HMS Glorious - The controversy around the tragic sinking of HMS Glorious - June 1940

At a recent lunch in Hong Kong, I found myself sitting next to a friend who had served in the Royal Navy during his national service. I  knew he had an interest in naval history.  I had just been reading about the Battle for Norway and the tragic loss of the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and her two escort destroyers, HMS Ardent and HMS Acasta, in June 1940. It turned out that he had a personal connection with HMS Glorious. His father, a naval officer, had served on Glorious and lost his life at the time of the sinking. She was sunk by the German pocket battleships, sometimes referred to as battlecruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. I was curious to find out more about this incident, and in so doing came to learn about the controversy that has surrounded this tragic naval incident which resulted in the death of 1,531 officers and men from the three warships. 

   HMS Glorious had started life as a First World War battlecruiser. She was launched in 1916. She was one of three battlecruisers belonging to the Courageous class which included Glorious, Courageous and Furious. In 1924 Glorious began the conversion process to an aircraft carrier. The conversion was completed in 1930. The three battlecruisers were modified in compliance with the Washington Naval Treaty. The treaty, signed in 1922, was an early attempt at arms control by restricting the tonnage and gun calibre of capital ships possessed by the major powers. The treaty allowed up to 66,000 tons of existing ships to be converted into aircraft carriers. The 15-inch gun turrets were removed, a flight deck was built over the main deck with a huge 2-deck aircraft hangar constructed below the armoured flight deck. The gun turrets from HMS Glorious were later installed on the battleship HMS Vanguard. 

Glorious refitted as an aircraft carrier (Source: IWM)

Courageous before conversion  (Source: IWM)

                                                  An aircraft taking off from Glorious (Source: n/k)

After completing sea trials, Glorious served in the Mediterranean. When war broke out in 1939, she was dispatched to the Indian Ocean to participate in the hunt for the German surface raider Admiral Graf Spee. The Graf Spee was later scuttled off Montevideo, Uruguay. Glorious returned to the Mediterranean from where she was sent to join the Home Fleet.

Glorious at Valetta Harbour Malta (Source: Times Malta Feb. 2015)

In April 1940 she was deployed with HMS Ark Royal to support the British landings in Norway.  She ferried aircraft from Scapa Flow to the Norwegian coast. These included a squadron of RAF Gloster Gladiators, several Walrus amphibians and a squadron of Hawker Hurricanes. These aircraft took off from Glorious's flight deck and landed at airfields ashore. Hurricanes had never before taken off from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Glorious also carried her own Sea Gladiators and Skuas. These were used to support military operations ashore. 

RAF Gloster Gladiator (Source: Wikipedia)

Skuas on the flight deck of HMS Ark Royal  (Source: IWM)

HMS Glorious: Photo was taken in May 1940 from the flight deck of Ark Royal  (Source: Wikipedia)

The photograph above, taken by a member of the crew of HMS Ark Royal, is thought to be the last photograph of Glorious before she sank. The Norwegian operations proved unsuccessful, and in early June a decision was taken to evacuate the troops and aircraft. At the time of the evacuation, Glorious was carrying a reduced number of her own aircraft (nine Sea Gladiators and six Fairy Swordfish) to allow for the embarkation of the RAF Gladiators and Hurricanes. The Hurricanes were landed on the flight deck. It was the first time such aircraft, monoplane fighters, with their higher landing speeds, and without tailhooks had landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier. On Saturday 8 June 1940, Glorious set course for Scapa Flow escorted by the two destroyers HMS Ardent (Lt Cdr John F. Barker) and HMS Acasta (Lt-Cdr. Charles E. Glasfurd). Their smoke was spotted by the German pocket-battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at 1546 hours. The battleships closed in at top speed. At around 1600 hours the German ships were observed by the British vessels. The destroyer HMS Ardent was sent to investigate and determine the identity of the vessels. At 1620 hours Glorious closed up for action stations with her five serviceable Fairey Swordfish readied for take-off. At 1627 hours Gneisenau opened fire on Ardent, and minutes later, at 1630 hours, Scharnhorst also engaged the British destroyer at a range of 15 km. The destroyer, although completely outmatched by the two German battleships gallantly went to the attack even scoring hits on the Scharnhorst from her 4.7-inch guns. The destroyer deployed smoke screens and repeatedly fired her torpedoes, but was sunk at 1725 hours by Scharnhorst's secondary armament. 

   The German battleships engaged Glorious with their main armament at 1632 hours at a range of 24 km. At 1638 hours the Scharnhorst secured a direct hit on the carrier's flight deck. The shell went through the flight deck and exploded in the hangar below starting fires which destroyed some of the aircraft. The carrier's aircraft were unable to take off due to the large hole punctured through the flight deck. At 1658, a shell hit the bridge structure killing and wounding most of the personnel on the bridge, including the commanding officer, Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes. The Executive Officer took command of the stricken ship. The smokescreen deployed by Ardent and Acasta was effective in screening the damaged aircraft carrier. However, at 1720 hours, the smoke dissipated and Glorious came under observed fire from the battleships and was hit in the engine room. The ship lost power and steerage and then developed a list to starboard. The German battleships moved in for the kill firing salvos at close range that finally sunk the aircraft carrier at 1810 hours. HMS Acasta gallantly attacked the Scharnhorst with torpedoes and her 4.7-inch guns. The Scharnhorst was seriously damaged by one of the torpedoes, but the plucky destroyer received numerous direct hits and was sunk at 1820 hours with her guns still blazing. The damaged Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau did not stay to pick up survivors. They were concerned that the British vessels had signalled for assistance and the battleships withdrew at full speed to Trondheim. While heading back, the Gneisenau was damaged by a torpedo fired by the British submarine Clyde. After the damaged battleships returned to Trondheim, the German naval commander, Admiral Marschall, was reprimanded and relieved of his command for disobeying orders and endangering his ships.

   William Smith, a seaman on Glorious, made his way from his action station, the dynamo room below decks,  to the stern after the order to abandon ship had been given. He could see the German battleships and the flash from their guns. He recalled the number of dead and wounded lying on the decks. One marine had lost both his legs,  but when offered help, wanted no assistance to get away, simply saying he did not want to go home like that. 

   For the British, it was one of the worst naval disasters of the Second World War. Approximately 900 men from HMS Glorious took to the water, hanging on to Carley Floats in the freezing temperatures of the North Norwegian Sea. A rescue was not ordered, because seemingly the Royal Navy did not know about the loss of the three ships until it was reported on German commercial radio. More than 1,500 men lost their lives in this appalling tragedy. Only around forty men out of the 900 that had abandoned ship were rescued after spending three days and three nights in, or on, the water. Survivors recalled men quickly dying from exposure and just slipping off the rafts to their deaths. 

   The Carley Float is an odd contraption. The men sit on the flotation ring with their feet in the water or stand in the well with water level up their waist. Others, still in the sea held on to ropes dangling from the sides of the raft. William Smith swam out to a raft, but it was full of men. He could not get on until room was made for him by people dying from the cold. Fred Thornton, a Boy Seaman on Glorious, had manned one of the forward 4.7-inch AA guns. He recalled getting on a raft which had twenty to twenty-five men on it. By the time he was rescued by a Norwegian trawler, there were only two men left. Many of the dead had been left in the well because the survivors were too exhausted to heave them over the side. 

Carley Float schematic (Source: ontheslipway.com)

There was no food or water on the rafts. William Smith recalled that some people drank seawater but those who did soon died. After twelve hours he recalled there were only three men left alive on his raft. Vernon Day, an Aircraft Mechanic, recalled the shell coming through the flight deck and setting fire to the Hurricanes in the hangar. He had got on a Carley Float but was one of those standing in the well until one by one the survivors died, and he was able to get on the rim. Squadron Leader Kenneth Cross, who commanded the RAF s Hurricanes, recalled only a handful of men survived on his raft. On Tuesday 11 June, after three days and three nights on a flimsy raft in Arctic waters, they were picked up by the crew of a Norwegian trawler. There were less than forty survivors picked up from the rafts. Given that the survivors had no food or water, had little clothing, and were wet through,  it is a testimony to human endurance that any survived at all. The trawler took them to the Faroe Islands, and from there, an RN destroyer took them to Rosyth, Scotland. 

   The German crew on the battleships had been amazed to find an aircraft carrier, not at full steam, not in convoy, without spotter aircraft in the air, and with only two escort destroyers. They were impressed by the courage and audacity of the two destroyers.  The commander of Glorious was forty-nine-year-old Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes.  He was a veteran of the First World War. He had been a submariner and had won the DSO, DSC and MiD for gallantry. In one incident he had swum ashore at the Dardanelles with explosives which he used for blowing up an important rail link between Constantinople and Baghdad. 

Captain Hugh D'Oyly-Hughes

Undoubtedly brave, and somewhat enigmatic, he has been described by some as being an authoritarian officer without strong leadership, or man-management skills. It has been said he was an old-fashioned Edwardian type of naval officer. A strict disciplinarian who did not always temper authority with understanding. However, other reports suggested that he was popular with the men on the lower deck, if not with always with his own officers. Although he had learnt to fly, and perhaps because of that, he did not always trust the advice of his senior aviators. Some said he did not see the importance of maintaining regular air patrols and reconnaissance. At one stage he had ordered his Commander (Air), John B. Heath, to attack certain ill-defined ground targets in Norway. Heath objected because of the unsuitability of using Fairy Swordfish for this type of ground attack. D'Oyly-Hughes was not an officer to have his orders questioned or challenged. Of course, Commander Heath should have obeyed the Captain's orders to provide air support for the ground forces. It was an order which had emanated from the Commander-in-Chief. Perhaps it was a clash of character, but the row with his senior aviator had been going on for much longer than this one incident. It also involved Lt-Cdr (Air) Paul Slessor, Heath's second-in-command. Slessor had supported his immediate senior and in so doing had also incurred the wrath of the Captain. PO Dick Leggott described how when he joined Glorious he was taken up to see the Captain who had indicated that he (Leggott) would be of more use to him (the Captain) than these two (referring to nearby Commander Heath and Lt-Cdr Slessor). On return to Scapa Flow from that deployment, the Captain had Commander Heath put ashore and placed under arrest for his refusal to obey orders. As a result, Heath was not aboard when Glorious set out on her final fateful voyage. The Captain intended to institute court-martial proceedings against Heath and presumably Slessor when the carrier returned to base at Scapa Flow. Slessor remained with the ship to take charge of air operations and was one of those who lost their lives following the sinking.

This sinking of these ships and the huge loss of life raised several questions and controversies which have never been satisfactorily answered or resolved. 

Why were the three warships sailing on their own rather than in the main convoy to Scapa Flow?

Captain D'Oyly-Hughes asked permission from Vice Admiral (Aircraft Carriers) Lionel Wells, who was embarked onboard HMS Ark Royal, for Glorious with two destroyers as escort to proceeded independently. The reason given was a shortage of fuel necessitating a lower speed. I assume that Wells accepted this explanation, which sounded plausible, and there had been no intelligence provided about the proximity of German capital ships. 

   However, post-war analysis of fuel usage by Glorious on the voyage from Scapa Flow to Northern Norway suggests that there would have been ample fuel. So either the Captain believed that fuel was in short supply, and it may have been, which was consistent with their reduced boiler usage, or he had another reason to return without waiting for the convoy. Some have suggested it was because the Captain wanted to get back to Scapa Flow to initiate the court-martial proceedings against Commander Heath who had defied him. 

   After the death of D'Oyly-Hughes on Glorious, Commander Heath was released and never charged.  He could not be charged without the Captain or other relevant officers to give evidence. The official story remains the shortage of fuel. However, had the ship returned in convoy it would have been at a lower speed than going solo and would have saved more fuel. Going solo at reduced speed, notwithstanding the two escort destroyers, exposed the aircraft carrier to submarine attack. Her sister ship, HMS Courageous, had been sunk by a submarine in September 1939.

Why was no report or signal made requesting assistance by Glorious or the destroyers? 

HMS Devonshire was the nearest vessel, and the signals personnel on Devonshire reported they had received signals from Glorious indicating sighting of German pocket battleships and their positioning. The Gneisenau had also intercepted the signals from Glorious and had attempted to jam them. There are reports that the messages in Morse code lacked signal strength and were relayed on different frequencies. Vice Admiral John Cunningham on HMS Devonshire claimed that the messages were garbled. The Devonshire was carrying the Norwegian King, Cabinet Ministers and Norwegian gold to England. Was this the reason that Devonshire did not alter course and left the Glorious to her fate? Some reports indicate that a radio silence had been ordered, but others indicate that orders had been given to report any enemy sightings. Common sense would suggest that one would break radio silence to report enemy sightings, especially a sighting of capital ships. Were the messages really garbled? Not according to several members of the crew who were interviewed for the documentary film Secret History. Did Cunningham have orders not to stop in any event? If that was the case, why did he not instruct other naval units to assist Glorious? Why were the Admiralty files marked as closed for one hundred years until 2040? They were recently opened but do not offer much more clarity. If Cunningham had not received the message from Glorious, why did Devonshire increase speed and exercise the main armament? Or was that just a coincidence? It is not clear why the two destroyers did not send out enemy sighted signals, which would be normal procedure rather than assuming somebody else would do so.

Why was HMS Glorious not flying a Combat Air Patrol (CAP)

No aircraft were flying. They were not using the vital 'eyes' that a CAP provides. The CAP, assuming clear weather which was the case, could have spotted the enemy vessels at long range and prevented the loss of these three ships. At least one survivor reported that Captain D'Oyly-Hughes had stated there would be no flying on the way back to Scapa Flow. Some reports say there was not even a lookout in the crows-nest. 

Was the Royal Navy aware of the presence of German battleships in the sea area

In Secret History Professor Harry Hinsley, who was an Intelligence Analyst at Bletchley Park, confirmed that his team were aware that the German pocket battleships had left Kiel and sailed northwards. They were tracking the vessels. However, at this stage in the war, the information they supplied was not fully trusted, and while it reached the Admiralty,  it never got passed all the way up the line.

Summing Up 

It was ill-fortune running into two battleships, but there were a series of mistakes, which had they been avoided may have saved the carrier and her two escorts. If Cunningham had received the signal ungarbled could they have prevented the sinking - probably not, but they would have saved many hundreds of lives of those that had taken to the freezing water. If the report from Bletchley of enemy battleships had been relayed, perhaps Glorious would not have been allowed to detach from the convoy, or at least might have had spotting planes in the air. Mistakes happen in war. We will never know all the answers, and the controversy will no doubt continue. The most important thing is that those who gave their lives, and just as importantly, those who survived against all the odds are still remembered for their service and their gallantry, and they are.

The Glorious - Ardent - Acasta (GLARAC) Association helps keep the memory alive and in June 2019 they arranged for a  plaque, shown below,  to be installed at Plymouth Ho in commemoration of all those who gave their lives in the tragic sinking of HM Ships Glorious,  Ardent and Acasta.

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Patrick Fallon - HKVDC

Patrick Fallon, together with two of his three brothers, served in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) during the Battle for Hong Kong in December 1941. After the Christmas Day capitulation, Patrick and his brothers were incarcerated in POW camps in Hong Kong and Japan.  His father was interned at Stanley Camp with Patrick's sister and one of his brothers. Patrick's Chinese mother was not initially interned and remained at the family home in Kowloon but later she became an inmate at Rosary Hill Red Cross Home established in 1943 for the dependents of British soldiers and internees. The whole family were incarcerated in Japanese prison camps for three-and-a-half years.

     Patrick Fallon as a POW in Japan (Source: Tony Fallon)                         

The story starts with Patrick's father, Christopher Patrick Fallon. He was born in Wicklow, Ireland in March 1888. After initially serving with the Royal Irish Constabulary, he joined the Hong Kong Police Force in November 1912. His Police Number was '140'.  This number would have been worn on his uniform collar. He served in the HK Police for twenty-one years. He was awarded the Merit Medal in 1919. In 1928, he received a commendation from the Governor, Sir Cecil Clementi. By the time he retired in 1933, he had been commended on six occasions and reached the rank of Chief Inspector. After retiring he became a Probation Officer and ran a remand home in Causeway Bay. He married a Chinese lady, Sai Mui Leung. They had four sons, Patrick, John, William and Peter and a daughter Mary. Another daughter, Alice, died during childbirth.

During the Battle for Hong Kong in December 1941, Patrick served in the Field Ambulance, John and Peter served with Field Coy Engineers. Patrick, at nineteen,  was the oldest. His youngest brother, Peter, was only sixteen-years-old and was the second youngest soldier to serve in the HKVDC during the battle.

I had another brother [William] who wanted to volunteer, but they would not let him because there were already three of us joining. I should have recommended this to be a film 'Saving Private Fallon'. During the battle,  I was in action only once, exchanging fire across a long valley in darkness when I fired a maximum of five shots. However, I did come near to death when I was visiting my parents during the fighting while walking along the street. I heard a loud clanging noise and this piece of smouldering shrapnel from an artillery shell landed right in front of me. (Source: Speech by Patrick Fallon at the British Embassy in Tokyo April 2005)

The Royal Engineers together with Field Coy Engineers (HKVDC) were responsible for demolitions at the frontier and on routes leading from the frontier towards the stop line known as the Gin Drinkers Line. The demolitions were carried out on road bridges, cuttings and tunnels. Patrick's brothers were involved in these demolitions before being withdrawn to Hong Kong Island. After the capitulation, the three bothers were incarcerated at Sham Shui Po (SSP) Camp. At SSP Camp, they were on starvation rations, treatment was brutal, and diseases like diphtheria and dysentery were rampant.  

Their father, Christopher, was interned at Stanley Camp together with his seventeen-year-old son, William and his fourteen-year-old daughter Mary. They were billeted in Block 11 which was the former science block of St Stephen's College. Christopher's Chinese wife, Leung Sai Mui, was not interned.   She stayed at the family home at 10, Peking Road in Kowloon. It would have been difficult and dangerous eking out a living in Japanese occupied Hong Kong. Food was in short supply throughout the occupation. She became an inmate at Rosary Hill Red Cross Home in 1943 where at least a meal was provided.  Christopher and his wife remained in Hong Kong after the war. He passed away in 1961 aged seventy-three and was buried at Happy Valley. His wife, Sai Mui Leung, passed away in London aged eighty-seven in 1978.

In September 1942, Patrick, John and Peter were loaded on to the ill-fated Japanese freighter Lisbon Maru as part of the second draft to be shipped to Japan to work as slave labourers in dockyards, mines and factories. They were lucky because they were amongst one hundred POWs who were taken off the ship because it was overloaded. While on passage to Japan, the ship was sunk by an American submarine, not realising that it was carrying British POWs and over 800 POWs lost their lives. In January 1943, just after receiving news from their mother (see the postcard in the photo gallery below), the brothers were shipped to Japan as part of the third draft on the former liner Tatsuta Maru. They worked at the Hitachi Dockyard at Innoshima some thirty miles from Hiroshima. All three brothers made it back home having survived the incarceration in Hong Kong and Japan.

In 2005 at the age of eighty-three Patrick Fallon returned to Japan on a reconciliation trip organised by Keiko Holmes. Keiko Holmes was born in Japan in 1948. She married Paul Holmes in 1969 and later returned to London with her British husband and two children. Paul was killed in a plane crash in 1984. Keiko had become a devoted Christian after her marriage. She remembered the memorial in her home-town of sixteen British POWs who had worked as slave labourers in a nearby copper mine. The memorial which bore the name of each POW was lovingly and respectfully cared for by local civilians even long after the war. This memory, and in grief for her husband, prompted her to set up a charity that would arrange reconciliation trips for former POWs to Japan and other parts of Asia. Many POWs found it difficult to forgive the Japanese for their brutality and still harboured much resentment for the atrocities, killings, beatings and the appalling treatment that they were subjected to in prison camps in Japan and in Japanese occupied territories in Asia. On these trips, the ex-POWs would sometimes meet their former guards and foremen in the factories, docks and mines where they had once been forced to work.

 

Patrick Fallon summed up his thoughts at the time. 

For me I have forgiven but I shall never forget. For others who have been Japanese Prisoners of War it is not so simple and I ask you to respect that as well. (From Patrick's   speech at the British Embassy in Tokyo in April 2005)

Requiem:

Patrick Fallon was an old boy of La Salle and St Joseph's College. He and his brother John were amongst the first to enrol at La Salle in September 1932.  They moved to St Joseph's College after their father moved to HK Island. Patrick graduated in 1939 and became an apprentice engineer with Whampoa Docks. He passed away in London aged 91 in 2014. 

Patrick Fallon with war medals

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Acknowledgements:

Tim Gibbs: For putting me in touch with Tony Fallon.

Tony Fallon:  For providing me with information about his family, in particular relating to his father, Patrick Fallon and his grandfather, Christopher Fallon,  and their experience during the Battle for Hong Kong and their subsequent incarceration. 

 Gallery:

Patrick Fallon in POW Camp in Japan

Postcard addressed to Patrick at SSP Camp

Postcard from mother sent to SSP Camp

Letter from IRC to Patrick with a message from his father at Stanley 

The Lookout

At first glance, you would not think it was a pre-war house, but this charming villa, named The Lookout, was built around 1935. It is situated on a low knoll above South Bay Road. This story is about who lived there in December 1941 and what happened to them during the Battle for Hong Kong.

The Lookout (Photograph by IDJ taken in 1966 and posted on Gwulo.com)

The entrance drive from South Bay Road (Author) 

A search of the Land Registry records, by history enthusiast Alex Macdonald, showed that the property had been leased in 1935 to William Walter Ritchie. He must have sold it after the war as in September 1946 the new owner is listed as American International Underwriters Limited. This is now part of the American International Group (AIG) and the ownership remains unchanged to date. The AIG company roots go back to 1919 when Cornelius Vander Starr established a firm of insurance underwriters in Shanghai. I wonder who lives there today,  perhaps the home of the company's regional manager. The Lookout was built in the style of a Spanish-villa, a bit like Altamira, now called Estrellita, on Repulse Bay Road. This style was popular in the 1930s. 

In December 1941, it was the home of sixty-two-year-old William Ritchie, a retiree, and his wife fifty-seven-year-old Isabella Cameron Ritchie (nee Reid). William had spent thirty-eight years working with the China Postal Service.  He was born in Lisburn, Ireland. He joined the Shanghai Post Office in 1901. He married Isabella in 1906 in Kiuikiang, China. They had three children all born in China. Ritchie retired in 1938. He moved to Hong Kong and the newly built Lookout was the home where they expected to spend their retirement. The villa looked out over the three bays, Repulse Bay, Middle Bay and South Bay. 

Looking over South Bay (Author)

The Lookout: taken from the path leading from South Bay Road to Headland Road  

Google Maps

William (Bill) and Isabella (Ella) had experienced the Sino-Japanese war whilst living in Nanking and Shanghai in 1937/38 but war was to follow them to Hong Kong. Isabella should have been evacuated in 1940 but she was allowed to stay as she had enlisted in the Nursing Detachment of the HKVDC. Some of the villa owners in the area of Repulse Bay took refuge at the Repulse Bay Hotel. The hotel was besieged by Japanese troops from 20 to 23 December. The military garrison was evacuated to Stanley and on 23 December the civilians surrendered the hotel. Bill Ritchie stayed at his home. He would have heard the sounds of the guns firing at Stanley and the mortar and machine-gun fire around Repulse Bay. 

Private Leslie Canivet of the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps (RCOC) was billeted in a house called Twin Brook on Repulse Bay Road. Following the Japanese landings on the night of 18/19 December, he was ordered to return to the Ridge higher up Repulse Bay Road. There were five houses on the Ridge which had been commandeered by the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC). The houses were being used as a stores depot. Following a skirmish at the junction of Island Road and Repulse Bay Road, Canivet had taken refuge in a house called Overbays situated on the hillside above the road junction.  He escaped from the house which was surrounded by Japanese troops and had been set alight. He had been injured in the jaw by grenade shrapnel when the Japanese first tried to seize the house. He made his way down to Island Road and then down the steep cliffside, near a house called Eucliffe, to the rocky shoreline. He entered the water with several others and started swimming across Repulse Bay to South Bay. They landed close to The Lookout. 

Four out of eight of us reached the other side. We went up to a civilian house owned by a Mr Richie. He gave us some beer and bully-beef. My jaw was too sore to eat, but I had a couple of beers. We then headed out to the mat-sheds [beach huts]. Mr Ritche had given me a pair of shorts and I picked up a shirt. He gave us directions on how to get over the hill [towards Stanley]. Despite the instructions there appeared to be no way over as it was all jungle. (Source: Affidavit by Pte L. M. Canivet UKNA WO 235/1030) 

He and his group of three other soldiers were captured by the Japanese who shot them and left them for dead in a ditch. They were all killed apart from Canivet who had been hit in the left shoulder, left elbow, left hip and right hand. He must have looked convincingly dead to his captors. He did not know the names of the three dead men, except that one was a Staff/Sergeant in HKVDC, one was a corporal in the RAOC and the other was a Sapper in the Royal Engineers. Canivet must have had a guardian angel, he survived the killing, he survived the aftermath of the battle and the brutal incarceration that followed, and he made it back home to Canada in 1945.

There was no mention of Ella Ritchie in Canivet's affidavit so we may assume she was working in a military hospital since she was a volunteer military nurse. She was probably at either Bowen Road Military Hospital or St Albert's at Rosary Hill. (Note from Author: I have just read in the memoirs of Chaloner Grenville Alabaster, the Attorney General, that he met Mrs Ritchie at St Albert's Hospital Rosary Hill). Their movements after the battle are not clear i.e. how long Bill Ritchie was allowed to stay in his home, and Ella's movements after St Albert's was closed down. At some point in 1942 they were both interned at Stanley Internment Camp. At Stanley, they were allocated a servants room in the American Quarters (after the Americans were repatriated). The servants' rooms were popular as they were two to a room. They had privacy which most people lacked. Despite their advanced years, they survived the incarceration, the inadequate food rations and the lack of medicine and in 1945 were repatriated to the UK on the Highland Monarch. Their house, The Lookout, would almost certainly have been looted and like so many, they would have lost all their possessions.   

In May 1946, Bill Ritchie returned, alone, to Hong Kong and China. He acted for a period as British Consul in Mukden (now Shenyang) in Manchuria. He left China in 1947 and in 1949 the elderly couple migrated to British Columbia in Canada. In December 1969, Bill Ritchie died in Canada aged ninety. Ella died in 1978 aged ninety-four. 

The Lookout today from South Bay Road

South Bay

Addendum:

After publishing this post about The Lookout and  Bill and Ella Ritchie who lived there before the war, I received an email from Patricia Hayward who had come across my blog. Her mother (Rhonwen) had been given away by Bill Ritchie when her parents married in Tientsin in 1922. Her father John (Dick) Foster Hall had worked for China Maritime Customs Service. Ritchie worked for the China Postal Service. The two families were close friends all their lives and Patricia kindly sent me some photographs of the Ritchies and of The Lookout.

Bill and Ella Ritchie with Rhonwen Foster-Hall - 1938 (Courtesy Patricia Hayward)

The Lookout (Courtesy: Patricia Hayward)

Ella, Dick (seated) and Dick's bother (standing) at The Lookout (Courtesy: Patricia Hayward)

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Donovan Benson - Mercantile Bank of India

The 1941 Year Book shows Donovan Benson as the Manager of the Mercantile Bank of India in Hong Kong. A position he had held since 1937. The entry also lists three British expatriate staff working for the bank. These were William Hobbin, Barry Deane and Douglas Hamilton.  The Mercantile Bank was founded in India in 1853 and was originally known as the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. The Head Office was in London, as was the case for the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (now Standard Chartered). The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) was headquartered in Hong Kong. HSBC, Chartered Bank and the Mercantile Bank were the three note-issuing banks in Hong Kong. The Chief Manager of HSBC, Sir Vandeleur Grayburn, was the most senior banker both in the Crown Colony and in the Far East. He would have interacted with Donovan Benson and Reginald Camidge the Managers of the Mercantile Bank and Chartered Bank. The Mercantile Bank was acquired in 1959 by HSBC. It remained a note-issuing bank in Hong Kong until 1974. Today HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank continue to act as note-issuing banks in Hong Kong and have been joined by the Bank of China since 1997.

Compulsory military service was introduced in Hong Kong during 1939 for British nationals.  A large number of Portuguese, Eurasian and Chinese volunteered to join the militia either the HKVDC or the HKRNVR although they were not compelled to do so. A number of the British expatriate staff in the banks were categorised as Essential Services and were required to remain with their banks in the event of mobilisation. In the case of the Chartered Bank, four out of the ten expatriate managers were categorised as Essential Services. A state of emergency was declared in Hong Kong on 7 December 1941 and those serving with the Volunteers reported to their units. The next morning (Hong Kong time) the Japanese attacked Hawaii, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaya. Hong Kong surrendered on 25 December 1941. Those bankers who had served with the Volunteers were incarcerated in POW Camps. Those working for the British, American and Dutch banks who had remained in their civilian role during the battle were interned in late January 1942 at Stanley Civilian Internment Camp. However, a number of these bankers were kept out of internment camp to assist the Japanese officials in the liquidation of the so-called 'enemy banks'. 

There is quite a lot of information in archives, books, and diaries about HSBC and the Chartered Bank during the wartime period. There is much less about the Mercantile Bank and its staff. I looked for Donovan Benson on the log of internees but he was not listed so he must have left Hong Kong, either on leave, on a business trip, or to a new posting before 8 December 1941. I wanted to find out a bit more about the Mercantile Bank, their former Manager, Donovan Benson, his successor as Manager,  Harry Hawkins, and the other managers who were in Hong Kong in December 1941. 

William Ramsay Hobbin, Accountant:

He was born 20 August 1903. In December 1941, he was called up for service in the commissioned rank of 2/Lt and served with 5th AA Regiment, Royal Artillery. He served with the Regular Army rather than the militia. This suggests that he had previous military service. He went straight from the banking hall in Queens Road to the guns. In 1941, he lived at No. 8 The Peak on Mount Austin Road. He was married to Lorna Mary. She was interned at Stanley Camp with sons Michael (1939)  Richard (1942). Her son Richard was born in camp on 29 January 1942 within a week of her entering camp. This was the second baby to be born in Stanley camp. After the war,  Hobbin resumed his duties with the Mercantile Bank under his old boss Donovan Benson. Hobbin passed away in 1989.

Barry O'Meara Deane, Assistant Accountant:

He was born 12 October 1911 in Kerala, India. During the battle in December 1941, he served in No 2 Bty HKVDC. He was transhipped to Japan on the 3rd Draft in January 1943. His wife Winifred (Win) Barbara was an ANS nurse and was incarcerated at Stanley Camp. She was in Block 10 (known as the Annexe or Hostel).  She shared a room with Ray Mabb and Margery Matthews. They were both volunteer military (HKVDC) nurses. Margery's husband, a Volunteer, had been commissioned during the battle and attached to 5/7 Rajputs. He was killed on the north shore shortly after reporting for duty.  

Win was a keen bridge player, loved to smoke more than anything and was twenty-two when interned. She was born and raised in Shanghai and met my father in China when he went for R&R after a rugby injury in 1940. He used to play rugby for HK. They married in the then Peak Church in July 1940. (Philippa Deane - Stanley Email Group)

Barry and Win had a daughter Philippa (quoted above) born after the war. They retired to Brighton. Deane passed away in June 1998

Douglas Haig Hamilton, Sub Accountant:

He was born in Edinburgh on 9 May 1917. He served with Corps Signals, HKVDC. After the British surrender, he was incarcerated in Hong Kong and later in Japan (Camp Innoshima Hiroshima 5B). After the war, he married Elizabeth Nicol, a nurse. They had two children. He returned to the Far East in 1946 and was posted to Singapore/Malaya. The Mercantile Bank was acquired by HSBC in 1959 and Douglas Hamilton continued his career with HSBC. He retired to the UK and passed away in October1999.

Harry William Hawkins, Manager:

Harry Hawkins was born in February 1897. He served in the First World War as a Lt in the Essex Regiment. He was wounded but reportedly saved from more serious injury when the bullet passed through a leather pocketbook. He was posted to Hong Kong during 1941 and in the absence of Donovan Benson, he was  Manager of the Hong Kong office in  December 1941 when the war began in the Far East. From Monday 8 December, Hawkins was short-handed as all three of his British managers had been mobilised. Likewise, a number of the Chinese and Portuguese staff had been called up to serve in the volunteers or in the various civil defence units. 

Hawkins was initially interned with other 'enemy bankers' at the Sun Wah Hotel, a cheap boarding house which had been a former brothel. Each morning they would be taken from the Sun Wah Hotel to assist with the liquidation of the British, American and Dutch banks. In 1943, the bankers were interned at Stanley Camp. Hawkins was billeted in Bungalow D (a former staff bungalow in St Stephen's College). After liberation, he returned to the bank's offices which were largely intact. Hawkins was repatriated to the UK. In October 1945, Benson returned to Hong Kong to re-establish the Hong Kong branch. Hawkins passed away in 1961 in Croydon,  at the age of sixty-four. 

Donovan Benson:

He was born in Hornsey, Middlesex in January 1896, the second-born of four brothers. His father was a Bank Manager working with the London & Provincial Bank. Donovan Benson and his elder brother, William Benson, worked as bank clerks in the City before the outbreak of the First World War.  At the age of eighteen, in 1914, he and his older brother joined the 2nd County of London Yeomanry (known as the Westminster Dragoons), a London based militia. 

Benson in the uniform of the Westminster Dragoons (Source: Hazel Hewitt)

  Cap badge of 2nd County of London Yeomanry (Source Wikipedia)

His older brother 2/Lt William Roy Gwyn Benson,  of the South Staffordshire Regiment, was killed in action 2 July 1916 aged 21. 

2/Lt William R G Benson KIA 1916

Donovan Benson served with the Westminster Dragoons in Egypt and the Mediterranean-theatre. He was seriously wounded in 1915 at Gallipoli. He was said to have been struck by a bullet in the jaw which had passed through several sandbags. A military record states that he was entitled to wear a 'wound stripe' on his uniform sleeve. He was sent back to the UK for an operation and medical treatment. After recovering, he was, like his brother, picked out for advancement, and commissioned as a 2/Lt in the South Staffordshire Regiment.  

I am not sure whether he worked for the Mercantile Bank before the First World War, but after the war, in 1919, he was working with the Mercantile Bank in Singapore. He developed a passion for horse racing and polo. He worked with the bank in locations like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Georgetown. He played polo and was team captain in Singapore and Penang. In 1923, he married Mary Elizabeth Thomlinson in Singapore. In 1925, their first son, Donovan Roy Benson was born and in 1928 a second son, William Jeffrey Benson was born. The couple also adopted a girl, Patricia Lee.  In 1937, he became Manager of the Hong Kong branch of the Mercantile Bank. In the 1941 Jurors List, his address was given as 302, The Peak known as 'Galesend' and situated close to Jardines Corner and the Peak Curch. 

Road Map (1938) of Peak District showing No 302 The Peak (Government Maps Dept)

One thing that is not yet clear is where Benson spent the Pacific War years from December 1941 until October 1945 at which time he returned to Hong Kong to re-establish the Mercantile Bank. There is a record of him travelling from London to Colombo, Ceylon in February 1945. He may have been at the London Head Office or in India or Ceylon. One report suggests that when the war began 'he happened to be out of town' i.e. on normal bank business or perhaps on long leave. 

Benson retired from the Mercantile Bank in 1952 at the age of fifty-six. He was awarded the OBE for his work and public service. After retiring he decided to make Hong Kong his home. He became Chairman of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. He was Chairman for fourteen years from 1953 to 1967. Over the years in Hong Kong, he owned several racehorses. He took over the chairmanship of the Jockey Club from Sir Arthur Morse, the former Chief Manager of HSBC. He oversaw a period where the Jockey Club became active in distributing its surpluses as charitable donations. It was at this time that the prefix 'Royal' was adopted in 1966. 

Benson was a well respected and well-known public figure in Hong Kong. He held many directorships and committee memberships. He was Chairman of the South China Morning Post, an unofficial member of EXCCO in the absence of Sir Arthur Morse. He was President of the Boy Scouts Association (1959/64). He was Chairman of St John Ambulance Brigade (1953/54), a Director of the Diocesan Girls School and a Director of the Hong Kong Tuberculosis Association. He was on the board of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children and he was a Justice of the Peace for many years.  He was always willing to give up his time for good causes and charitable work. His wife, Mary, passed away in 1957 at the early age of 62. They had been married for thirty-four years. Benson passed away, aged 76, at his apartment in Brewin Path, Mid-Levels in November 1972. 

As I researched this article, I found information on Donovan Benson a bit hard to find. Yes, I suppose he belonged to another generation, and lived in a different Hong Kong, but not so very different and Hong Kong still benefits from the causes he sponsored. He helped rebuild his bank and Hong Kong in the aftermath of war and the devastation of the brutal Japanese occupation. Although he spent many years in colonial Hong Kong, a banker, a philanthropist and a public figure, there are few today who would remember him but I think he deserves to be better remembered for what he achieved, the life he led, and because he made a difference in everything he undertook. 

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Photo Gallery

Donovan Benson (right) leading a horse at the races (Source: Hazel Hewitt)

Family photograph with Donovan Benson standing at right (Source: Hazel Hewitt)

The three eldest Benson brothers (William, Wilfred, Donovan) (Source: Hazel Hewitt)

Donovan Benson and his eldest son Roy Benson on horseback. (Source: James Benson)

Donovan Benson (Source: James Benson)

Donovan (Source: James Benson)

Source: James Benson

Source: James Benson

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank family member, Hazel Hewitt, for allowing me to use family photographs and for her help with regard to the information on the Benson family.

Thanks to James Benson, Donovan Benson's grandson, for photos and information

My thanks to Philip Trumble for information relating to Douglas Hamilton.

Sources:

Ancestry.com

Forces War Records

The Paradise Bank  - The Mercantile Bank of India (1999) Edwin Green and Sara Kinsey

Pow Mah (1965) (The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club) 

Government Maps Dept. 

Caronia, No. 17 Bowen Road - the history of a house

A friend of mine recently moved into a charming colonial house named 'Caronia' at No. 17 Bowen Road. Although I have often walked or jogged along Bowen Road I never knew this house existed. It is hidden in the trees and the only access is by steps leading up from Bowen Road. Bowen Road runs for 4 km from Magazine Gap Road to the junction of Stubbs Road and Tai Hang Road. No. 17 is the last house on the vehicular stretch of Bowen Road after which access is available for pedestrians only. The road is named after Sir George Bowen, Governor of Hong Kong from 1883 to 1885. The aqueduct section consisting of 21 granite arches was built between 1885 and 1887. The house may have been  named after the Cunard liner RMS Caronia launched in 1904 on Clydeside.  Perhaps the house owner had a romantic relationship on the ship. The house equally well could have been named after the charming Sicilian hill-top town bearing the same name. The house was built in 1923. The three neighbouring houses at No. 16, No. 15 and No. 14 were completed around the same time.  An old house like this must have an interesting history. My friend asked me if I could look into the history of the house and find out something about the people who lived there. These four colonial houses were clearly visible from anywhere in Hong Kong or Kowloon. The photograph below shows them in 1949.

No. 17, 16, 15, and 14 Bowen Road (Source: Getty Images - Common Usage)

Today, No.16 has been demolished and a new building is being constructed. No.15 has been subject to substantive renovation and structural work which has altered its original appearance. No. 14 has been completely demolished and two modern houses have been built on a concrete podium  above the road on the original plot. Only Caronia remains pretty much unchanged.

Map showing the four properties

Formerly No. 14 (now 12b and c) 

No. 15 Bowenn Road

The garage block - perhaps originally one for each house

What is left of No. 16

My first view of the house, No. 17,  through the trees 

Set amongst trees and splendid gardens

The Terrace

View from the roof

History enthusiast, Alex Macdonald, did a search at the land registry and found that No 17 was completed in 1923. The first registered owner was Captain Frank Leader Brown born 5 October 1888 and passed away 8 August 1968 in Worthing, Sussex.  He served in the Royal Engineers since 1907/1908 when he is listed as a subaltern. When WW1 broke out in 1914 he had attained the rank of Captain. Records indicate that he served in Hong Kong before the war as he gives an address in 1913 as Royal Engineers Mess Wellington Barracks, Hong Kong. Forces war records indicate that he saw service in Italy during the war. Locations included Monte Cassino, Anzio, Salerno and San Marino. Could this be the reason he named the house Caronia. 

After the war, possibly in 1922, he left the Army and came back to Hong Kong. He appears on Juror's Lists in 1923, when the house was completed and is listed as a Civil Engineer working for Hongkong Electric (HKE). His address is given as No. 17 Bowen Road. This continues from 1923 until 1941 indicating that he lived at No. 17 for those eighteen years until the war started in December 1941.

In June 1928, he is listed on the manifest of Empress of Australia returning to the  UK with his widowed mother Mary Gertrude Brown of Littlecourt, Goring-upon-Thames. He was thirty-nine and his mother was sixty-two. They travelled from Hong Kong via Manila and Vancouver and then across the continent to board the Empress of Australia at Quebec. Travelling with them was Muriel Winifred Holmes (nee Bateman) the wife of Harold Kennard Holmes, whose address, strangely enough,  is given as No. 17 Bowen Road. Did they all live together or did Harold Holmes house-sit for them? Harold and Muriel Holmes had married in 1905 at St John's Cathedral. She had previously been a teacher at Belilos School.

Had Harold and Muriel's marriage broken down? Was there a romantic relationship between Muriel Holmes and Frank Brown? There certainly was later, as Frank and Muriel married. I have not found a date for the marriage but it was probably in the early or mid-1930s. Harold Holmes later married Ellen Florence in 1938 in Essex. The marriage did not last long because he died four years later in 1942. 

They were interned at Stanley Camp in January 1942. They were billeted in A4/15 which was in the Prison Officers Club Building. They retired to Worthing where Muriel died in 1967 and where Frank died the following year.

The next owner of No. 17 came as a bit of a surprise. I recognised the name immediately. It was Elizabeth ('Emma') Appleton Fidoe. She was one of the five European volunteer military nurses who were raped by Japanese troops at St Stephen's College Hospital on 25 December 1941. She is listed as an owner of No. 17 from 1948 until 1951 when the London Missionary Society acquired the house possibly under the terms of her will. 

Emma Fidoe (nee Dudley) was of Irish extraction born in Kilkenny in 1898. Her family moved to Aldershot, England. Her father was working with the British Army (possibly in a civilian role). She became a nurse, and at one stage was working as Matron at the London Jewish Hospital. She married SQMS (Staff Quarter Master Sergeant) Joseph Henry Fidoe, RAOC in December 1935. The marriage is referenced in the China Mail 31 December 1935. The wedding took place at St John's Cathedral. The newspaper reports that Emma had just arrived in Hong Kong on the troopship HMT Neuralia. The ship was sunk by a mine in 1945.

HMT Neuralia (Source: the-weatherings.co.uk)

Joseph Fidoe was born in 1891. He had served abroad since 1931 in Egypt, China and Hong Kong. He had been married twice before. His first wife, Nelly Proudman, had predeceased him. They married in 1912 and had a daughter Molly. Nelly died in 1925 and in the same year, Joseph Fidoe married May Dudley in London. She was Emma's sister. She died in China in 1934. The following year he married his thirty-seven-year-old sister-in-law, Emma. The wedding was a big event with a well-attended reception at the Gloucester Hotel. A few years later, Joseph Fidoe left the Army and in 1938 appears on the Jurors List as an employee of Tai Koo Dockyard. However, after this, he seems to disappear into the ether.  He was not in Hong Kong in December 1941. So what happened to him - did he predecease Emma? Did they separate and divorce? I can not find any record of his death. We know that Emma was working as a military nurse serving with the Nursing Detachment of the HKVDC in December 1941 and that she was raped and abused by Japanese soldiers on Christmas Day after they took over St Stephen's Collge Hospital. We know that she was not interned at Stanley Civilian Internment Camp. She must have avoided internment on the grounds of Irish (neutral) nationality. How did she survive in Japanese occupied Hong Kong? What was the source of her funds? Did she continue to practice as a private nurse? All we know is that in October 1945 she was repatriated on the hospital ship HMHS Oxfordshire.  She was demobbed from the Nursing Detachment in London in May 1946 and then returned to Hong Kong to resume her career as a private nurse. 

In 1948, she appears as the new owner of No. 17 presumably assigned to her by Frank Leader Brown but how does a nurse afford a house like this and why did she need such a large house. Emma lived at Caronia until her premature death aged 52 in 1951 at Queen Mary Hospital following an illness.

Letter from Emma to Adjutant ND, HKVDC dated October 1946 (Source: HK PRO)

Letter from Commandant of ND HKVDC to Emma (Sept. 1945) (Source: HK PRO)

Notice of probate (Source: Ancestry.com)

The next owner of Caronia, No. 17 Bowen Road,  was the London Missionary Society (LMS) - it may have been bequeathed to the society by Emma Fidoe. The LMS retained it only until 1954. The next owner was Elsie Sue Ming. Joseph Luk and Moira Moser who lived at Caronia as long-term tenants advised me that she (Elsie) had set up a school at Caronia called Marymount. After Elsie Sue Ming's death the property was acquired by the Fung Family who have owned it since 1978.

Houses have a history, they have tales to tell about the people that lived in them, the lives they led, the things that they witnessed, their happiness and sadness. It's wonderful that this house still remains to whisper evocatively of days gone by and how things used to be.  To quote the writer, L. P. Hartley, "the past is a foreign country they do things differently there."

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The Neighbours - No. 16, 15 & 14

No. 16 is now demolished. A new structure will go up in its place no doubt lacking any sort of charm that these old houses once exuded. We have not yet been able to find the previous registered owners. I did notice that in 2012 it was sold by Tony Chan, the feng shui master, closely linked to Nina Wang, for the princely sum of HKD380mm.

No. 15 is still the original house although  after much structural renovation. The house was constructed in 1920. The first owner is listed as Thomas William Shearstone. He may have been the developer. The house was acquired in 1923 by brothers William and Anthony Carroll along with No 14. In 1925, the property was acquired by Peak Tramways who owned the property until after the war. 

No. 14 has been demolished and the two new properties built on the plot  have been re-numbered  12 (b) and 12 (c). The less than charming building incorporates the Seychelles Consulate. As with No 15  it was first owned by TW Shearstone (possibly the developer). The house was assigned to the Carroll Brothers in 1923. It was assigned to HK Telephone Co in 1947. In December 1941. Henry and Sarah Refo and their four children were renting No 14 from the Carrol Brothers. The Carroll brothers were considered as traitors by the British and had been interned together with Japanese and Italian civilians. 

Acknowledgements:

Ted Lee

Alexander Macdonald 

Joseph Luk 

Moira Moser