John Christian Boldero

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

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

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

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

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

Battlecruiser HMS Inflexible

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Captain Bill Wiseman (from the book)

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

HMS Cicala in dry dock (Writer's Collection)

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

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

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

Stanley Internment Camp Notes from Bill Wiseman's book

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hong Kong Daily Press 19 Aug. 1941

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

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

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

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

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

POW Record (National Archives)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Major de Vere Hunt (Source: Dragon School Memorials)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the battlefields of Hong Kong (1) 

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

The route towards the Twins

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

Japanese 6.5 rounds and chargers for loading. 

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

Courtesy: Stuart Woods

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

Courtesy of Stuart Woods

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

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

Sourced from internet

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

On the battlefields of Hong Kong (2)

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

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

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

Our route is shown in black

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

Two-Inch Mortar bomb cap

Mortar bomb and screw-off cap 

Stanley Internment Camp -Visit to grounds of the former civilian internment camp

I accompanied Geoff Emerson (Author of Hong Kong Internment, 1942-1945) and Nic Snaith and his family into the former grounds of Stanley Civilian Internment Camp. Nic Snaith's mother, Beryl June Booker (known as June), was incarcerated in Stanley Camp together with her parents and sister during WW2. The internment camp was located in two main areas: (1) in the grounds of  St Stephen's College, and (2) in the grounds of Stanley Prison. In the prison area  the internees were crowded into former prison officers accommodation. In the college the school buildings, classrooms and staff bungalows were used to accommodate internees.

The writer and Geoff Emerson at St Stephen's College

The Snaith family at St Stephen's College

In 1941, St Stephens College was known as the "Eton of the East,"  it was founded to provide English public school type education for Chinese children. The main school building can be seen in the background of the above photographs. In December 1941 it was being used as a temporary military hospital. The fighting raged all around the college on 24/25 December. On Christmas morning the Japanese broke into the hospital and in an orgy of appalling violence bayoneted patients in their beds and raped a number of the European and Chinese nurses. Three of the European nurses were raped, mutilated and killed.

Nic's grandfather on his mother's side was Frederick Edward Evelyn Booker who was born in 1890. He joined the Army in 1904 as a boy soldier, and served in South Africa just after the Boer War had  ended. In 1911 he joined the Hong Kong Police. When WW1 started in 1914 he returned to England from Hong Kong to fight for his country. He was enrolled as a Sgt in the King's Royal Rifles. He was wounded during the Battle of Loos in 1915. The following year he was commissioned as a subaltern in the Somerset Light Infantry after being selected for, and completing an officer training course.  He married Daisy (née Stubs) in 1917 in Esher. He survived the carnage of WW1, and returned to Hong Kong in 1919 with his new wife and daughter, Joy, to resume his career with the Hong Kong Police. His marriage to Daisy produced five children including two sets of twins.

Joy Booker (1918)

Neville Booker (1919)

Noel Booker (1919)

Beryl June Booker (1921)

Maureen Dorothea Booker (1921)

When war came in 1941 Frederick, Daisy and the two twin daughters (June and Maureen) by then twenty-years-old were interned in Stanley Camp. At that time Frederick was a Police Superintendent. He was incarcerated in Block 12 (Indian Quarters) with other police officers. These were quarters used by Indian wardens and their families in pre-war days. Of the original seven blocks that made up the Indian Quarters only three remain today. They are inside the Correctional Services compound and not easily accessible to outsiders. We had lunch at the former Prison Officers Club which is still used as as a Correctional Services Officers Club. We then went to see Block 12 (see the photo below) which is still used as accommodation for Correctional Services Staff and families.

Block 12 - Indian Quarters

Prison Officers Club (wartime) with Indian Quarters in background

The photograph of the Prison Officers Club (above) was taken just after the war ended. One can see the large white letters 'PW' (denoting prisoners of war) on what was the bowling green. Today the area that formed the bowling green is used as a swimming pool. The building on the left is the Dutch block holding Dutch and Norwegian internees. In the background you can see the seven blocks that made up the Indian Quarters. The three on the left remain, whilst the four on the right have been demolished and replaced with high rise accommodation for Correctional Services staff families. In the distance you can see Cape D'Aguilar across Tai Tam Bay. The gap in the hills was known as Windy Gap.

Daisy and her twin daughters were incarcerated in Bungalow B. This building is part of St Stephen's College and likewise still remains. We were were able to wander around the outside of the bungalow but we were not able to see inside it. We did however go to a similar bungalow (Bungalow A) which now accommodates a small heritage museum. The nearby Bungalow C was accidentally bombed by American naval aircraft in January 1945 and fourteen internees were killed and many wounded. Today the bungalow is the home of the college Chaplain.

Bungalow 'B' and garage (a family lived in the garage)

Frederick and Daisy's son Noel served in the RAF in UK during WW2. His twin brother Neville served in the HKVDC and was incarcerated in POW Camp. Joy, the oldest daughter was already married and had been evacuated with her daughter Susan in 1940 following the Compulsory Evacuation Ordinance. Daisy and her two daughters were VAD Nurses and were therefore exempt from the compulsory evacuation of women and children in 1940. After the war ended Maureen married Mike Carruthers in Lockerbie, Scotland, in January 1946. He was an employee of HSBC and had served with distinction as Commanding Officer of the HKVDC Armoured Car Platoon. June Booker married Nic's father Arthur Linton Snaith, known as Sammy Snaith, in December 1946 at St John's Cathedral in Hong Kong.

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Following in the footsteps of Colonel Shoji's 230th Infantry Regiment

During the night of Thursday 18th December and the early hours of Friday 19th December 1941 the Japanese Army landed on the North Shore of Hong Kong Island. They landed two battalions of infantry at North Point under Colonel Shoji who commanded the 230th Infantry Regiment, two battalions at Tai Koo under Colonel Doi commanding the 228th Infantry Regiment, and two battalions around Shau Kei Wan under Colonel Tanaka commanding the 229th Infantry Regiment. Each battalion  consisted of approximately 1,000 men. In addition to the infantry -  Artillery, Engineers, Gendarmes and various other units were landed. Six thousand Japanese front-line infantry plus other support troops against one Indian infantry battalion, the 5th Battalion of the 7th Rajput Regiment commanded by Lt-Col Cadogan-Rowlinson. The result was inevitable. The Rajput battalion was largely destroyed on the north shore and the Japanese Army moved rapidly inland capturing the high ground. 

Colonel Shoji landed at North Point, by passed the Hong Kong Electric Power Station which held out until the following morning, and established his regimental HQ near the reservoir on the hills behind North Point. The pre-war map below shows the area around North Point and the reservoir. The map also shows the track known as Sir Cecil's Ride which the 230th Regiment followed to Wong Nai Chung Gap.

The North Point landing ground and the reservoir

The second map extract (below) shows the wider area to provide more context. The areas marked in red are restricted British military areas. Colonel Shoji was ordered to move towards Jardines Lookout and capture Wong Nai Chung Gap (WNC Gap). In fact almost the whole Japanese army and all six infantry battalions were converging on WNC Gap on Friday 19th December. WNC Gap can be seen on the map below in the centre of the Island and between the "G" ad the "K" in HONG KONG. This post is not about the invasion of the Island or the battle at WNC Gap and Jardines Lookout,  it's a photo composition of a re-enactment of the route taken by Colonel Shoji during the early hours of Friday 19th December from North Point to Wong Nai Chung Gap.

Pre-war map of Hong Kong Island showing the route taken by Col. Shoji

It was a sunny October day in Hong Kong and I had wanted  to follow the route taken by Shoji's troops along Sir Cecil's Ride (the Ride) which they accessed from near their Regimental HQ at the reservoir. I had often walked the Ride near Wong Nai Chung Gap but I was not familiar with the section leading from the north side of Jardines Lookout towards North Point.

The photo below shows the Chinese International School and in the  centre background is Braemar Hill Mansions, which together with Choi Sai Woo Park was built over the filled-in reservoir known as Braemar Hill Reservoir. Colonel Shoji who first saw it at night described it as a lake.

The site of the wartime reservoir

The reservoir (which was also known as Choi Sai Woo Reservoir) was built by Swire (Tai Koo Sugar Co Ltd) in 1894. A water gate with this date still remains on the northern side of the reservoir in what is now Choi Sai Woo Park.  The reservoir was purchased by Cheung Kong Group (Li Ka Shing) in 1975 and filled in to create Braemar Hill Mansions, a luxury private apartment complex on the hillside overlooking North Point and Tai Koo. The park was built some years later. The photo below taken in 1970s shows the reservoir before it was filled in and on the western side the rocky hill that I was standing on above Sir Cecil's Ride and looking down on North Point.

Braemar Hill Reservoir (Source: Flickr.com)

A Cathay Pacific Dakota crashed on the hillside to the south of the reservoir in 1949 killing all twenty-three people onboard. The plane apparently hit the 20ft wall on the north side of the reservoir. The photo below shows the crash site and the reservoir to the right.

Plane crash on hillside above the reservoir (Source: Wikiswire.com)

The photo below shows the water gate, hidden by the foliage, and bearing the date 1894 on ramparts to the north of the reservoir site.

The Water Gate showing the date 1894 in Choi Sai Woo Park

The photo below shows the entrance to Choi Sai Woo Park. It is not very large, rather long and narrow but well maintained and a quiet oasis amongst the high rise buildings and the myriad of drivers waiting outside the Chinese International School. The care-taker lady at the entry box not only spoke very good English but knew something of its war history and the plane crash.

Choi Sai Woo Park with its hidden history.

In the next photo I am on the high ground and paths lead up from where the reservoir was situated  to where I am standing on a hillock beside Sir Cecil's Ride. I am looking down on to North Point where the 230th Regiment got ashore, and overcame resistance from 'D' Coy 5th/7th Rajputs whose commanding officer Captain Newton was killed in action.

On a bolder strewn hillock near Sir Cecil's Ride  looking don onto North Point

I think the boulder strewn outcrop (above) which overlooks North Point and in 1941 overlooked Braemar Hill Reservoir is the same rocky outcrop depicted in the war time photograph below showing Japanese troops against a backdrop of Hung Hom Wan.

In the next photo I have turned round 180 degrees to look at the direction taken by the Japanese Army. They headed south along the Ride towards Jardines Lookout which can be seen in the centre of the photo. They headed off at around 0200 to 0300 hours.  When they got to the base of the north face of Jardines Lookout they sent one of two infantry companies up to the summit from different directions whilst the main bulk continued anti-clockwise around Jardines Lookout reaching Wong Nai Chung Gap (WNC Gap) just before dawn on Friday 19th December 1941.

The route taken by 230th Infantry Regiment towards Jardines Lookout and WNC Gap

The photo below is taken from the Ride looking west. Immediately below is the Causeway Bay area. the 2nd Bn 14th Punjab Regiment attacked up this slope on Friday 19th but were facing overwhelming numbers and were pushed back with heavy casualties. Large numbers of Japanese troops, supplies, artillery and support troops were using the Ride as a main supply route to WNC Gap which had been captured that morning. There were still troops holding out at  'D' Coy shelters opposite West Brigade HQ and at the two pillboxes (PBs 1 and 2) on the western slopes of Jardines Lookout.

The view from Sir Cecil's Ride near North Point looking west 

The next photo below shows a view of the Sir Cecil's Ride along which two battalions of the 230th Regiment advanced during the early hours before dawn to attack WNC Gap. They ran into resistance from three FDLs (Forward Defended Localities) manned by No. 3 Coy HKVDC, and they ran into resistance from Canadian troops (Winnipeg Grenadiers) on Jardines Lookout.

Sir Cecil's Ride

The photo below shows Jardines Lookout and I will use it to show the Canadian positions.  Lt Birkett's platoon ('HQ' Coy Winnipeg Grenadiers) with Sgt. Tom Marsh as  2i/c held the crest. Their platoon had ascended the western slope above PBs 1 and 2 and reached  the Artillery Observation Post (AOP) on the crest at dawn just as one company of Japanese infantry arrived from the north. The Canadian troops put up a gallant fight  having been blasted by mortar and swept with machine-gun fire until they were eventually overrun.   'A' Coy WG were to the left of the crest (I think they reached the hillock visible to the left and not Mt Butler or other locations described elsewhere) and were pushed back to Stanley Gap. Further left in the col between Mt Butler and Jardines Lookout a platoon commanded by Lt Charles French was positioned. They were overran and destroyed.

The north face of Jardines Lookout from Sir Cecil's Ride

This was a walk through history. I had never followed the route from North Point. I was wearing sports gear and moving fast and to my surprise it took me less than hour to get to WNC Gap from the hill above the site of the former reservoir. Colonel Shoji's battalions came along this track in the dark , carrying equipment and weapons. They would have taken longer and would have been held up by having to overcome the FDLs (referred to as JLO 1, 2 and 3) and other section posts close to WNC Gap. It probably took them between 2 and 3 hours to reach WNC Gap.

The loss of WNC Gap was crucial. Counterattacks were made throughout Friday 19th and through to 21st but all of them failed to regain the Gap. This was the beginning of the end. It was only a matter of time. The Allied troops now had to fight a losing battle, and hold on for as long as they could, which they did, until the surrender on 25th December 1941. 

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