The correspondence is taken from File No. CO/129/590/14 held at the National Archives in UK. The file was closed until 1992. The Governors letters/reports are from Sir Geoffry Northcote and his successor Sir Mark Young. The reprentative at the Colonial Office and the addressee of the Governors letterss is Gerard Edward James Gent. He was knighted in 1946 and thereafter known as Sir Edward Gent
Gent was born in 1895 and attended Kings School Canterbury and Trinity College, Oxford. During the First World War he served as an officer in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry rising to the rank of Major. He was awarded the Military Cross (MC) in 1917 and the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1919.
Fast Forward to 1941 and he was working as an Assistant Under Secretary at the Colonial Office in London and based on correspondence appears to have been particularly focused on Hong Kong, China and Malaya. He is best known for his post war work in Malaya. In 1946 he was made Governor of the Malayan Union. After considerable opposition from Malays this was replaced by the Federation of Malaya in 1948 and Sir Edward Gent continued to serve as High Commissioner.
Sir Edward Gent in 1948 (Source: Wikipedia)
In June 1948, he was reportedly sacked by the Colonial Office and recalled to London. This was at the start of the Malayan Emergency. The decision to replace him was influenced by Malcolm MacDonald, the British Commissioner-General for S.E. Asia. The Malayan Emergency began with communists launching attacks on rubber plantations in Malaya. Sir Edward Gent, not wanting to over react, declared an emergency in the effected states of Perak and Johor. The planters were up in arms and demanded that a national state of emergency be declared. The Straits Times supported the planters with the headline "Govern or Get Out" on their front page. The next day Gent declared a nation-wide State of Emergency. He was returning to UK on an RAF Avro York when it collided with another aircraft in mid-air over North London. All 39 passengers and crew including Sir Edward Gent were killed. He died, aged 52, survived by his wife Gwendolen and four children. A stain on his copybook - perhaps - but he had an otherwise impeccable career both with the military and the Colonial Office.
The Correspondence
Letter from Sir Mark Young to Mr Gent dated 24 November 1941
Sir Mark was still relatively new to Hong Kong. He only arrived in September 1941 a few months before the battle commenced and his subsequent internment as a Prisoner of War. The letter dated 24 November was dated and sent only two weeks before the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong. He was born in British India in 1886. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. He joined the Colonial Service in 1909. He served in the Rifle Brigade during the First World War. Before moving to Hong Kong in 1941 he had been Governor of Barbados and Tanganika. He returned to Hong Kong as Governor in 1946. He passed away in 1974 at Winchester.
"Our relations with the Chungking Government (the Nationalist Chinese) - which means pretty much the same thing as our relations with Clark Kerr are very good at present. (Sir Archibald Clark Kerr was Ambassador to China from 1938 to 1942). When he stayed with me last month he found to his surprise and my satisfaction that the Cadet Officers here - North and others - whom he has for some time been regarding as antediluvian and hopelessly unsympathetic in their outlook on China appeared to have reformed since he last talked to them".
"I found him a delightful man of considerable penetration. He fitted an epithet to the irresponsible and ineffectual N.L. Smith (Norman Lockhart Smith former Colonial Secretary who left Hong Kong just before the battle commenced on the ill-fated SS Ulysses). He called him a fllibbertigibbet (frivolous, flighty and loquacious) .... I telegraphed some time ago about the suppression of the Wang Jing Wei newspapers here. (Wang Jing Wei was the puppet head of that part of China occupied by the Japanese) ... the desire to please Chungking is one of the motives."
Sir Mark Young
Letter from Mr Gent to Sir Mark Young dated 23 October 1941
"I send you at once the attached copy of a letter which I have just received from Northcote on board his ship, in which you will see he has unburdoned himself on several important Hong Kong problems (the Cadet Service and the Cressall Commission on corruption in Government departments)".
"I expect you met Gimson before you left Ceylon, and we all feel sure that you will find him an admirable Lieutenant". (Gimson was the newly appointed Colonal Secretary in Hong Kong replacing N.L. Smith and arriving the day before war began).
Letter from Sir Geofry Northcote to Mr Gent dated 8 September 1941
The letter is written on the SS Anking on passage between Hong Kong and Singapore. Northcote was on his way back to UK after retiring on grounds of ill-health. He starts by informing Gent that his mental capacity is unchanged and that he would be keen to take on a roll related to war work. He had taken six months sick leave in the UK and returned to Hong Kong in March 1941 until retiring in September 1941. Sir Geoffry was born in 1881. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford and joined the Colonial Service in 1904. He served mainly in Africa although before moving to Hong Kong he was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of British Guiana from 1935 until 1937. He was Governor of Hong Kong from 1937. He died aged 67 in 1948
There was corrption in some government Departments. Captain Hobbs had been seconded from Public Works Department to Air Raid Precautions Dept and took his own life while being investigated by the commission. The Cressall Enquiry never completed its findings because the process was interupted by war. The draft was taken into Stanley Camp by Paul Cresall who died in camp. The draft findings were never found and the enquiry was quietly discontinued after the war.
"Hobbs, as you know, shot himself ... several Government Officers are under the gravest suspicion of having taken bribes or presents. I will mention no names: if they are found guilty you will know soon enough. How far into the Civil Service it will be proved that graft extends .... no one can say at the moment .... I fear that at least two cadets may be shown to have taken bribes. It has, of course, been common talk here for years that certain Government Departments were rotten with graft, the Police, PWD and Urban Council being most commonly cited. I fear that the other disturbing outcome from the Commission's report is going to be the revelation of serious laxity in the control of government expenditure".
Sir Geofry Northcote Source: Wikipedia
Letter from Sir Geofry Northcote to Gent dated 22 April 1941
This letter was written following his return from six month's sick leave. While he was on leave Lt-General Edward Felix Norton took on the role of Acting Governor.
Food Control:
"General Norton did splendid work in getting the food control business on to a sounder base. I had left it in the hands of a very capable business man Mr J H Taggart (James Taggart had been MD of Hong Kong Shanhai Hotels) but unfortunately he went sick and had to leave the Colony. It was then put into the hands of the unfortunate Kennedy-Skipton (a cadet officer in the HK Government who was accused of assisting the Japanese during the occupation. He later escaped from occupied Hong Kong). He had no business training and was in any case a bad choice. ... It was discovered that the stocks were far below what was required and for the most part were in a bad condition. The result is an enquiry by a committee. We now have enough rice in reserve for over five months supply".
Tunnels and Shelters:
"Except for the deplorable damage done to my house by the tunnels made beneath it, these are satisfactory".
Police:
The peace-time Police Force consists of the Regular Police and the Police Reserve, numbering respectively 2,500 and 1,500. To these bodies we are now adding Special Constabulary, 3,000 and Street Guards, 3,000". (The Special Constubulary were to be used for food escorts, tunnel guards etc the Street Guards were to stay in their local communities and their duties extended to watching for fifth columnists and other subversives).
Other Extracts:
"The Civil Service is very heavily overborne by work. Ten of the cadet officers out of thirty-three are on full time war work e.g. Ministry of Information, Immigration Office, War Taxation, Economic Warfare and so forth. Many of them are becoming seriously over-due for leave. At the time of writing four are on leave which is well below the normal average".
Government House:
"I am becoming more hopeful that the house will continue to stand for a few more years: but the cracks are so big that it is quite concivable that a typhoon may shake down the front of the house. It is for that reason that I have moved my sleeping quarters to the back, though much against my will".
Hong Kong:
"There is a good deal of pro-Wang Jing Wei feelings here. It is due , I think partly to the belief that Chiang Kai-shek is losing and the wish to save what they can from the wreck; partly to fear that the Japanese may bomb this place, but might refrain if the Wang Jing Wei party could get the upper hand here."
Evacuation of women and children in 1940:
"Though there is a lot of soreness on various points the issue is moribund. I was approached soon after arrival by the Husbands Association with a request that I would allow return at 'owners risk' (of their wives and children) and I gave a flat though sympathetic refusal.
