. They had to carry out their work of saving lives with inadequate medicine and in the absence of medical equipment and facilities improvising where they could.  The medical doctors, like the other POWs, were weak, starved, and ill and constantly subject to the brutality of the guards. They were a cadre that received little recognition, much less than they deserved. The POW never forgot what the doctors and medical orderlies did to alleviate their suffering. 

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Major Edward de Vere Hunt - Killed in action 20th December 1941

Edward de Vere Hunt was born on 12 December 1908. He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, and from age thirteen, at Rugby School. He was remembered as an outstanding sportsman.  He excelled at cricket, hockey, football, rugby and boxing. At school he was a known as 'Bunch' but in later life simply as 'Ted'. At the age of nineteen, in 1927, he left school and attended the Royal Military Academy (RMA) Woolwich. After passing out from RMA in 1929 he was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Artillery. In 1935 he was serving in the Royal Horse Artillery firstly in Egypt and later in Palestine where he was promoted to Captain. In 1938 he was posted to Hong Kong  where he served  with the coastal defence batteries. He was promoted to Major, and in 1940 transferred to the Hong Kong Singapore Royal Artillery (HKSRA) with whom he fought very gallantly both on the Mainland and on the Island. He was killed in action, aged thirty-three, at Wong Nai Chung Gap on  20 December 1941.

Major de Vere Hunt (Source: Dragon School Memorials)

Prior to the Second World War, he played rugby for a number of major teams including Hampshire, the Army First XV and the Barbarians. At the age of twenty-five, he married Nancy Amore Fleetwood Rudkin, who was aged twenty-one. They were married on 5 May 1934 at St Nicholas Church, Compton, near Guildford, close to her family home at Brook House, Compton. Her father was a retired Army Officer. A search of the internet revealed her charming family home.

Brook House, Compton (Source: Geograph.org.uk)

In the Battle for Hong Kong, Ted Hunt commanded No. 1 Battery, HKSRA. This unit was equipped with four 3.7-inch howitzers which could be stripped down into nine component parts and then transported by pack mules. In addition, they had four 4.5-inch howitzers which required lorries to tow them in and out of their battery positions.  The 4.5-inch guns were located at Red Hill and Tai Tam Hill. The two guns at Red Hill were inadvertently put out of action when the battery commander misinterpreted an order to 'get out of action' as meaning to put the guns out off action; demonstrating how important it is that orders be given clearly and unambiguously. For this reason, many officers required important orders to be issued in writing. The two 4.5-inch guns at Tai Tam Hill were abandoned by the battery personnel when they came into the front line following the Japanese landings during the night of 18/19 December 1941.

The four 3.7-inch howitzers were initially deployed on the Mainland at Customs Pass and provided artillery support for the two Indian infantry battalions on the centre and right flank of the Gin Drinkers Line (GDL). During the evacuation of the Mainland, his battery supported the fighting retreat and rear-guard action by 5th/7th Rajputs. Major Hunt's guns took a heavy toll on Colonel Tanaka's 3rd Battalion of the 229th Infantry Regiment. Major de Vere Hunt's barrage of observed fire was deadly accurate and broke up a battalion level attack, and thereby helped achieve the successful evacuation of the two Indian battalions.

After the evacuation to the Island, two of the 3.7-inch howitzers were moved to Gauge Basin and put out of action when the battery came under Japanese infantry attack on 19 December. The remaining two howitzers were deployed at Tai Tam Fork Battery. One of which was sent forward to Lye Mun Barracks to fire on Japanese positions on Devil's Peak peninsula. This gun was overrun and lost on 18 December when the Japanese landed in that locality and overran the barracks and the 3.7-inch gun position. The one remaining gun at Tai Tam Fork Battery was the only howitzer in East Group-RA sector that was successfully brought back to Stanley. On the 19 December, 1st Mountain Battery lost all its guns except for this one 3.7-inch howitzer which was withdrawn to Stanley. The  2nd Mountain Battery lost three 3.7-inch guns at Stanley Gap and two 6-inch guns positioned midway along Stanley Gap Road. The 3rd Medium Battery lost its four 6-inch guns which were located at Parker Battery (on Island Road) and Sai Wan. It was a tragic setback to lose sixteen howitzers, and it left East Infantry Brigade with inadequate artillery support in the counterattacks made against well-entrenched and numerically superior Japanese positions. In reality, the mobile artillery was not very mobile, because the guns were operated at pre-prepared battery positions which included gun pits, light anti-aircraft defence, concrete ammunition lockers and splinter proof accommodation for battery personnel. They were also hampered by insufficient transport and insufficient mules, and the rapidity of the Japanese advance following their landings on the Island during the night of 18/ 19 December 1941.

On the night of 19/20 December, the HKSRA, without their guns, were the only troops available to launch a counterattack. Fighting as infantry they were ordered to counterattack WNC Gap. The Indian Other Ranks (IORs) proceeded up Repulse Bay Road in bare feet to reduce noise and two of the HKVDC armoured cars led the way clearing the road up to the gap. The Japanese were well entrenched at WNC Gap and were there in strength. There were four front-line Japanese infantry battalions at and around the gap. The gunners managed to recapture the police post on the knoll, but it was later retaken by Japanese reinforcements from Stanley Gap. During the fighting around the gap Major de Vere Hunt was killed as was his fellow officer Captain Feilden, and their commanding officer, Lt-Col Yale, who although in poor health had insisted on accompanying his troops into battle. What I did not realise is that after the capture of the police station, Major de Vere Hunt had actually gone through the gap and reported to RA HQ at the Battle Box. Major John Monro, Brigade Major, Royal Artillery recalled de Vere Hunt's arrival at Fortress HQ during the night 19/20 December in his personal war diary held at Imperial War Museum (IWM Docs. 17941).

'Ted Hunt came in this evening. He had led a counterattack against Wong Nai Chung Gap and had recaptured it almost single-handed. As he got near the enemy his Battery just melted away. Though the gunners are steady under shellfire, they will not face the enemy at hand to hand fighting. ... They have had very little training in the use of infantry weapons and so few of our young officers can make themselves really understood  in their language. ... Ted is looking very wild and wooly. He is wearing an extraordinary assortment of uniform, he has three or four days growth of beard and is carrying a Tommy gun. .... He has had no sleep for the past two days. The CRA [Commander Royal Artillery] ordered him to go back to Stanley and rest. About this time news came through that the Japs had re-occupied WNC Gap. Just as Ted was leaving I warned him of this and told him to go round by Pok Fu Lam'.  (Major John Monro, RA)

De Vere Hunt returned to WNC Gap and was killed in action early on Saturday 20 December. His body was not recovered. His wife Nancy placed an advertisement in the Times in March 1942 seeking information on her husband's whereabouts. She was not officially informed of his death until June 1944. In 1946 she married Geoffrey Dean. Her parents both died two years later in 1948, and she died prematurely in 1972, at the still early age of sixty.

Major Ted de Vere Hunt died as he lived his life, utterly fearless, a strong leader, admired and respected by all.  

................

  

On the battlefields of Hong Kong and battlefield finds - January 2017

On the battlefields of Hong Kong (1) 

In cool mid-January weather in 2017, I joined history enthusiast Stuart Woods for a trek up towards the Twins, which are shown in the pre-war map below, and are located in the hills behind Stanley. These hills formed a perimeter of defence around East Brigade troops at Stanley. They were defended by Royal Rifles of Canada and HKVDC. The prewar map shows the terrain and the names of the major hill features.  The line of arrows marked on the map shows our route which was most probably the same as that taken by the Japanese Army as they moved up to the Twins before attacking Stanley Mound.  

The route towards the Twins

We first came across an area of dugouts lower down the trail but high enough to have a commanding view of both Tai Tam Reservoir and the dam and road up to Tai Tam Gap. At first, I thought these might have been Canadian positions, but on second thoughts I now think they were Japanese as the nearest Canadians on the night of 19 December were deployed at Sugar Loaf, Stone Hill and Stanley Mound and the Canadians were deploying from the south, i.e. from (1) Stanley View (junction of Chum Am Kok Road and Island Road), (2) Stanley and (3) Palm Villa (near the current American Club at Tai Tam). As we proceeded higher up the hillside we found a considerable number of dug-outs and trenches. These trenches were on or close to the Twins and were most likely Japanese positions. This was supported by items found.  We found Japanese bullets and chargers (see below) and musket balls from British anti-personnel shells.

Japanese 6.5 rounds and chargers for loading. 

The presence of large numbers of Japanese troops in this area on 22/23 December was observed and they were fired on by British artillery using anti-personnel (shrapnel) shells. We found evidence of this shelling by finding large sections of shell casing and numerous shot balls, two of which are shown in the photographs above and below. The photograph below also shows the inside of the casing from two of these shells. They were fired by the 18-pdr field guns at Stanley belonging to 965-Defence Battery.

Courtesy: Stuart Woods

After identification, the above items were left in situ. Perhaps the most interesting find was a tube of Kolynos toothpaste. This was found by Stuart close to one of the dugouts. This was a popular brand in the 1930s. In the enlarged photograph, you can still make out the yellow colour and the wording "Scientific Dental Cream."

Courtesy of Stuart Woods

This is what it may have looked like in 1941. It was an American brand although this tube (below) was manufactured in London.  It was manufactured in a number of other countries before the war.

Here's an advertisement for the product probably from 1940/1941.

Sourced from internet

What was it doing around Japanese dugouts? Had these dugouts at some stage been occupied by Canadian troops, had it originally belonged to a member of the HKVDC or Royal Rifles of Canada?  Perhaps purchased in Hong Kong? Perhaps relieved from a captured or dead British or Canadian soldier by a Japanese soldier? We can only speculate.

On the battlefields of Hong Kong (2)

In late January 2017, I went for another trek with Stuart Woods on the battlefields around Stanley. We started at a watercourse leading uphill from near the American Club at Tai Tam. We made our way up this rocky watercourse until it petered out, after which we were forced to crash through the thick vegetation, ascending until we reached Notting Hill. At Notting Hill, we found over 30 rounds of spent 303 ammunition which had been fired from units of HKVDC and Royal Rifles Canada who had been sent up from Palm Villa (the home of M.K. Lo located near where the American Club is situated today) to clear the ridge-line Notting Hill-Bridge Hill on 21 December 1941. These troops acted as the left-flank guard for the brigade-level attack that took place that day by East Infantry Brigade on the Tai Tam X-Roads (first objective). The second objective was WNC Gap by way of Gauge Basin and Stanley Gap Road.

On Notting Hill, we found over 30 rounds of spent 303 ammunition both Canadian (Royal Rifles of Canada) and British (HKVDC). We also found two mortar bomb caps with the words inscribed  "Remove before firing". It is interesting to discover that at least one 2-inch mortar was deployed on this ridge-line. These weapons were in short supply and likewise ammunition for both the 3-inch and 2-inch mortars. One or two 3-inch mortars were deployed by the main assault force moving up Island Road towards the Tai Tam X-Roads.

The Canadian troops and Volunteers on Notting Hill were firing from this position at Japanese troops on and around Bridge Hill, and possibly although at long range at Japanese troops on Red Hill. The photo below shows our approximate route from Island Road (using 1941 nomenclature) up to Notting Hill, Bridge Hill, Sugar Loaf and down a steep and rocky ravine back to Island Road.

Our route is shown in black

Looking from Sugar Loaf to Bridge Hill (the bump in the mid-ground)

Two-Inch Mortar bomb cap

Mortar bomb and screw-off cap