Stanley Mound and a Victorian coin

Here's a view of Stanley Mound, across Stanley Bay,  and taken from the pier at St Stephen's Beach. Stanley Mound is the highest of the hills in the centre of the picture.

Stanley Mound

Here's another picture with more immediacy taken this morning, in the swirling mists and rains on the last day of March 2014.

Stanley Mound in swirling mists

Today it's a part of a popular hiking trail known as the Wilson Trail and in the first photograph, you can see the path which is comprised of more than a thousand concrete steps, leading from Island Road up the to the summit of Stanley Mound.

On the way up and not far from the summit you pass a concrete viewing stand - I wonder if the hikers taking a breather there, realize that they are standing on the roof of an AOP (Artillery Observation Post). Down below the platform hidden in the undergrowth the steel door still remains and likewise the observation loops.

As I trudge up the hill weighed down with my boots, metal detector, spade and backpack  - I reflect back to December 194. I think of those Canadian soldiers from D and B Companies of the Royal Rifles of Canada going up this hill, and others around the Stanley perimeter, weighed down by their weapons, ammunition, water, spare ammunition for the Bren guns, spare barrels, grenades etc and very often they were going up these hills under fire.

On reaching the summit I turn off to the left,  towards the west going through a ghost of a trail. Here on the slopes just below the summit are shallow firing pits - often built up with large rocks to form a kind of parapet.

In the past, we have found a number of live grenades both British and Japanese on this spot. These were reported to police who subsequently closed the hiking trail - descended from helicopters and detonated the grenades. We have found a lot of other war relics including an officer's whistle, a Japanese signalling flare tube (which they used to fire a success signal once having taken a hill or other objective so that their comrades would not fire on them). We have found ammunition,  Japanese, Canadian and British mostly towards the summit consistent with the way these hills were fought over,  often changing hands two or three times in close-quarter fighting.

Here's one of the objects I dug up.

I wondered what it was, but a flick through a book on Japanese military equipment showed me that it was the top of a Japanese military water bottle. The cork had rotted away leaving the metal parts. Here's a photograph of what it would have looked like.

Sometimes we find things we can not identify. I found the  metal strap below with two "D" loops and I have no idea what it is - I am hoping that somebody might recognize it and let me know through these pages what it is. Here's the mystery object.

But here was the find of the day. Lying almost on the surface was a silver coin. I could see the Queens Head but assumed it was Queen Elizabeth 2 and therefore a modern coin and of no interest. The fact that it looked as good as new also led me to believe that it was modern. As I picked it up,  I noticed it felt larger and lighter than modern coins. I then saw that the Queen's head was that of Queen Victoria.

It was a 50 cent coin bearing the date 1891.

The coin is 80% silver which explains why it was in such good condition but what was it doing on a steep slope on a second world war battlefield? Would soldiers be carrying a Victorian coin already 50 years old in 1941? Could it be some sort of lucky charm? and what is the metal protrusion in the Queens Head? People tell me some sort of mounting but mounted to what.

Who knows. I guess it will remain a mystery - a Victorian coin lost in the hills and found again. What a tale it could tell.

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A Wedding Occasion in August 1936

I was sent this wedding photograph by Judy Bercene a relative of Sheila Haynes who was one of the bridesmaids. At that stage we did not know where the wedding was, whether it was in Hong Kong or in Shanghai, nor  did we know who the bride and groom were, and nor the identity of all the people in the photograph.

Wedding of John Luke and May Coghlan (Courtesy of Judy Bercene)

A posting on local history website www.gwulo.com soon revealed all. David Bellis who hosts the  website found an article in the Hong Kong Daily Press for 13th August 1936 reporting on the wedding of Mr John Reginald Luke to Miss May Coghlan. Standing behind the bride and groom are Miss Sheila Haynes and Miss Anne Fowler the bridesmaids, and standing in between them is Australian journalist Norman Stockton, the best man. In the back row is the minister Rev. H.C. Davies and Ben Wylie Manager of the South China Morning Post, who gave away the bride, and his wife Jemima ('Mima') Wylie who was matron of honour. The newspaper article goes on to tell us that the wedding was solemnised at Mody House, Kowloon on 12th August 1936.

Look at the faces in the photograph, little did they know on that serene summer's day that in three years time war would break out in Europe and not long after that Hong Kong would be invaded and after a short and bloody battle the British Colony of Hong Kong which had been established 100 years earlier at the end of the First Opium War would be occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army which had brutalised its way through China. A reign of terror would descend and some of the  participants would end up being incarcerated in a Japanese concentration camp and that one of them would lose his life in the skies over Berlin.

I think their story deserve to be told.

The Groom:  John Reginald Luke

A search on Ancestry.com reveals that John Luke was born in Truro, Cornwall in August 1910  into a family with three siblings and that his father Albert was also a journalist. John Luke was in Hong Kong when war broke out, and by then News Editor of the South China Morning Post.  I can see no record of his wife May (the Bride in the photo) being interned and so we can assume that she was evacuated in June 1940 to Australia with other women and children from Hong Kong. Those women remaining being employed in essential services, or they found some way to avoid evacuation by for example joining the military nursing service (VAD) or Civil nursing service (ANS).

There is an amusing story in 'SCMP the First EightyYears' which recounts how John Luke took a phone call during the period of hostilities from an irate lady complaining that she had not received her copy of the newspaper. When he enquired where she lived, he discovered she was in North Point and he had to explain that she was already behind enemy lines !

John Luke was interned initially at the Tong Fong Boarding House one of a series of cheap hotels and brothels in which British, America and Dutch internees were crowded into for the first few weeks of their internment before the opening of Stanley Camp.  On 21st January 1942, he was sent to Stanley Internment Camp where he shared a room with Ben Wylie who was his boss, and other journalists from South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Telegraph.  On one occasion he was slapped and beaten for not bowing to a Japanese soldier. After liberation he helped produce the first edition of the South China Morning Post - it was one sheet with the heading 'Fleet Entering' bringing the news of the arrival of the British Pacific Fleet under Rear Admiral Harcourt. John Luke was by then suffering from the effects of malnutrition from the years of internment and was  repatriated to UK in October 1945 for rest and recuperation.

He returned to his job as a journalist soon afterwards and passenger lists show him travelling alone to Hong Kong via Singapore in January 1946, and again to Hong Kong in Sept 1948. In April 1953 he is recorded as travelling to Hong Kong with his wife May.

Other than the wedding occasion photograph above I found two other photographs that show John Luke in the book 'SCMP the First Eighty Years' by Robin Hutcheon. This book tells the fascinating history of the newspaper, which is still today the major English daily in Hong Kong.

The first of which shows a young and debonair John Luke (standing) photographed in 1934 two years before the wedding.

John Luke (standing) in SCMP Offices in 1934  (Source: 'SCMP the first eighty years')

The second photograph shows a rather older John Luke aged 52  (third from left on the balcony) in what appears to be an invitation to the 1962 SCMP Christmas Party.

Source: SCMP 'The First Eighty Years' by Robin Hutcheon

I'm not sure when he retired, nor am I sure whether he and May had children but from on-line records I can see he passed away in London aged 69 in March 1980.

The Bride: May Luke (neé Coghlan)

I cannot find out anything about May. She was not interned in Stanley Internment Camp and I can only assume she was evacuated from Hong Kong with other women and children in June 1940 to Australia although I don't see her name on evacuation lists. The honeymoon was spent in Northern China and Japan. A report of the wedding in the 'Cornishman' (John Luke was from Truro, Cornwall)   dated September 1936 refers to her as May (Pat) Coghlan. This explains why on the back of some of the pre-war photos (see below) Sheila Haynes has referred to her as 'Pat'.  May, known as Pat, was of Irish descent and her family lived in Dublin. She had a married sister Mrs E.A. Laird who at the time of the wedding was living in India. May Luke is shown on passenger manifests traveling to and from Hong Kong after the war in the 1940s and 1950s. 

The Best-Man:  Norman Stockton

An Australian journalist who left Hong Kong before the Japanese invasion. I think he went to Australia before moving on to London as a War Correspondent. A passenger manifest shows him arriving in San Francisco from Australia in September 1942 en route to London and to his untimely death in the skies over Germany. He died on 2nd December 1943, whilst flying in a Lancaster of 460 (Australian) Squadron, with another journalist who was from the Daily Mail. They were shot down in a massive bombing raid over Berlin.

Judy Bercene a relative of Shelia Haynes wrote to me "on a chance look at Trove (newspaper archives) I found an engagement notice in the 'West Australian' 5 February 1935  for Sheila Haynes and Norman Stockton from Hong Kong". This is interesting as it means that they were most likely engaged when they attended the wedding of John Luke and May Coghlan. We know that they never married as it was reported at his death several years later in 1943 that he left behind a wife and child and of course we know that Sheila Haynes married Patrick Cullinan in 1945 who she had met in Stanley Camp.

A trawl of the internet disclosed that Norman had married first in 1929 to Jean Atherton and subsequently divorced in Cairns, Queensland in 1935. He married secondly in 1937, the year after the wedding picture, to Maree Patience Eccleston Bishop and known simply as 'Pat'. She and a daughter (Anne) survived his death in 1943. They had both been evacuated to Australia in June 1940.

Ancestry.com reveals that Norman Stockton was born in Western Australia on 20 March 1904 - he died aged 39 years.

I found there was an unfinished manuscript at the Australian Central Library written by Norman Stockton in 1942 or 1943 just before his death. The book is dedicated "to 'Butch' who went through the blitz" (could that be a pet name for his wife or child or somebody unrelated). The book is a sort of unfinished 'life and times'.  He describes himself as the former editor of the 'Hong Kong Telegraph'  and Chief Correspondent Far East for the London 'Daily Express' and now in London to represent the 'Sydney Sun' as war correspondent.

There are snippets about him in 'SCMP The First Eighty Years' :

"Like all young reporters Helen (Wylie) picked up her reporting skills from senior journalists. The man she remembers most vividly is Norman Stockton, an Australian journalist who later became Editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph. It was Stockton who with his knowledge of morse code , who first heard news of the abdication of Edward VIII and was able to get the story into an earlier edition than the China Mail" (1)

"She (Helen Wylie) remembers the day in 1935 when the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building  was opened and the champagne flowed liberally - too liberally , for the Morning Post reporter who passed out on his return to the office. He had to be doused with cold water to read his shorthand  notes while a colleague typed it out. The reporter was none other than Norman Stockton". (1)

"Stockton in later years upset Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, Chief Manager of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, by reporting on his divorce on the front page of the Hong Kong Telegraph". (1) 

Sir Vandeleur was later to die in 1943 at the hands of the Japanese from malnutrition and physical mistreatment following interrogation. I am indebted to Ian Gill for letting me know that Sir Vandeleur Grayburn was married three times.  He married Ruth Danvers Higgs at St Andrews in Singapore on 12 April 1917. After she deceased he married Minnie Doris Robson with whom he had a son (John) and a daughter (Elizabeth). The marriage did not last and ended in divorce in 1939. Grayburn then married Muriel Mary who was incarcerated  in Stanley Internment Camp after  Grayburn was imprisoned at Stanley. 

Bridesmaid: Sheila Haynes

Sheila was born in Perth, Western Australia on 12th July 1915 the eldest child of  Dr Arthur Richard Haynes and Irene Maria Haynes (neé Frost). Judy Bercene a relative writes that "after  WW1 the family moved to Broome and four other children were born. In 1928 whilst holidaying in Perth, Irene Haynes had an accident resulting  in scalding and burns. She was admitted to hospital but sadly passed away from her injuries. The five young children were then looked after by their grandmother. An aunt who lived in Hong Kong, Ethel Kella (neé Frost) offered to look after Sheila."

Sheila was in Hong Kong and aged 26 when war broke out. She and her Aunt Ethel and Uncle Andre and Kella were interned in Stanley Internment Camp. Sheila had been working as a stenographer for a firm of marine surveyors - Goddard & Douglas. Her uncle Andre was a Master Mariner.

Shelia Haynes (Courtesy of Judy Bercene)

We don't know what happened with Norman Stockton other than they were engaged but never married.

Sheila with Norman Stockton (1934) - (Courtesy Judy Bercene)

Sheila Haynes with Norman Stockton's mother at Kai Tak - August 1936
  (Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

Sheila's  21st Cocktail Party - July 1936 (Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

In the above photograph we can see Sheila distinctive and radiant in the centre. A happy occasion. On the left of the middle row we can see her Aunt Ethel Kella and her Uncle Andre. In the front row (sitting right) we can see John Luke the groom in the Wedding Occasion Photograph a month before his wedding. I'm sure his fiancé is there too perhaps the lady behind him. Perhaps Norman Stockton is there as he was Sheila's finance at the time although I don't recognize his face amongst the group.

Sheila Haynes in 1937 (Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

Sheila Haynes - Sitting on a bench in Chatham Road (1939)
(Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

Another shot of the Bride & Bridesmaids at the Wedding Occasion
(Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

Ethel's husband Captain Andre Kella - a Master Mariner (Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

Sheila Haynes (and I think May Coghlin) by a water pipe conduit on a  path somewhere
 in pre-war Hong Kong
(Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

The photograph below is taken at Repulse Bay beach and in the background you can see pat of the Lido and what I think is the Dairy Farm Kiosk directly behind. You can make out cars parked in the Lido car park on Beach Road. Somewhere near here was PB 18 and perhaps a little higher up the hill was PB 17 (A). The Gap in the line of hills is probably Repulse Bay View.

On Repulse Bay Beach by the Lido (Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

In the days before traffic congestion - Ethel and  Sheila (1937)  (Courtesy:  Judy Bercene)

It was sad that something went wrong for Sheila and Norman, their relationship must have broken up, they never married. Some years later Sheila found love again during wartime. She fell in love with another internee in Stanley whose name was Patrick Cullinan a member of the Hong Kong Police force. He had suffered from TB during incarceration in Stanley Camp. They were married in Stanley Camp on the 11th August 1945 just before liberation. Sheila's wedding ring was made from a US silver coin.

Barbara Anslow (nee Redwood) who was an internee and remembers them both and recalls:

"They were married in the American Block in two rooms that had been occupied by the Barton family (they had 10 children and hence the two rooms). Father Bernard Meyer officiated. Mr Joyce was Best Man, and Sheila was given away by Quentin McFayden. Pat looked nervous but Sheila was most serene in her dark blue taffeta dress.  Present at the reception were Hugh Goldie, Rosaleen Millar, Eileen Grant, Mrs Kella, Mr & Mrs Barton and Marie Paterson".

Judy writes that "after liberation Sheila and Patrick returned to Australia with the intention of continuing to  England so his family could meet his bride. Unfortunately he was taken ill with TB, admitted to hospital but passed away on 24th May 1947 aged only 34.  Sheila told us before Pat passed away he made her promise him that she would go to England and meet his family . She kept her promise and went to England in 1948, returning to Australia in January 1949".

Patrick Cullinan's POlice ID Card (Courtesy: Judy Bercene)

Happiness was all too brief - Sheila Haynes and Patrick Cullinan found love in war but he passed away only two years after release from Stanley Camp (Source: Judy Bercene)

After returning to Australia Sheila settled in New South Wales with her aunt Ethel Kella whose own husband had passed away in January 1946 no doubt due to the privations suffered in Stanley Internment Camp, where food and medicine were scarce and many internees suffered from the effects of malnutrition. 

Sheila worked as a typist/stenographer in the Department of Defence. She married again in 1968 to Thomas John Conway who passed away  in 1989 leaving Sheila a widow for the second time. After her retirement she continued to do charity work and was awarded the BEM in the 1980s.  She passed away in August 1993

Bridesmaid: Anne Fowler 

I don't see her listed under Stanley Camp and assume she left Hong Kong before the war possibly with the evacuation of women and children in June 1940. We know nothing really about her.

Ben Wylie

At the time of the wedding Ben Wylie was Director and General Manager of the South China Morning Post a pillar of the community who held a number of public offices a popular and well respected Scotsman who always saw himself as a self made man. He was born in 1894 in Lochmaben, Dumfrieshire, Scotland. He had trained as a lithographic printer and was later offered a job by the South China Morning Post  in Hong Kong, which he joined in 1910.

Ben Wylie as a young man probably shortly after his arrival in Hong Kong (Courtesy John & Mags Wylie)

In 1914 whilst on home leave, he married Jemima ('Mima') Yates who returned to Hong Kong with him. At the time of the wedding photograph,  they had been married for 22 years and had a daughter Helen who had become a journalist and was the first female reporter for the SCMP. Helen had joined the newspaper aged eighteen and was taken in hand by Norman Stockton (see above) who was by all accounts something of a hell raiser  but a very capable journalist.

Helen had just married 'Cubby' Duncan, who worked with the Hong Kong Whampoa Dock Company, in June 1936 just two months prior to the wedding occasion in this story. I am sure she would have been present at this wedding.

Ben Wylie joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corp ("HKVDC") and served in the Engineer Section manning search lights at Fort Belchers and later transferring to No 2 (Scottish) Company. A company that was to distinguish itself in the close quarter fighting in the Battle for Stanley in December 1941 and whose commanding officer Major Forsyth was recommended for the award of the Victoria Cross by Brigadier Wallis commanding East Infantry Brigade.

Ben Wylie, Helen and Mima  (c. 1917)  ( Courtesy of John & Mags Wylie)

Ben Wylie (in kilt) with Vickers Gun whilst serving with HKVDC (Courtesy of John & Mags Wylie)

Ben rose quickly in SCMP becoming Secretary in 1916 and Director and General Manager in 1922. The company prospered under his leadership and in 1926 moved to impressive new premises in Wyndham Street known as the Morning Post Building.

The Morning Post Building shortly after completion in 1926 (Source: Page 60 'SCMP The First Eighty Years' by Robin Hutcheon)

War came to Hong Kong on Monday 8th December 1941 and culminated with the surrender of the Colony on Christmas Day 1941. By this time Ben was 57 years old. He moved from his home in Kowloon to the Morning Post Building in Wyndham Street and slept on a camp bed until the Japanese took over the building after the surrender.

In Ben's own words, "we continued to produce our newspapers daily, the last being issued on Boxing Day , the morning following capitulation . During this period we were more or less continually under bomb and shell fire. A bomb hit the roof of the Morning Post Building but I succeeded  in having temporary repairs made thus ensuring that the building was kept watertight. Another bomb fell in the street in front of the building. 

On 26th December  the office was visited in succession by three parties of Japanese troops. Finally after negotiation, I succeeded in having one of these parties take over the building - had this not been done undoubtedly the place would have been completely looted. As it was, when the war finished nearly four years afterwards, I found the building and the contents almost intact as, in the interregnum, the Japanese had used the premises for the production of their own newspapers".  (2)

I'm not sure where Ben went next between Boxing Day and the 5th of January on which date he relates how they were ordered to Murray Parade Ground with light luggage and then incarcerated in cheap hotels in the western part of town many of which had been brothels and many of which were squalid and infested with vermin. They were crowded into these hotels where they remained until 21st of January 1942 when they were moved to Stanley Interment Camp.

Ben picks up the story, "the food situation most of the time was truly shocking. Our meals consisted principally of rice to which was added a little vegetable and occasionally a little meat or fish. The result was that internees lost considerable weight. In my own case, the reduction was from 198 (pounds) to 119 (pounds). This diet made for malnutrition, avitaminosis, beri beri, pellagra  etc". (2)

He writes about the monotony of camp life, the American air raids, the accidental bombing of Bungalow 'C' with the resultant death of fourteen internees and finally liberation following the Japanese capitulation. He then left Camp and went back to Morning Post Building and re-established the South China Morning Post.

In the letter which is dated 29th October 1945 and by which time most internees had already been repatriated, he writes of Mima and Helen.

"I am now fairly well and putting on a little weight. Mima has now got over her appendix operation, Helen is well and still with the Royal Navy. Cubby left for HongKong two days ago  - recalled by the War Office".  (2) 

The photograph below shows Ben Wylie with Sir Mark Young who had been Governor of Hong Kong in 1941 and had the difficult  job of surrendering the Crown Colony to an enemy invader on Christmas Day 1941.

Ben Wylie with HE The Governor Sir Mark Young  (Courtesy: John & Mags Wylie)

Ben & Mima in later life and  in quieter days (Courtesy: John & Mags Wylie)

Ben was very much involved in public service. He was on the Board of Education, the Broadcasting Committee, the Rotary Club, the Kowloon Residents Association and the Kowloon Union Church. Always a proud Scotsman he had been an active member of  the St Andrews Society, participating as Chieftain and he was appointed a Justice of the Peace.

In Stanley Camp he had been elected as the first Chairman of the British Community Council.

He enjoyed lawn bowls, painting, fishing and writing. He wrote a book on lawn bowls using his pen name of Rob MacWhirter under which name, he wrote whimsical articles set in a Scottish village for the HongKong Telegraph and Morning Post.

(Courtesy: John & Mags Wylie)

In 1916 Henry Ching the highly talented son of a Chinese migrant to Australia who had married an English woman joined SCMP.  In 1926 with the support of Ben Wylie he became Editor of the SCMP  and under their combined stewardship the paper went from strength to strength. Henry Ching being Eurasian was not interned during the war but lived through the difficulties of Japanese occupied Hong Kong in his home at Happy Valley. There were shortages of food and the ever present risk of being seen as subversive by the Japanese. He was in fact arrested once and interrogated by the Japanese secret police but he survived and went back to the SCMP after the war. He kept a diary which records a fascinating account of living and trying to stay alive in occupied Hong Kong.

Ben and Mima in South Africa in 1950 after  retirement (Courtesy: John & Mags Wylie)

Ben's health never recovered from the privations endured whilst interned at Stanley Camp. After recuperation leave in Australia he returned to Hong Kong in 1946 but given continued ill health he retired in 1948 to live in Durban, South Africa. He passed away in Durban in April 1956.

Jemima 'Mima' Wylie

Jemima Yates always known as Mima married Ben after a very long engagement (10 years). They were married in Edinburgh on 16th September 1914 just weeks after the outbreak of World War 1. The honeymoon was spent in London after which they returned to Hong Kong. Their daughter and only child Helen was born in June 1915.

Helen Wylie as a child (Courtesy: John & Mags Wylie)

Mima and her daughter Helen were evacuated to Australia in June 1940 along with other women and children due to increased likelihood of hostilities with Japan. She was not to be reunited with Ben for another five years until after the liberation of Japanese occupied Hong Kong in 1945.

I was not able to find out much about the Rev. H.C. Davies who acted as Minister for the wedding of John and May Luke in August 1936. He left Hong Kong before the war erupted in the Pacific. He was an Army Chaplain albeit this was a civil wedding. In 1942 he held the equivalent rank of Major and by 1953 he was listed as Chaplain to the Queen 

This started with a photograph and  I want to end where we began ……………………...at a wedding  occasion in August 1936.

Wedding Occasion August 1936

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Sources:

Judy Bercene

John &  Mags Wylie

"SCMP The First Eighty Years" (Robin Hutcheon)

Ancestry.com

Gwulo.com

Quotes (1)         From page 78 & 79 "SCMP The First Eighty Years"

Quotes (2)         From letter written by Ben Wylie on 29th Oct 1945 to family members (courtesy John

                                                                                                             & Mags Wylie)

North Point - the former Yacht Club and Power Station

Last week I was strolling down Electric Road, North Point on Hong Kong Island looking for the site of the North Point Power Station which came under siege on the night of 18 December 1941, when the Japanese army landed in this area. I came across these old buildings at the junction of Oil Street and Electric Road. I had seen them before but had forgotten their history. Old buildings are something of a rarity in Hong Kong - so I had a look inside. 

Oil Street Buildings (Wikipedia)

It's now an arts/design centre. They allow visitors to walk around and had a pamphlet which gave some history of the buildings. They were built in 1908 to house the Hong Kong Yacht Club and in those days before various reclamations they were situated on the harbour front.

Looking along Electric Road

The Power Station was situated at the junction of the aptly named Power Street and Electric Road.  An old map from Hong Kong libraries (sourced from local history we site www.gwulo.com) gives an idea why the nearby street is called Oil Street.

To one side of the Yacht Club is the Power Station and to the other, a building and jetty marked Dutch Oil. In later aerial photographs, I can see oil storage tanks and a nearby street is named Shell Street. The map above shows Bay View Police Station which still existed in 1941 and came to be in the front line.

The two photographs below were taken from Gillian Chambers "Eastern Waters Eastern Winds" a history of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.

The above photograph shows the Club Building on the waterfront in 1927 some twenty years after it was built.  The photograph below is taken from in front of the Yacht Club and looking east at the North Point Power Station.

The Japanese landed along this stretch of shoreline having pulverised it with artillery picking of the Pill Boxes one by one. This sector was defended by the  5/7th Rajputs an Indian Army regiment commanded by Lt Col. Cadogan-Rawlinson. The Japanese landed in force and after close-quarter fighting, they decimated C,  D  and B Coy which had been held in reserve. Some survivors made their way to the Power Station which was defended by a unit of the HKVDC known as the "Hughesiliers" commanded by Major J.J. Paterson the Taipan or Head of Jardine Matheson - the "noble house" and "princely Hong". 

An armoured car commanded by Cpl Harry Long with  Lt Mike Carruthers aboard was despatched but was knocked out in Kings Road killing the driver and seriously wounding Cpl Long.  Likewise, a mobile machine gun platoon under Lt Graham of the 1st Battalion Middlesex Regiment was sent out in three 15-cwt trucks but they were ambushed in the same location with some survivors making it to the Power Station which was gallantly defended throughout the night and the following day.

Back to the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club - in the late 1930s they had relocated to Kellet Island (shown below) off the coast of nearby Causeway Bay following reclamations of the shoreline in front of the North Point Club premises.

Kellett Island had been used as a Royal Navy Magazine. In 1941 it was still an island but in the 1950s a causeway was built out to it and it remains the home of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and another piece of history.

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Stanley Village in December 1941

I came across this sketch of Stanley Village in the War Diary of the Middlesex Regiment held at National Archives in UK. It shows a panorama of Stanley and its environs as it was in December 1941. A view seldom seen.

The key at the bottom of the drawing is not very clear so I am repeating it below:

1. Mt Parker
2. Bridge Hill
3. Notting Hill
4. Sugar Loaf Hill
5. Stone Hill
6. Island Road
7. OP
8. PB 29
9. Stanley Police Station
10. Stanley Road Junction
11. No1 bungalow
12. New position of PB 23
13. PB 28
14. St Stephens College
15. Annexe
16. Cemetery
17. Prep School 
18. Copse. 
19. Chinese shrine 
20. Three staff houses St Stephens. 
21. Scrub

If you look at the drawing the building in the lower foreground marked No. 17 is St Stephen's Preparatory school. It's actually still there although there are a few more buildings around it. I walked down to St Stephens beach last week to see the building and I took the picture below:

St Stephens Preparatory School

  In the closing stages of the war a bloody battle was fought here on the Stanley Peninsula. The 1st Battalion of the Middlesex used the Prep School as it's Headquarters for the combined B and D companies. The windows were bristling with machine guns and the enemy advance was checked here by the stubborn defence put up by the men of the Middlesex - a regiment with a long history and who had won the epithet of "the diehards" at the Battle of Albuera in the Peninsular War when the "Middies" fought to a last man.

In the early hours of Christmas Day Japanese troops were heard infiltrating under cover of  darkness along the rocky beach beneath the Prep School  - they were fired on from the machine gun positions in the Prep School and from the pillbox PB 24 which was situated just out of the picture in the bottom left corner with a firing line covering the beach as well as out to sea across Stanley Bay towards Chung Am Kok.

As daylight broke the Japanese had taken cover in the small copse (No 18) just below the school. This has been built over almost entirely and the area is bordered by this stone wall which may have existed in 1941 or at least the lower part of it below the concrete addition on the top.

The commander of the two Middlesex (Mx) companies at the Prep School was Captain Weedon. At  first light, he formed a fighting patrol to attack the Japanese and drive them out of the copse. As the British troops entered the copse to flush them out some of the enemy withdrew to a Chinese shrine (No 19) which can be seen in the drawing at the back of the beach. Grenades were thrown through the roof of the shrine causing severe casualties amongst the Japanese. The survivors withdrew to the beach sniping from  the cover of rocks. PB 24 opened fire with her Vickers machine guns and the enemy were annihilated.

Unfortunately there was no sign of the shrine at the back of the beach. The Pill Box (PB24) has gone too, and where it stood is a government sponsored sail training establishment.

On the drawing marked (A) is a building which I think still exists today. I took a photograph of it below but from the landward side:

The view from the beach was obscured by trees. It's in the right place and looks remarkably similar to the 1941 building in the drawing.

Nearby is Stanley Military Cemetery  marked No 16 in the drawing. It is situated on high ground above the road. Many of the British military dead are buried here and also civilians who died in nearby Stanley Internment Camp during incarceration.

Path through Stanley Cemetery

Some of the military graves at Stanley Military Cemetery 

Not far from the cemetery are some of the bungalows marked as No 20 which were used to house civilian internees during the war. Internees were crowded in to these buildings with up to 50 living cheek by jowl in a bungalow designed for one family. The bungalow nearest the road with an arrow pointing to it is Bungalow C.

It is now the home of the Chaplain of St Stephens College. St Stephens College  marked No 14  is still a popular and successful school today. Bungalow C was the scene of a tragedy during World War 2 when an American fighter bomber accidentally bombed the bungalow causing some 14 deaths amongst the civilian internees. This occurred on 16th of January 1945. A memorial (below) in Stanley Military Cemetery commemorates the dead.

If you look at No 7 on the drawing it shows a private house to the north of Stanley and the key marks it as an OP (Observation Post). TheWar Diary of the 1st Battalion Middlesex tells us that Captain West  Commanding Officer of D Coy together with a section of men established this Forward OP in a private house near the junction of Island Road and Stanley Village Road on the 22nd December. On the 24th December the Japanese were on the slopes of Stone Hill and a flag could be observed from the roof of the house. Capt West and his men finding themselves surrounded hid in one of the rooms whilst the Japanese placed a mortar on the veranda.  A short while later they were discovered by a Japanese officer  - one of the party threw a grenade which killed the officer and wounded the mortar team. In the confusion they flew out the front door and headed back to their lines and safety.

The 1941 drawing does not show the Maryknoll Monastery which still stands today 

This hill top monastery was guarded by Lt Scantlebury, Lt Newman  and various men from D Coy almost of whom were to put to death. The Middlesex Diary reports them as missing in action but here's an account of what really happened from one of the Maryknoll fathers:

"Squatting together with us, but tightly bound , were a Canadian Captain and three English officers; they behaved nobly, as you would expect from a military officer. In no way would they bow to their Japanese captors even when cruelly beaten. I cannot remember the name of the Canadian . The British were Lt Lawrence , RA , 2nd Lt Newman and 2nd Lt Scantlebury (both Middx). Scantelebury whispered that he had been married for only 10 months. He then asked me to contact his wife in Hatfield, near London and let her know that he was still alive. They expected to be executed. The ropes that bound them were almost choking them". 

 Later they were all moved down to the alleyway beside the Carmelite monastery. "The four British officers squatting with us were grilled; someone tried to cut off their shoulder straps with a sword or bayonet; an order was given for them to get up and move down to the end of the row where they were brutally bayoneted to death , and this on Christmas morning , right outside the Carmelite Monastery. We were sickened and disgusted; but they bravely faced death. Later I came to know that Brother Cheung and our boys (left at Maryknoll) had been ordered to bury them  and other victims close by. After the war I managed to correspond by letter with the wife of Lt Scatlebury and offer her my condolences . I did not dwell on the details of his death. In 1948 I was able to return to UK and met Mrs Scantlebury in our college at Battersea, London. We went to our college chapel and prayed for him and his companions in death" .

*********************************

Harold Thomas Matches - Police Officer in Hong Kong 1935-1948

Harold Thomas Matches was born in Gibraltar on 22 August 1911. At that time his father was working in the Royal Naval Dockyard in Gibraltar. A few years later the family returned to UK and Harold's father was then working at the Royal Naval dockyard at Rosyth in Scotland. We do not know for sure but it's possible that Harold worked there for some years after finishing school, but what we do know is that at the age of twenty-four he went East and joined the Hong Kong Police Force on 30th August 1935, with service number A87.

After completing his training Harold joined the Water Police. A photograph dated January 1937 on local history site   www.gwulo.com  posted by Christine Kirkham shows Harold Matches with others from the class of 1935 who had also joined this branch of the service.

Recruits to Water Police (Source: posted by Christine Kirkham on www.gwulo.com)

                          Rear Row:  Bert Terrett  -  Vic Mackenzie  -  Rees North  -  Harold Matches

                          Front Row: John Michie  -  Bill Campbell  -  Bert Macvey

Six years after Harold arrived in Hong Kong war broke out in the Pacific and the Japanese Army invaded the British Crown colony of Hong Kong on Monday 8th December 1941 after almost exactly one hundred years of British rule. When war broke out Harold was still serving in the Water Police. I am not sure of his movements and deployments during the period of hostilities but we know from the Police War Diary that police launches such as Police Launch No. 1 shown below were involved in evacuating citizens from outlying islands such as Peng Chau and Cheung Chau and from outlying stations like Tai O in Lantau.

Police Launch No 1  

The police launches were also involved in the evacuation of Kowloon, and as the launches carried out their duties around the harbour and outlying islands in the first week of the war, they were frequently dive-bombed and strafed by Japanese aircraft. The Coxswain of Police Launch No 5 was wounded by shrapnel while undertaking duties in the harbour.

The Japanese landed on the Island of Hong Kong during the night of 18th December. A week later after fierce fighting on the Island, the British surrendered. By this time most police, and I assume Harold, had congregated in the Gloucester Hotel which served as Police Headquarters. In early January most of the British, American and Dutch civilians were herded into cheap and squalid hotels in the Western District close to the waterfront. Many of these had been used as brothels. The internees were crowded into small cubicles, often sharing with complete strangers and with no segregation between men and women. Harold and his police colleagues were taken on 6th January 1942 from the Gloucester Hotel to the Luk Hoi Tung Hotel. Police Officer George Wright-Nooth in his book entitled "Prisoner of the Turnip Heads" describes the place of their initial incarceration:

"The Luk Hoi Tong was a seedy, fourth-rate establishment near the waterfront catering for travelling traders or seamen. It was one of many similar hotels in the area which were the hangouts of pimps and prostitutes. About 250 of us were packed into its forty-odd rooms (meant for two each). Once everybody had been pushed in, the iron grill door at its dingy entrance was slammed shut and locked. A solitary sentry sat on a stool outside.

Food, together with extreme boredom coupled with lack of exercise, was our main pre-occupation. Two meals a day of a bowl of rice with a few chicken's feet or three or four lumps of rotten meat was all we got. In the coming months, we were to look back on the size of these meals with hungry relish."

On 21st January most "enemy civilians" were moved to Stanley Internment Camp and the police followed two days later on 23rd January 1942. Harold spent the remainder of the war at Stanley Camp where medicine and food were scarce and many suffered ill health as a result of the privations of what was effectively a Japanese concentration camp.

The Japanese surrendered in August 1945 and the emaciated prisoners of war were released. Harold returned to England following a period of recuperation in Australia. He married in 1946 and returned to Hong Kong in 1947 to resume his police career. In 1949 he resigned from the police and emigrated to Canada, later returning to the UK where he worked in the Security Division at the Atomic Energy Authority at Seascale on the Cumbrian coast.

As I write this story about Harold, his uniform jacket, his police whistle and his photo albums and other documents are close at hand, entrusted to me by his son and daughter who would like to see these documents and artefacts preserved and made accessible for those interested, be they historians, researchers, or students.

Harold passed away in 1992, his wife Winifred passed away more recently in 2012. His son and daughter then discovered a number of photographs, police reports and other documents which are now known as the "Harold Thomas Matches Collection" and will soon be donated to suitable archives in Hong Kong where this story begins.

Harold's pre-war winter uniform tunic near me as I write

The uniform is a standard-issue pre-war winter tunic with high collar with A87 in chrome, denoting his service number. "A" meaning European contingent, this number was allocated to an officer on enlistment and stayed with him until his promotion to Sub-Inspector, when the overt display of numerals ceased. Five large chrome buttons to the front bearing the King's crown and the letters GRI  standing for George Rex Imperator - George, King and Emperor. Missing from the uniform is the three chevrons denoting the rank of Sgt.  This high collar style winter tunic was superseded post-war when all European Lance/Sergeants were re-graded to Sub Inspector, with open collar, white shirt and black tie.

Harold's Police Whistle

The whistle is a variant of the standard "Metropolitan" model of police whistle made by Hudson of Birmingham since Victorian times. The whistle which still works was worn on the tunic attached by a chain as in the photograph below which shows Harold Matches in summer white uniform as a pre-war Lance Sgt.

Wearing Summer White Uniform with Peaked Cap

Summer White Uniform with "Bombay Bowler"

The white summer uniform was not continued after the war when whites were reserved for very senior officers in full dress (ceremonial). The hat was known as the Bombay Bowler with the Police Force badge. He wears a black leather revolver belt, with snake belt buckle with a black lanyard to the revolver. The revolver was most likely a 0.38 calibre, it was carried loaded but with no additional ammunition. There is a proficiency badge on the lower right tunic sleeve. Possibly 'LG' denoting Lewis Gunner.

The photograph below from Harold's Album shows Harold at the Police Training School with other recruits which I presume must be either 1935 the year he joined HKP or 1936 on completion of training. 

Police Training School

Interestingly I saw the same photograph on local history web site www.gwulo.com. The photograph was posted by Christine Kirkham and she listed the police officers as follows :

Back Row (Standing Left to Right as viewed)

Reg Jenner, John Michie, HW Jackson, Bert McVey, Harold Matches, Bert Terrett, Jock Campbell, Stan Innes, George Dennis, Vic Mackenzie, William Jones

Front Row (Seated Left to Right as viewed)

Dick Shaw, Rees North, Cliff Pope, Jackie Fell (Drill Instructor), Frank Shaftain (Principal PTS), Lofty Morten (Chief Instructor), Henry Tyler, Wally Gowans, Bill Morrison, E. Davis, John Willis.

In the back row, third from left is Sgt. H.W. Jackson who met a tragic death only weeks after liberation. He was swimming at Tweed Bay Beach which the internees had been allowed to use under guard during the summer months. Sgt. Jackson had endured three and a half years in a prison camp and was waiting for repatriation. Tragedy struck when he was attacked by a shark, he was dragged from the water with serious injuries but he died shortly after from shock and loss of blood.

At Stanley Camp, Harold shared a room in the so-called Indian Quarters (previously occupied by Indian Wardens from Stanley Gaol and their families) with police colleagues Hugh Goldie and Henry Tyler.

This photograph below of Stanley Camp from the HTM albums shows a low building in the centre which was the Mosque used by Muslim prison wardens, to the right of which we can just make out the Indian Quarters where Harold stayed. Immediately in front, we can see gardens for growing vegetables and railings with washing left out to dry. Centre-left is the Prison Officers Club and to the right of which is the Dutch Quarters. We can also make out St Stephens College in the centre,  above which we can see the outline of Stanley View.

Stanley Internment Camp

The next photograph from HTM collection shows internees waiting to collect their meagre food rations. The building looks like one of the Indian Quarters where most internees were crowded in with several to a room, often complete strangers, men sharing with women and children with their parents and other adults. After the repatriation of the American nationals in July 1942 and the Canadian nationals in September 1943, the overcrowded conditions improved somewhat.

Internees queue for meagre food rations

A view of Stanley Cemetery

Post Card written by Harold to his father from Stanley Camp

Post card addressed to his father Robert Matches

Red Cross Air Letter from Harold's brother Angus in Australia

Temporary passport issued to HTM in Camp

Emaciated internees at Tweed Bay Hospital Stanley Camp

Raising the flags on liberation at Stanley Camp

The same scene but an earlier shot while internees were still arriving

The Navy's here - armed sailors from HMS Venerable escorting Japanese POWS into internment

Harold would have been repatriated directly to the UK, but he asked if he could be repatriated by way of Australia where he stayed with his brother Angus and his wife Wirra and their son Bob then living in Adelaide. He sailed to Sydney on the Fleet Aircraft Carrier HMS Striker and from there was flown to Adelaide.

HMS Striker

One of the family (Bob Matches) in Australia recalls Harold's arrival. "I have a clear memory of Harold's arrival in Adelaide. I was 9 or 10 at the time. He was brought from HK to Sydney on HMS Striker. I remember the name of the ship because there were the inevitable jokes about Matches striking a light, etc. He was flown from Sydney to Parafield Aerodrome some miles out of Adelaide. The Red Cross provided a car and driver to take Angus, Wirra and myself to Parafield to collect him. As we got out of the car we saw a grey, gaunt figure standing by a hanger. "There's Harold," Dad said. He had only one canvas hold-all with him that day. A trunk of his belongings arrived sometime later. I am not sure how he filled in his days in Adelaide except that he borrowed a bike from someone and rode it all over town, getting to know the place". Some months later Harold departed Australia heading for England to see his family. Bob recalls that "he was on a ship between Adelaide and Fremantle (Perth WA) on his way to England when news came through to Angus about the death of his father (our grandfather Bob Matches). Angus cabled this on and it was waiting for Harold when he got to Fremantle. Tragic timing after all that he had been through”.

 

However, let us retrace our steps and go back to war-torn Hong Kong. After liberation, the Police, at least those fit enough, returned to their duties prior to repatriation. The relieving force included men of the RAF Regiment and Harold must have worked closely with them as we see in the slightly faded photograph below.

Harold standing second from right with side-arm and with RAF personnel

Harold made friends with a young Cumbrian member of the RAF by the name of Eric Kennaugh. He is seen standing third from right. (Identification courtesy of his granddaughter Joanne Kennaugh). He had just got married to a Miss Kathleen Wright and one of the bridesmaids happened to be Miss Winnifred Lewis of Maryport, Cumbria. Little did she know then that she was destined to become Harold's wife and move to the other side of the world.

Eric showed Harold the wedding photographs and Harold was immediately captivated by the young bridesmaid. He obtained her address and wrote to her and got no reply. He wrote a second time but again no reply. However, where others might have given up, Harold persevered and wrote a third time, which brought a reply. The first two letters had somehow not reached their destination.

While Harold was recuperating in Australia they corresponded and love blossomed and they married in September 1946. Whilst incarcerated in Stanley Harold, and his roommates became firm friends,. they were Hugh Goldie, Henry Tyler and George Moss., and so it was only fitting that Hugh Goldie was Best Man and Tyler and Moss were Groomsmen at the wedding in Maryport.

Harold marries Winifred in Sept. 1946 with Hugh Goldie as Best Man

Not long after the wedding Harold and his bride sailed for Hong Kong on the Strathmore.

SS  Strathmore

Harold resumed his duties with the Hong Kong Police working as a detective with the Criminal Investigation Dept. ( CID) Kowloon City where he was in charge of a team of detectives.

Harold Matches with his Chinese detectives

Farewell for Chief Inspector Mottram

 Charles Mottram had been Harold's boss - he had also been in Stanley Camp during the war.


Police ID Card

Original Pre-War Police ID Card (must have survived internment)

Harold as Head of CID in Kowloon City was closely involved in a high profile murder case of one Lytton Bevis Wood a partner in Deacon & Co (a well-known trading firm in Hong Kong) and the attempted murder of George Ronald Ross also a partner in that firm. They were set upon whilst out walking in the Kowloon Hills near Lion Rock.



At the scene of the murder

The photograph above shows Supt. Charles Mottram and DCI Louis Whant at the scene of the murder.

Harold left the HK Police in 1949 eventually returning to England where they had two children, Ian and Jennifer, to whom I am most grateful for all the photographs and information about Harold's police career and experiences in Hong Kong.

This was the story of a young man who went out East joined the Hong Kong Police, then found himself caught up in a short but brutal war, then interned in a Japanese concentration camp, he survived the starvation rations and the lack of medicine. On liberation in August/September 1945, he went back to his police duties although weakened from the years spent in a prison camp. Here he found romance through a photograph, he married the lady in the photograph in 1946 after having been repatriated back home to England via Australia. After the war, he returned to Hong Kong with his bride to resume his career with the Hong Kong Police Force with whom he served until 1949.

These fascinating letters, photos, reports and items of uniform were donated to Hong Kong University  Special Collections Library.



Old Hong Kong

Sources:  
                           
The Harold Matches Collection                           Courtesy of Ian and Jennifer Matches

 List of names (Police Training School)               WWW.Gwulo.com    (Posting by Christine Kirkham)

Photograph and names (Water Police)                 WWW.Gwulo.com    (Posting by Christine Kirkham)