Major-General Christopher Michael Maltby, CB, MC, DL

Christopher Michael Maltby, known as Michael, was born Friday 13 January 1891 in London. BQMS Charles Barman wrote in an appendix to his book, Resist to the End, that he was born within the sound of Bow Bells and therefore regarded himself as a true Cockney. As a child, he had lived in India, his father worked for the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at King's School Canterbury and Bedford School. At the age of nineteen, he entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich as an Officer Cadet. In 1910, he was posted, as a subaltern, to the 1st Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment in Rawalpindi, India. He sailed out to India on the trooper HMT Dongola. In December 1911 he joined the 95th Russell's Infantry a regiment of the British Indian Army. His first action was in 1913-1914 in the Persian Gulf. Barman wrote that he was one of the few Army officers to be entitled to wear the Naval General Service Medal. He served with the Indian Army until July 1941 when he arrived in Hong Kong to take up the unenviable (in hindsight) role of General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Troops in China. He was the military commander of an isolated outpost, which the British were willing to sacrifice, albeit not without a fight, because as Churchill famously acknowledged there was 'not the slightest chance' of being able to defend it.

If Japan goes to war there is not the slightest chance of holding Hong Kong or relieving it.  It is most unwise to increase the loss we shall suffer there.  Instead of increasing the garrison it ought to be reduced.  Japan will think twice before declaring war on the British Empire, and whether there are two or six battalions at Hong Kong will make no difference.  I wish we had fewer troops there, but to move any would be noticeable and dangerous.  (Winston Churchill in January 1941 to General Hastings Ismay).

Major-General Maltby as Military Commander and Sir Mark Young as Governor and Commander-in-Chief had the difficult task of formally surrendering the Crown Colony of Hong Kong to the Japanese on 25 December 1941. The battle had been short but brutal lasting eighteen days. The photograph below of the surrender formality at the Peninsula Hotel, conducted by candlelight, shows Major-General Maltby seated to the right. To the left is Lt-Col 'Monkey' Stewart commanding officer of 1st Bn Middlesex Regiment and seated behind him with the extravagant moustache is Wing Commander Hubert Thomas 'Alf' Bennet. Bennett was a Japanese linguist working with Major Boxer in the Intelligence unit known as Far East Combined Bureau. It was Alf Bennet and Monkey Stewart who had first walked out, with the flag of truce, to conduct the surrender, but the Japanese had insisted that Major-General Maltby and Sir Mark Young attend in person. Sir Mark is out of the photograph to the left and may have been speaking, as the others are looking in his direction. Sir Mark asked if the photographer could be removed, and the Japanese obliged, but already some photographs including this one had been taken. 

Major-General Maltby at the Surrender Formality 25 December 1941

Maltby arrived in Hong Kong onboard the SS President on 20 July 1941. He replaced Major-General Grasett. The Governor, Sir Geofry Northcote, a sick man returned to the UK in September and was replaced by Sir Mark Young. Maltby got on well with Sir Mark. The photograph below shows Major-General Maltby, the Military Commander, standing with Sir Mark Young, the Governor and C-in-C at a parade by the Hong Kong Singapore Royal Artillery (HKSRA) to mark their centenary. They were first embodied in Hong Kong as the China Gun Lascars in 1841. The parade was held at Happy Valley on  30 October 1941. In the background, wearing a Glengary is Captain Iain MacGregor, 2/RS, Maltby's ADC.

Major-General Maltby and H.E. the Governor, Sir Mark Young (IWM)

The photograph below shows Colonel Newnham, GSO-1, Captain Iain MacGregor, 2/RS  and Major-General Maltby at a parade by 1/Mx on the occasion of the departure of Sir Geoffry Northcote.

  Colonel Newnham (left) Lt  MacGregor (centre) and Maj-Gen Maltby(right)  - Sept 1941 (IWM)

During WW1, Maltby continued to serve with the 95th Russell's Infantry Regiment. He was wounded on three occasions, Mentioned in Dispatches (MiD) thrice, and in 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for gallantry in the field.  He served initially in the Persian Gulf and later in Mesopotamia and from 1918 to 1919 he served in Salonika, capital of Greek Macedonia. By the time the war ended, he had attained the rank of Acting Major. After the war, Maltby attended an Indian Army Staff Course at Quetta in 1923, where he first met Brigadier John Lawson. Maltby also attended the RAF Staff Course at Andover in 1927. 

   He married Helene Margaret Napier-Clavering in June 1927 at St Mary's Church in Taunton, Somerset. He was aged thirty-six, and she was twenty-six at the time of their wedding. Both families had connections with India, she had been born in India. Maltby continued his service in the Indian Army,  serving twice on the dangerous North West Frontier. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1934 and to full Colonel in 1938. In 1939 he was promoted to Brigadier and commanded the 3rd Jhelum Brigade, then the Calcutta Brigade and finally the 19th Indian Infantry Brigade in Deccan before being sent to Hong Kong as GOC in the acting rank of Major-General.

   The Candian Army reinforcements, consisting of two infantry battalions and a Brigade HQ, arrived on 16 November 1941. 

Major-General Maltby with Brigadier John Lawson

After the surrender, Maltby was incarcerated as a prisoner of war in Hong Kong, Formosa, and Manchuria. He was incarcerated for three-and-a-half years until liberation in August 1945. He was firstly held in Sham Shui Po POW Camp and then in April 1942 moved to Argyle Street Officers Camp.

A crayon drawing depicting Maltby's hut in Argyle Street Camp.
 

He called his hut, Flagstaff House, being the name of the official residence of the GOC. The house still remains today although now a tea museum.

Flagstaff House today (Source: HK Govt.)

Luba Estes sent me a photo of a sketch of Major-General Maltby that her father Lt Alec Skvorzov, HKVDC, drew whilst they were incarcerated in POW Camp in Hong Kong. 

Drawing by Lt Alexander Skvorzov (Courtesy of Luba Estes) 

Twenty years after the war, in 1965,  Michael Maltby attended an Argyle Street Camp reunion as did Alec Skvorzov and Maltby signed the original sketch.  Many of Alec Skvorzov's sketches of Sham Shui Po Camp can be seen in a compilation of sketches published in 1948 under the title Chinese Ink and Brush Sketches of Prisoner of War Camp Life in Hong Kong.

The photographs below show Major-General Maltby looking thin and strained but happy following his release from POW Camp.

Major-Gen. Maltby and Sir Mark Young both looking emaciated after liberation in Sept 1945

Maj.-Gen. Maltby with American troops and holding a captured samurai sword still in possession of the family today (IWM)

After being repatriated to the UK, Maltby retired from the British Indian Army in June 1946.  He was affirmed in the honorary rank of Major-General, which had been a temporary rank during the war. His Report on Operations in Hong Kong (which went through several drafts) was published in January 1948. He was made Deputy Lord Lieutenant of the County of Somerset and a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). He spent his retirement near Taunton, Somerset. He and Helene lived in a modest country cottage called Greenacre, in the village of Shoreditch on the outskirts of Taunton. A search on the internet shows the property. An old cottage with low ceilings built close to what then was a minor road, with a large garden at the side and rear.  Michael Maltby returned from a distinguished military career spent in far-off India, having fought in two world wars and numerous skirmishes. Like many British Indian Army officers, he retired to the English countryside and lived quietly. He did not write his memoirs and unlike public figures today he did not charge large sums of money to appear on the lecture circuit. Helene died in 1974 at the age of seventy-four. They had been married for forty-seven years. Mike Maltby died in September 1980 aged eighty-nine at Taunton. Michael and Helen Maltby had two daughters Ann Margaret (1928) and Barbara Helen Jessie (1931).

   Michael Maltby must have sometimes wondered, did he hold out long enough in Hong Kong, should he have done things differently, did he have the right strategy, but at the end of the day, as he himself said, he and his force had been a 'hostage to fortune'. 

Photo of Major-General Maltby  from Passport to Eternity (1956)  by Ralph Goodwin 

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Addendum dated November 2021

Major Arthur Goring, Probyn's Horse, GSO-2

I often wondered whether Major-General Maltby realised that he had been given a sort of poison chalice when he took over as GOC in July 1941. Hong Kong was short of men and equipment because it simply was not a priority. It had become an isolated outpost and a strategic liability.  Major Arthur Goring, Probyn's Horse, and GSO-2, who escaped with the MTBs got to know the General well during his time in the Battle Box. He said this (summarised) of Major-General Maltby:

He just made up his mind  to make the best of a bad job, and although he knew the place to be indefensible, I never once heard him complain. To add to difficulties, he got a very sore  throat from the dusty atmosphere in the Battle Box, and for about five days he lost his voice  completely. This must have been quite exasperating because he was unable to telephone himself .........and had to rely upon some third person to speak for him. The whole garrison loved him, and they were filled with admiration at the way in which he used to walk about by himself, visiting troops, apparently completely oblivious  of the shells which were bursting all around. He had many narrow escapes; he was standing on the lawn in front of his house [Flagstaff House] when a shell burst on the roof and demolished the end rooms; on another occasion a large bomb burst in his garden and frightened the wits out of the people who were with him, but he seemed so completely unperturbed. He did his very best, but the defence scheme had been cut and dried by the War Office for so long that there was so little  that he himself could do, and the Japanese had so many troops that the odds were hopelessly against us from the start. However, it is entirely due to his courage and determination that we lasted out for [eighteen] days. 

Major-General Maltby accompanying the outgoing Sir Geoffry Northcote

Acknowledgements:
James Barnes for additional information sources.
Luba Estes for the sketch of Michael Maltby drawn by her father Lt A.V. Skvorzov, HKVDC

Further Reading:
Article on Major--General Maltby by Tony Banham in Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography (2012) edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn.
Private Papers, consisting of a commonplace book and a scrapbook, held at the Imperial War Museum. The commonplace book is dedicated to his two daughters who he affectionately calls the rabbits. 

Walter Fryatt, Winnipeg Grenadiers

Walter Butcher Fryatt was born in York, England on 22nd November 1900. He was the youngest of eight siblings. He was killed in action on 21st December 1941 while serving as Company Sergeant Major (CSM) of 'B' Coy Winnipeg Grenadiers in the Battle for Hong Kong. This is an attempt to put together some details of his life, and through feedback from readers I hope that I can add more to this story. This is also a tribute to a Canadian soldier who died in Hong Kong in the service of his country. 

He married Florence May Firth in 1925 in Barnsley, Yorkshire. They had four children Walter Dennis (1926-1996), Jean Margaret (1927-1933), Robert (1934-2011) and Joan who was born in 1938. Florence May Fryatt died in Manitoba, Canada in 2004 having reached the age of 100 years. She lived on for  nearly sixty-three years after she lost her husband in December 1941. As far as I can see she never remarried. She lost her second born child,  Jean Margaret aged six, in 1933. 

Walter Fryatt joined the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) in World War 1. He served with this unit from June 1917 until October 1919. In 1922 he joined the York & Lancashire Regiment until 1925. In 1927 he served with the Green Howards  referred to as the Yorkshire Regiment. He was a Yorkshireman and a soldier.

He emigrated to Canada in 1928. I don't think he had a very happy childhood and he did not keep contact with his remaining family in Yorkshire after he left England.  I found a record of him traveling on the White Star liner  RMS Cedric in August 1928 as part of the Harvesters Scheme for Manitoba in which immigrants were recruited to work as farm laborers in the Canadian farm belt. He sailed from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia to make a new start for his young family. 

RMS Cedric

I found a record of Florence May traveling in 1930 from Liverpool to Quebec on the White Star Liner Albertic. A beautiful ship but Florence like Walter travelled Third Class. She was traveling with her two oldest children Walter Dennis and Jean Margaret. She had two more children after reaching Canada.

The family settled in Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. Walter was later employed as an Operator for the Winnipeg Electric Company. After arriving in Canada Walter joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers which at that time was a militia  unit. His military records show that he completed annual training from 1931 to 1937. On the outbreak of war in September 1939 he re-joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers on a full time or mobilized basis and was quickly promoted  to CSM given his previous military experience. In June 1940 he sailed for Jamaica with the Grenadiers where the regiment undertook garrison duties. He returned to Canada in 1941 just before the Grenadiers were sent to Hong Kong in November 1941.

In Hong Kong he served as CSM of 'B' Coy which was under the command of Major Henry Hook. Three weeks after arriving in Hong Kong war started with Japan. Initially the Canadian troops were based at Sham Shui Po Barracks in Kowloon. When war started the Grenadiers were deployed to their war stations on Hong Kong Island. 'B' Coy were deployed at Pok Fu Lam Reservoir on the south western side of Hong Kong Island.

Many of the splinter proof war shelters that housed the Coy's three platoons and the Coy HQ still remain, with one string of shelters located north of the reservoir, and another string in a ravine to the west of the reservoir.

Pok Fu Lam Reservoir

War shelter across a ravine occupied by 'B' Coy WG in December 1941

'B' Coy WG  shelters as they appear today 

A steel door survives the test of time

The Japanese landed three infantry regiments on the north shore of Hong Kong Island on Thursday 18th December 1941. By Friday 19th December they had captured Mt Parker, Mt Butler, Jardines Lookout, Stanley Gap Road and the police station at Wong Nai Chung (WNC) Gap. Counterattacks were made throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st to try and regain WNC  Gap  but all efforts failed as the Japanese were there in overwhelming strength.

On Saturday 20th December 'B' Coy were ordered to report to Battalion HQ at Wan Chai Gap and thereafter to counterattack WNC Gap by way of Blacks Link, a road track linking WNC Gap and Wan Chai Gap. The attack commenced in the afternoon and the Coy proceeded down Black's Link led by Major Henry Hook, CSM Walter Fryatt and Sgt Ken Porter. Having passed Middle Gap, about one third of the way along Black's Link, they came under attack from a Japanese patrol and incurred a number of casualties.  The Coy withdrew to Middle Gap, and the attack was to resume at dawn the next day. The Coy spent an uncomfortable night in the open with low temperatures and rain.

The Japanese by this time had a large number of troops on Mount Nicholson which overlooked Black's Link and they were able to fire down on Black's Link. Lt Hugh Young and CSM Walter Fryatt were both killed by machine gun fire on Blacks Link whilst trying to press forward to reach WNC Gap during the morning on Sunday 21st December. Florence May Fryatt was not officially notified of Walter's death until 1943. He has no known grave although his name is remembered on a panel at Sai Wan Military Cemetery.

Florence May was survived by two of her children (Robert and Joan). At the time of her death she had eight grandchildren, thirteen great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

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Bishops House 

This is a beautiful and somewhat imposing building with its tower and castle-like windows. It sits on a knoll just above the hustle and bustle of Central business area of Hong Kong. It was built around 1848,  to be used to accommodate the Head of the Anglican Church and to house an Anglo-Chinese school known as St Paul's College, a school that still survives although after WW2 the school relocated to its present site in Bonham Road next to the University of Hong Kong.

Bishops House - from the front

On the 19th of July 2013, I was lucky enough to see inside the building as a guest of historian and author Geoff Emerson and the Rev. Philip Wickeri, Advisor to the Archbishop on theological and historical studies. With us was Emily Mosely visiting Hong Kong who had a special interest as she is the great grand-daughter of Arthur D Stewart who lived in this building as Headmaster of St Paul's College from 1909 to 1930.

Bishops House - the rear

St Paul's College is one of the oldest schools in Hong Kong. The founder being Rev. Vincent John Stanton who was appointed as the first Colonial Chaplain of Hong Kong in 1843 only a few years after the 1st Opium War.

Geoff Emerson and Emily Mosey at Bishops House

The house was used to accommodate the school as well as the Anglican Bishop of Hong Kong. The house was being renovated at the time we visited, but you can see in the photographs below, the wide rooms and high ceilings. It was a nostalgic visit for Geoff Emerson who started teaching at St Paul's in 1964  and was given accommodation in Bishops House.  The Rev. Philip Wickeri kindly showed us around this fascinating piece of Hong Kong's history.

The Rev. Philip Wickeri and Geoff Emerson at Bishop's House

Reflections of Bishops House in the windows of adjacent buildings

Wide rooms, high ceilings and tall doors

Admiring the "history chair"

the 'history chair'

Interior (under renovation)

The lawn at the rear

You may be wondering what the connection is with WW2 in Hong Kong and Bishops House.  Well, I will start with Francis Braun a Hungarian printer who worked for Ye Old Printerie owned by the Labrum bothers who had joined the HKVDC and were incarcerated in Shamshuipo POW Camp after the British capitulation.

Francis Braun was arrested by Police on the outbreak of the Pacific War and taken to Stanley Prison to be interned as an enemy alien. Hungary had just declared war on Great Britain.  Prisoners were released to make way for enemy aliens and he found himself interned with Germans, Italians and Japanese. They were bombed and shelled until the surrender on 25th of December. They were released by the Japanese on 28th December and taken to Repulse Bay Hotel for tea and biscuits and then driven up Repulse Bay Road and through Wong Nei Chung Gap to Central.

Braun joined with other release internees and found a hotel on the Wanchai waterfront called the Luk Kwok Hotel. A hotel built in the 1930s and although rebuilt still exists. The hotel's website shows the old building:

Let's hear now from Francis Braun:

"Having settled in my newest abode, I went to see some friends in the Bishop's House in Lower Albert Road, in a lovely wooded area just above the Central District. .........The Reverend Alistaire Rose, The Dean of St John's Cathedral, said that I might, if I wished, move into Bishop's House. I moved in on the fourth of January." (1)

The Rev Rose was shortly after this interned by the Japanese together with British, Dutch and American civilians. They were first held in cheap hotels and brothels on the Western end of town and then transferred to Stanley Internment Camp on or around 21st January 1942.

"There were a great many nationalities in the Bishop's House, almost all of them swept together by the storm of the war: Danes, Norwegians, Russians, Chinese, Austrians, Germans and a Hungarian. There was an old American from the Tao Fong Shan Mission, an American female pianist, and even a member of the Red Cross who was later interned because of his British nationality.

The Bishop's House was managed by a Mrs I Klein, her husband a medical doctor who died during the war, and a Dr Hart, an Austrian, connected with the Church." (1)

The British and Americans left for internment on 5th January 1942. Francis Braun writes "a few days after the exodus of our friends four Japanese officers and their batmen were billeted with us. They did not mix with us nor did they interfere with the management of the house".  (1)  Braun continued to live in Bishops House until 1943 when he moved to Kowloon to share an apartment with an elderly German couple.

Arthur D Stewart was Headmaster of St Paul's College from 1909 until his brother Evan Stewart took over in 1930. This framed photograph of A D Stewart is on one of the walls of Bishop's House

A D Stewart former Headmaster of St Paul's College (1909-1930)

A D Stewart

Arthur Stewart's sister Kathleen founded St Paul's Girls School. His brother Evan George Stewart was a member of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corp and was Commanding Officer of No 3 Machine Gun Company who were in the thick of the action at Jardines Lookout.

Evan Stewart and Arthur Dudley Stewart married sisters the daughters of Gerard Heath Lander (1861-1934) who was Anglican Bishop of Hong Kong and South China from 1907 until 1920 and Headmaster of St Paul's College.  He, therefore, would have resided at Bishops House.  Arthur D Stewart (1877-1953) married Katherine Lander (1895-1973) and Evan Stewart (1892 -1958) married Dorothy Sarah Lander (1896-1990)

Arthur and Evan Stewart's parents were Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries in China. They (Robert Warren Stewart and Louisa) were both murdered in China in 1895, together with two of the infant children. They were killed by a group who were opposed to foreign missionaries.  Herbert Stewart aged 6 and Hilda aged only 1 were also killed. Evan (aged 3) and his sister Mildred (aged 13) were rescued from their burning home by their plucky sister Kathleen L Stewart who at that time was aged 11. The older children, Arthur, Philip and James were away at school in England at the time.  The plaque below in St Paul's Church adjacent to Bishops House commemorates their tragic death.

A plaque in St Paul's Church commemorating the tragic murder of Robert & Louisa Stewart

The plucky sister who rescued her siblings went on to marry Rev. Ernest William Lunn Martin who was Warden and Chaplain of St Stephen's College Stanley.

In John Stericker's book about his experiences in Stanley Internment Camp - "A tear for the dragon", he recounts how "Mr and Mrs Martin were arrested on Christmas morning. They were tied up and placed in a small room where they were molested throughout the day, being continually struck with the butts of rifles on the head, face and legs, and rendered almost unconscious. At nightfall, they were thrust into another small room in which there were four British soldiers and eight Indians. They were tightly bound and left for 36 hours without food and water and were then released". (2)

During the fighting, Marjorie Grindley describes how the bodies were piling up at Tweed Bay Hospital and she recalls Rev. Martin digging graves and burying them. (3)

  

Gerard Heath Lander one time Bishop of Hong Kong and Headmaster of St Paul's College from 1907 to 1920, married firstly to Amy Fletcher (1858-1902) it was the two daughters of this union that married Arthur and Evan Stewart. After Amy died Gerrard Lander married in 1904 to Margaret L Smith (1879-1977). Their union produced three children; one of whom John Gerrard Lander (1907-1941) went on to become an Olympic oarsman. He was working for Asia Petroleum Corporation in HK whilst his wife and child were in the Philippines. John Lander was a member of No 1 Battery HKVDC and was involved in the close-quarter fighting at Stanley and was killed in action in December 1941.  His wife (Betty Lander) and son (Gerry Lander) were interned in Santa Tomas Camp in the Philippines. I had the pleasure to meet Gerry Lander in November 2012  on a visit to the Prison and the grounds of St Stephens College. He recalls being liberated by a flying column of US troops as they blasted their way into the Camp to liberate the internees. Gerry's grandmother Margaret L. Smith also had a strong Hong Kong connection as she was the sister of NL Smith who was formerly Colonial Secretary and Acting Governor. He returned with his daughter Rachel on SS Ulysses which left Hong Kong the day before war broke out, was bombed and straffed by Japanese aircraft and finally sunk by a U-boat off the Carolinas (see my post on SS Ulysses). 

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Sources:  (1) "The Bank Note that never was" by Francis Braun 

                (2) "A tear for the dragon" by John Stericker

                (3)  Taped interview with Marjorie Grindley wife of prison officer and internee at Stanley. 

A Fresh Start, Interrupted by War

The photograph below is of the wedding of George Woods Giffen and Erma Evelyn Hadley at St. Andrew's Church, Kowloon on 27th June 1938.

 Courtesy: Giffen family

George Giffen arrived in Hong Kong, from Britain, in 1933, to work as a reporter for the Hong Kong Telegraph (HKT). The HKT was owned by the company that produced the South China Morning Post (SCMP). At that time, there were four English language daily newspapers, the other two being the China Mail and the Hong Kong Daily Press. The SCMP and HKT were sister newspapers, run from the same office but managed as independent newspapers under the stewardship of General Manager  Ben Wylie. It was Wylie who had interviewed George Giffen in London and offered him the job as a reporter in Hong Kong.

Erma Hadley, a pretty twenty-five-year-old Canadian girl from British Columbia, had saved up, together with her friend Betty Elder, for the trip of a life time to Hong Kong where they hoped to find work.  They arrived in 1934 and Erma got a job as a secretary. She and George met at a beach party held in a mat-shed bathing hut at one of popular beaches along Castle Peak Road. They married four years later. The wedding marked a high point of one of the happiest periods of their young lives. They had arrived separately in Hong Kong to make a fresh start after, what had been for both of them, difficult periods in their early lives.

The wedding took place against the backdrop of war in China and impending conflict in Europe and Asia. It took place just a year after the so-called Marco Polo Bridge incident (1937) which was widely seen as a pretext, engineered by Japanese militarists in Manchuria, to wage war on the rest of China. The wedding took place six months after the 'Rape of Nanking' and in the same year that Japanese troops captured Canton and arrived menacingly on the border of Hong Kong. It would be another year before Britain and France declared war on Germany in September 1939 and, two years later in December 1941, Japan attacked Hong Kong, Malaya, Philippines and the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour, widening hostilities on a global scale.

George was in Hong Kong when war began. At the time, he was the Editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph. Erma had returned to Canada in November 1939. George took long leave in February 1940 to join Erma in Canada. George had joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corp (HKVDC) in 1934 and was under military obligation to return to Hong Kong as well as having responsibilities towards his employer. He returned to Hong Kong in June 1940 on the Empress of Asia after his long leave but without seeing his daughter Dianne, who was born in Canada in October 1940.

In July 1940, at a time of increased tension when war with Japan was considered imminent, the Hong Kong Government issued a Compulsory Evacuation Order, under which British women and children were required to evacuate Hong Kong. Only those women in essential services were allowed to remain.   Some 3,500 women and children were hurriedly evacuated to Manila with most going on to Australia. After the state of tension reduced and nothing happened, there was considerable protest from the wives who wanted to return and from the so-called bachelor husbands who held vociferous meetings demanding that their wives be allowed to come back. The new military commander, Major-General Christopher Maltby, and the new Governor, Sir Mark Young, both arrived in 1941 to take up their duties, and, in order to set an example, they came without their wives and children. When war broke out in Hong Kong, George was relieved  that Erma and Dianne were safe in Canada.

Historian Brian Edgar, whose own parents were caught up in the war in Hong Kong and incarcerated at Stanley Internment Camp, found a reference to the wedding of George and Erma in the Hong Kong Daily Press for 28th June 1938 which I have summarized below. 

"A pretty wedding took place at St Andrew's Church yesterday afternoon when Miss Erma Evelyn Hadley, formerly of British Columbia, became the bride of Mr George Woods Giffen, a member of the editorial staff of the South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Telegraph. The ceremony was conducted by the Very Rev. John Leonard Wilson, Dean of St John's Cathedral. The organ was played by Mr Rupert Baldwin. The King of Love was sung by soloist Mr A. J. Gwyther. 

The bride entered the church on the arm of Mr T. Parkinson, by whom she was 'given away.' The bridesmaid was Miss Winifred Lawson and little Ann Wilson acted as flower girl. Miss M. Clarke acted as Matron of Honour and wore a dress of white lace. Mr L. S. Le Gay Brereton was best man. Following the church ceremony, a reception was held at Kingsville (Hotel) in Carnavon Road, Kowloon."

The Hong Kong Telegraph for 2nd July 1938 shows the same photograph but with a wider angle and names all the people in the wedding group.

Courtesy: Giffen family

Reading left to right are Miss M. Clark, the Matron of Honour;  Mr T. M. Parkinson, who gave away the bride; Mrs Mackechnie;  George, the groom; Erma, the bride; Mr Mackechnie;  Miss Anne Wilson, the flower girl; Miss Winifred Lawson, the bridesmaid; and Mr L. S. Le Gay Brereton, the best man. 

In the photograph below, we can see bride and groom emerging from the church, followed by the best man and the bridesmaid and, in the background, we can just about make out Miss Clark and Mr Parkinson.  

Courtesy: Giffen family

Let's turn our attention to the people who make up the wedding group, both those in the main photograph and those referred to in the newspaper article. The main photograph is so clear, we could almost be there like spectators, hidden only by the ether of time. I want to invite you to join me, as we journey through time to discover something more about the people at this wedding, their lives and times.

The Groom -  George Giffen (4/3/1911 - 23/12/2006)

George Woods Giffen was born on 4th March 1911 in the market town of Dorking in the county of Surrey. He was born to Constance ('Connie') Nellie Giffen, who was in domestic service. His father was Charles Woods, a footman in the household where Constance had worked. Constance had to labour long hours and had limited means and, as a result, George had a difficult childhood during which he spent much of his early years being fostered out.  He was bright, however, and won a scholarship to the Ernest Bailey Grammar School in Matlock, Derbyshire. After leaving school, he became a journalist, starting with the Matlocks Weekly and moving up later to the Derbyshire Times. He then moved to East London where he worked for the East Ham Mail and the Barking Gazette.

He had responded to an advert to work as a reporter in Hong Kong and, shortly after joining the Barking Gazette, he was interviewed at the Strand Palace Hotel by Ben Wylie, the General Manager of the SCMP/HKT Group. The opportunity to travel to the Far East was irresistible and at the age of twenty-two, George sailed for Hong Kong  from the Port of London on 21st April 1933 on the Japanese liner the Suwa Maru. The ship was sunk some ten years later by an American submarine at Wake Island during the Pacific War.

SS Suwa Maru (Courtesy: www.delcampe.net)

I can see George's name on the handwritten passenger manifest. His address is given as 79 Cecil Avenue, Barking. He met his mother briefly before embarking on his adventure of traveling to the other side of the world. Neither knew that they would never meet again as he never returned to England and Constance died in 1941.

When George arrived in Hong Kong, he found reasonably-priced accommodation at the YMCA and, like many other young men at that time, he joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC). He served in the ANZAC Coy which was made up principally from Australians and New Zealanders based in Hong Kong. Although British, George joined the ANZAC Coy to be with friends and colleagues, many of whom were Australian. The Editor of SCMP, Henry Ching was an Australian Chinese. George's best man at the wedding, Lionel Le Gay Brereton, was Australian, as were several other colleagues from SCMP and HKT, including Norman Stockton, Richard Cloake, Stewart Gray and Arthur Scholes. The photographs below show George training with the Vickers Medium Machine Gun and wearing an Australian style slouch hat that would have been worn by members of the ANZAC Coy.

George in the foreground acting as No. 2 on the Vickers Gun (Courtesy: Giffen family)

After the ANZAC Coy was disbanded in 1935, George transferred to a Machine Gun Coy, most likely No. 1 Coy.

George Giffen at work (Courtesy:  Giffen family)

George and Erma married at St Andrew's Church in Kowloon. The reception was held at the Kingsville Hotel in Carnarvon Road. They initially lived in an apartment near the Lower Terminus of the Peak Tram. George continued his military training in the HKVDC. However he was transferred from the 'combatant group' to the 'key post group'  late in 1941. He was an editor  on the Hong Kong Telegraph and replaced Stewart Gray as the Editor when Gray departed on leave for Australia on one of the last ships to leave Hong Kong on 7th December 1941. As a member of the 'key-post' group, George was required to stay at his civil post as such roles were considered essential for the functioning of the commercial life of the Colony.

The Japanese invaded Hong Kong on 8th December 1941. After a week of fighting on the Mainland, the British withdrew to the Island fortress and by Saturday 13th December the last British troops had been evacuated from the Mainland in an operation that was tantamount to a mini-Dunkirk. Thereafter, the Island was heavily bombed and shelled as a prelude to the Japanese landings on the north shore of the Island between North Point and Shau Kei Wan on the night of 18th/19th December. During the period of hostilities, one bomb struck the Wyndham Street offices of the SCMP/HK Telegraph and another landed in On Lan Street almost opposite. The editorial staff and management continued to produce a daily newspaper throughout the fighting up until the Christmas Day surrender of British forces. The battle for Hong Kong had been short, bloody and brutal.

George and other members of the editorial staff of the SCMP and HK Telegraph had been 'camping out' at the Wyndham Street office for much of the period of fighting. After the British surrender, the Japanese took over the Wyndham Street offices and printed the Japanese-owned Hong Kong News. A few days, later British, American and Dutch civilians were rounded up for internment. George Baxter from United Press recalls in his memoirs that on 4th January they were notified to report to Murray Parade Ground for internment.

"The Editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph George Giffen had been at my apartment (in Duddell Street) most of the afternoon, and had been gone only a few minutes when he returned with a proof copy of an order which was to appear in the next morning's Hong Kong News, the Japanese sheet which supplanted all the English language newspapers I returned to the office with him and secured some snatch copies as well as verified the fact with the Japanese Editor."  

George and the other editorial staff turned up at Murray Parade Ground and were marched to the western area of town where they were locked up in cheap boarding houses, many of which had been brothels or short-time hotels. George was incarcerated with his colleagues in the Tong Fong Boarding House. On George's floor they had 142 people including men, women and children with only two squat-type toilets. The cubicles were crowded with four or five internees in a cubicle suited at best for two. The cubicles were dirty and vermin-infested. The internees were given very little food. After a few weeks, they were moved by ferry to Stanley Internment Camp where George remained until liberation.

In August 1945, George Giffen and Ben Wylie were among the first to leave Stanley Camp to try and take the newspaper back from the Japanese and re-start production of their newspaper. This was an uncertain and dangerous period between the Japanese surrender and the arrival of British forces. They proceeded to their old offices in Wyndham Street where they were joined by Henry Ching, physically weakened from the hardship he had endured. As a Eurasian with a Chinese father and Australian mother, he had not been interned but had struggled to survive in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong by selling personal items and household items to buy food. The three of them set about relaunching their newspaper. The first edition on 30th August 1945 was a one-page news-sheet with the headline "Fleet Entering."

In Stanley Camp, George was billeted in Block 8 which was the main building of St Stephen's College.    He became good friends with Louise Mary Gill, known as 'Billie,' whom he had met before the war through the writer Emily Hahn.

Billie, born in 1916, was ethnically Chinese and had been raised in Shanghai in a Eurasian family with an English father, a Postal Commissioner, and a Chinese mother. After being educated in English schools in Shanghai, Billie worked for Reuters and a literary magazine called T'ien Hsia and was seconded to the Mayor  of Shanghai after the Japanese attacked Shanghai in 1937. When Shanghai fell, Billie fled to Hong Kong with her colleagues and they worked for the Chinese Government Information Office in Hong Kong.

Billie Gill (Courtesy: Ian Gill)

In January 1940, she married Arthur Robert Hurst Gill (known as 'Paddy'), an Irish Warrant Officer in the Royal Army Ordnance Corp and they had a son, Brian, born later that year. In early March/April  1940,  Paddy Gill was posted to Britain while Billie remained with her son in Hong Kong.

In Stanley Internment Camp, Billie and Brian, now eighteen-months-old, were billeted in Bungalow B, a former teacher's bungalow close to the main school building. In May 1944, friends of Billie took Brian to Tweed Bay, where, in a tragic mishap, he drowned in a fresh water pool behind the beach. He was just short of his fourth birthday.

During the grief-stricken months that followed for Billie, George proved a stalwart friend, supporting her when she fainted and writing a poem in memory of Brian.

George's poem offered solace to Billie. (Courtesy: Ian Gill)

Their relationship deepened and, when Billie found out in mid-1945 that she was pregnant, it was a happy event. George wrote a poem to the "unborn baby of my unwed wife" for Billie's 29th birthday on June 14th. He also scrounged around for wood to make a cradle.

The war's end in August 1945, however, saw George moving to town while Billie waited in Camp. He wrote to say he was sorry he couldn't get away. On September 17th, Billie boarded the SS Empress of Australia for UK. However, the doctor told her she would need a Caesarian and, in Manila harbour, she was transferred by a small craft to the SS Mount Maunganui, a converted New Zealand hospital ship. Her son Ian was born in Lower Hutt hospital, near Wellington, New Zealand, on 25th October, 1945. George sent a telegram of congratulations.

After six months helping to get the newspaper up and running, George returned to Canada in 1946. He met his daughter Dianne, now nearly six-years-old, for the first time. In December 1947, Erma gave birth to their second daughter, Linda.

The Bride  -  Erma Evelyn Hadley (11/9/1909 - 15/4/1998)

Erma was born in Alert Bay, British Columbia on 11th September 1909. She lived with her family at Lasqueti Island on the east coast of Vancouver Island until she was eleven-years-old when she and her mother Emma moved to Victoria. Erma took a course to acquire secretarial skills and continued to live and work in Victoria. She and her friend Betty Elder saved money to buy a passage to Hong Kong. They sailed from Vancouver to San Francisco and then across the Pacific  to Hong Kong via Shanghai. The two adventurous young Canadian women arrived in Hong Kong in 1934, one year after George.

Erma was initially employed as a stenographer/secretary by Mr Henry Buxton, a merchant. Henry Buxton served in the HKVDC and was killed when Japanese troops over-ran his battery. In a double tragedy, his wife Alberta was raped and killed by Japanese soldiers when they broke into the hospital at St Stephen's College, Stanley where she worked as a nurse. After Henry Buxton's business experienced a slowdown, Erma left and was employed by the Hong Kong Government, working for Commander G.F. Hole, RN (Rtd) who at the time was Harbour Master. He was also a Member of LEGCO. Erma's friend Betty was employed as a secretary by Thorneycroft Co. Ltd.

After the War

George, Erma and their two daughters settled down in Vancouver where George worked as a journalist on various newspapers. In 1958, George and Erma moved to the Canadian capital, Ottawa in Ontario, for George to take up a job with the Department of Agriculture in the Information division (what would today be called Public Relations). He retired in 1971 at the age of sixty and they moved back to British Columbia. George built a house on Denman Island where, in unspoiled countryside, he and Erma lived during their retirement.

Billie Gill joined the United Nations in Shanghai, starting a long career that ended with her being Assistant to the Personal Representative of the Secretary-General at the long-running disarmament conference in Geneva, Switzerland. After her retirement in 1976, Billie was awarded the M.B.E. for services to the United Nations.

In 1985, Ian, who was working in Singapore as a journalist, took his first trip to Canada and made friends with a man in Montreal who helped him find his father on Denman Island.

After a warm phone call to his father, Ian returned to Canada soon afterwards to meet George and Erma on Denman and Dianne and Linda at Victoria. Ian describes how he felt on finding the other side of his family.

"I discovered the missing pieces of my genetic puzzle and acquired another family, including two sisters. Dianne told me I was the son George had always wanted while she and Linda gained a brother." 

Remarkably, it was found that George and Ian had not only pursued the same career path but had worked in newspapers close to each other in England and had both wound up on newspapers in Hong Kong.

George Giffen & Erma with their daughters,  Dianne and Linda and Ian on Denman Island in 1997
 (Source: Giffen family)

George and Erma continued their long marriage until Erma died aged eighty-eight in 1998. George passed away aged ninety-five on 23rd December, 2006. Ian helped produce the obituary that appeared in the South China Morning Post following George's  death.

"I attended the memorial service for George in Vancouver on 6th January, 2007, where I had been invited to give a eulogy. I handed out copies of the SCMP obituary and  George’s family, who knew little of his pre-Canadian life, was amazed and proud to learn of his exciting life on the other side of the world over 60 years earlier."

The Wedding Group

The Best Man  -  Lionel Schnachner Le Gay Brereton (9/9/1914 - 25/4/1979)

He was best man at the wedding. In the photographs, he looks slim, earnest and even a little glum.  He was the son of John Le Gay Brereton (1871-1933) a well-known and distinguished Australian professor of English Literature at the University of Sydney as well as being a writer and poet of some acclaim. Lionel became a well known reporter in later life and I imagine he was on the staff of SCMP or one of the other newspapers in Hong Kong when he attended George's wedding. As an Australian, he might also have served with George in the ANZAC Coy, HKVDC.  He was married at the time of the wedding to Elaine Moffitt and they had a son, Christopher, born in November 1938. He appears to have left Hong Kong before war broke out. He and Elaine had two more children Diane and Jeremy.

The Bridesmaid  -  Winifred ('Winnie') Lawson

She was a close friend of Erma in Hong Kong but other than that we know little about her. Her family were long term residents of Hong Kong. Her father William Lawson was a Master Mariner. The family appears to have left Hong Kong before war started. There is a record of her sailing from London to Shanghai in January 1940. She gives her address as 14, Clarence Road, Dundee and her occupation as stenographer. She was born in 1909 and was twenty-nine-years old at the time of the wedding. George's daughter Dianne recalls visiting Winnie with her mother during a trip to Scotland in the 1960s. Apparently, she had been jilted at the altar and never recovered. She never married and when Erma and Dianne visited her in Dundee, she was living alone in an old stone cottage.

The Flower Girl  -  Anne Wilson

She was the flower girl. Nothing else is known about her. She does not appear to have been in Hong Kong at the outbreak of war in December 1941. She might have been evacuated in July 1940.

Giving away the Bride  -  Mr Tom Parkinson 

The bride was given away by Mr Tom M. Parkinson. There was a Thomas Parkinson born in 1889 who was interned in Stanley Camp 1942-1945 and this could well be the same person. He would have been aged around fifty at the time of the wedding. The person depicted in the wedding photo looks to be in the fifty-years-old range. The Thomas Parkinson in Stanley Camp was a retired Accountant. George recalls that Tom Parkinson was a Regimental Sergeant Major in the HKVDC.

Tom Parkinson (centre) with Erma Hadley (Courtesy: Giffen family)

Matron of Honour  -  Miss M Clark

The wedding report describes her as 'Miss'. I note there was a Margaret Clark in Stanley Camp though    she was denoted as 'Mrs' on the Stanley Camp Log. This could be an error and since the age fits, it could be the same person. 

The Organist  -  Rupert Baldwin

In 1927, he is described as the  Organist and Choir Master for St Andrew's Church.  The choir achieved a good reputation under his guidance. He wrote the school song in 1938 for the London Missionary Society-founded Ying Wa School. I assume he might have been music teacher at the school. He does not appear to have been in Hong Kong in WW2 and his name does not appear on the Stanley Camp list.

The Soloist  -  Mr A. J. Gwyther

He was the soloist who sung The King of Heaven at the wedding. As far as I can tell, he was not in Hong Kong when war started in December 1941 and I have not been able to find any information about him.

The Officiating Priest  -  Rev. John Leonard Wilson

He was known by his middle name of Leonard. Leonard Wilson and his wife Mary and infant daughter Susan arrived in Hong Kong in late 1934. He became  Dean of St John's Cathedral. In 1940 he travelled with the evacuated women and children from Hong Kong via Manila to Australia. In 1941, he was appointed Bishop of Singapore and was there when the Japanese captured Malaya and the once-thought impregnable fortress of Singapore. His wife and three children managed to get away to Australia in an overcrowded ship.  Initially, he was allowed to continue his ministry but after a while was interned at Changi Camp. In 1943 he was arrested by the Kempei-tai. He was accused of being a spy, interrogated and tortured. After the war he became Dean of Manchester and later Bishop of Birmingham. He passed away aged seventy-two in August 1970.

Mr & Mrs MacKechnie

We know very little about about Mr and Mrs Mackechnie. Neither was wearing carnations, and so they were not officiating guests. Perhaps they had a role as witnesses. We don't know, but presumably they were important guests since they were included in the wedding group photograph. Dianne, George's eldest daughter says Erma met them on the ship to Hong Kong and they might have been American  as they boarded at San Francisco. They travelled on the  MV Jutlandia, a Danish vessel, built in 1912 for the East Asiatic Company, which sailed from San Francisco on 7th February 1934.

MV Jutlandia (Source: www.clydesite.co.uk)

Dianne also believes they may have been Erma's friends from church. Erma was a devout Christian Scientist.  Perhaps the Mackechnies were returning Hong Kong residents. There were a number of people with the Mackechnie name in pre-war Hong Kong. There was a John Campbell Mackechnie (1/8/1871 - 30/11/1940). He would have been sixty-seven at the time of the wedding - but there is nothing definite to link  him to the Mr and Mrs  Mackechnie in the wedding photograph.

The Gill and Giffen families today

George and Erma's daughters Dianne and Linda both became teachers and have several children and grandchildren. After some twenty years as a journalist, Ian had a twenty-year career with the Asian Development Bank in Manila. He and his wife Jean have two children, whose middle names include Giffen. Ian has visited his Canadian family several times, the latest occasion in April 2014.

Ian Gill's family with his younger sister Linda Sverdrup (centre)  - 17th April 2014

The families of Ian Gill and his sister Dianne Fowler in Vancouver - 10th April 2014

…………….

Acknowledgements

My thanks to George's children Ian Gill, Dianne Fowler and Linda Sverdrup for the photographs and family information and to Ian for helping me put this story together. Thanks are also due to Brian Edgar for locating the press article describing the wedding and for helping me with information and queries over the years.