Book Rview: The Banknote that never was

Book Title:     The Banknote that never was

Publisher:       Gulliver Books, Hong Kong

Author:           Francis Braun  

Date:               1982

     

Rather an unusual book which deals mainly with the overprinting of Chinese and Japanese banknotes to HK Dollars in the immediate period following the Japanese surrender. Although the overprinted notes were readied for use they were not required as new notes arrived from Britain transported by warship in mid September 1945. The Military Yen notes issued during the Japanese occupation were canceled. Many merchants had accumulated large amounts of the wartime currency but they ended up being worthless. The Author, Francis Braun, was living in Hong Kong before the war and working for Ye Olde Printerie. The proprietors of the printing company were Victor and George Labrum. They had established the company in 1923. The two bothers had served in the HKVDC and had been incarcerated at Sham Shui Po Prison Camp.  

Francis Braun was a Hungarian national. He starts the book with his arrest on 7 December 1941, the day before the Pacific War began in Hong Kong time. He tells us he was a resident of the Arlington Hotel in Mody Street, Kowloon. As he returned to the hotel on Sunday evening he found a policeman waiting for him. The policeman told Braun that he was to be interned as his country was at war with Great Britain. Hungary had joined the Tripartite Pact in November 1940 and Britain declared war on Hungary, on 5 December 1941 with 7 December being the effective date. He was duly incarcerated at Victoria Prison and the next morning he was taken by van to Stanley Prison where he was interned with other Italian, German, Austrian and Hungarian civilian internees. His prison mates included the Italian Maitre d'  Hotel for the Hong Kong Hotel. He recalled being bombed and strafed by Japanese aircraft perhaps thinking the prison was a barracks. Three days after the British surrender they were released by the Japanese. They were given a meal at the Repulse Bay Hotel  and then driven to the Central District where they were offloaded and had to fend for themselves.  Braun stayed at the Luk Kwok Hotel on the Wan Chai waterfont  for a few days. On 4 January 1942, at the invitation of Reverend Alaric Rose, the Dean of St John's Cathedral, he moved into the Bishop's House. He describes the other residents as being Danes, Norwegians, Russians, Chinese, Austrians, and Germans. His bosses, the Labrum brothers, asked him to try and keep the printing company going but it was the Japanese appoined uniformed officials who ran the business and made the decisions. In 1943, Braun moved out of Bishop's House with a German couple and rented an apartment on Kowloon side. He recalled the increasing number of American air raids and that togther with reports in the Hong Kong News of the fighting getting closer to Japan demonstrated that the war was  going in favour of  the Allies. The Hong Kong News was a Japanese owned and controlled newspaper.  and radio sets had to be handed in and the shortwave reception restricted. So reliable news was not readily available. 

The book is mainly given over to the subject of over-priting of bank notes after the Japanese capitulation rather than life in occupied Hong Kong which would have been more inteesting. 

Score:  3 out of 10