Following the route taken by 'D' Coy Royal Rifles of Canada (Monthly Blog June 2017)

Following the route taken by 'D' Coy Royal Rifles of Canada on Saturday 20th December 1941 

It was a wet week in Hong Kong, which had started with a No. 8 typhoon. The nine-day weather forecast predicted nothing but intermittent storms. On Saturday 17th June I set out in the relentless rain to follow the route taken by 'D' Coy Royal Rifles of Canada during an attack made through Repulse Bay View in an anti-clockwise direction around Violet Hill. The annotated war time maps below show the route taken by 'D' Coy, as deduced from reading the battalion war diary combined with on-the-ground re-enactment. Take a close look at these two maps, and then let's follow the route taken by this company along the catchments to the point where they made a surprise attack on a Japanese mobile battery positioned at Gauge Basin in the afternoon of 20th December 1941.

Stage 1:  Stanley View to Repulse Bay View

Stage 2: Repulse Bay View to Gauge Basin

By way of background, the Japanese landed on the north shore of the Island on the night of Thursday 18th and Friday 19th December 1941. The landing force included three infantry regiments (228th, 229th, and 230th) of the 38th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Each regiment utilised two of their three battalions. The 3rd battalion initially remaining on the Mainland and under Divisional command. Each battalion consisted of 1,000 men. They landed between North Point and Shau Kei Wan. They were augmented by artillery, engineers, gendarmes and other support troops. They moved quickly inland having overrun the Indian infantry battalion (5th/7th Rajputs) responsible for the defence of that sector of the Island shore. All six infantry battalions converged from different directions on Wong Nai Chung (WNC) Gap, a strategic central point on the Island. The first battalion to arrive at WNC Gap were from Colonel Shoji's 230th Regiment which had landed at North Point and proceeded along Sir Cecil's Ride through the night. One battalion was sent up Jardine's Lookout and one continued to WNC Gap. At dawn on Friday 19th the lead troops had seized WNC Gap Police Station situated on a knoll at the gap, they had surrounded the Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) situated in three splinter proof shelters at the top of Blue Pool Road where it intersected with WNC Gap Road, half way between the police station knoll and West Infantry Brigade HQ. They also captured the AA battery at Stanley Gap. The leading troops had suffered many casualties when PB 1 on the western slopes of Jardine's Lookout had opened fire in the early light of dawn. Later that morning (Friday 19th December) West Brigade HQ found itself on the front line. Brigadier Lawson and his brigade staff were trapped in their cluster of splinter proof shelters north off WNC Gap and facing Jardine's Lookout. At approximately 1000 hours Brigadier Lawson called Major-General Maltby, in his underground bunker referred to as the Battle Box,  to say he was going to try and fight his way out. As he rushed out with a small group of Brigade staff he was shot in the legs by machine gun fire and bled to death in front of his shelters. 

During Friday 19th December a number of counterattacks were made to recapture WNC Gap and to relieve the Brigadier and his HQ not realising that he was already dead. The counterattacks were made by different units from different directions and included Royal Engineers, Royal Navy, Royal Artillery, Royal Scots and Winnipeg Grenadiers. These counterattacks were courageously prosecuted, but were unsuccessful because they were made against well-entrenched Japanese positions who were there in significantly superior numbers. On Friday and Saturday the Japanese had four battalions of infantry at or around WNC Gap.

East Infantry Brigade had spent the whole day on Friday 19th December withdrawing from the eastern sector of the Island in order to avoid being cut off by the rapidity of the Japanese advance. In the process they lost most of their mobile artillery, because the batteries found themselves on the front line and there were no lorries to tow the 6-inch and 4.5-inch howitzers out of their positions and there were no mules to transport the 3.7-inch howitzers. Only one howitzer was successfully withdrawn to Stanley. This was the 3.7-inch howitzer at Tai Tam Fork Battery. The loss of so much of the mobile artillery would have a huge cost in East Infantry Brigade's subsequent counterattacks which were made with inadequate mortar and artillery support. On Friday night the withdrawal to the Stanley perimeter was completed. The next day, on Saturday 20th,  East Brigade would counterattack WNC Gap in an effort to join hands with West Brigade. That was the plan, and now everything depended on Brigadier Wallis and East Infantry Brigade to break through. 

The Brigade advanced early the next morning from Stanley View to Repulse Bay. However what was not known is that time, was that during the night Colonel Tanaka had taken two infantry battalions along the catch-water from WNC Gap Reservoir to Middle Spur. He had also sent troops up and over Violet Hill. In the early hours he had captured Middle Spur which overlooked Repulse Bay and his lead troops had come down paths emerging on Repulse Bay Road. They seized the roadblock at the junction of Repulse Bay Road and Island Road and one unit moved eastwards to Repulse Bay. In doing this, the Japanese had cut the Island in two, and now had a continuous line from the landing grounds on the north shore up Mount Parker Road, down to Gauge Basin, along Stanley Gap Road, and along the water catchment known as Violet Hill Path to Middle Spur and the road junction Repulse Bay Road/Island Road. 

Japanese troops infiltrating into Repulse Bay were spotted by the small garrison at Repulse Bay Hotel and fired on. The Japanese took cover in the hotel garage block, now a Ferrari showroom. As East Brigade arrived at Repulse Bay they were fired on by Japanese troops in the garage block. An 18-pdr field gun from 965 Defence Battery located at Stanley View was utilised to fire on the garage. The garage was retaken and East Brigade continued their advance, but now came under fire from Middle Spur. Wallis ordered Lt-Col Home commanding officer Royal Rifles of Canada to capture Middle Spur and continue the advance up Repulse Bay Road to the gap. Two composite platoons of the Middlesex Regiment were sent up to Violet Hill Path to attack the Japanese troops occupying and digging in at Middle Spur. They were to attack from the east, i.e. in a clockwise direction around Violet Hill. 'D' Coy, Royal Rifles of Canada, were ordered to advance through Repulse Bay View and proceed in an anti-clockwise direction around Violet Hill to Gauge Basin and to press on to WNC Gap. 'D' Coy was commanded by thirty-nine-year-old Major Maurice Parker. He was accompanied by Major Price, Second-in-Command of the battalion, and Flight-Lt Thompson, Brigade Intelligence Officer. A 3-inch mortar detachment  from 'HQ' Coy was assigned to operate under Major Parker's command. 

Major Parker had attended an orders group at Repulse Bay at 0800 hours that morning. His company had spent an uncomfortable night on the rocky crest of Stanley Mound. They came down the path to Stanley View on Saturday morning where they ate their rations, consisting of biscuits and bully beef,  which had been provided the previous day. The advance to Repulse Bay View was made along the water catchment, and the easiest place for an infantry company to access that catchment from Island Road was Stanley View. From Stanley it is a steep but short climb up from the road to the water catchment. Stanley View would have been the  starting point.

Stanley View is a name no longer used, but would have been well known in 1941. It is the area at the junction of Chung Hom Kok Road and what was called Island Road. It may have originally referred to the hill (on the right of the photo immediately below) on which there is a service reservoir. Coming from Repulse Bay it is the first point at which you get a view of Stanley. In 1941 it was a defended area and there are still a number of war time ruins including a military grade toilet block, machine gun pits and various splinter proof shelters. 

The brow at Stanley View - Stanley ahead and Repulse Bay behind.

This view taken from the hillside shows the cutting and road gap at Stanley View

The wartime toilet block - now being devoured by a tree

The 1941 toilet block at Stanley View

A splinter proof shelter (stuffed full of wood) on the hillside south of the road at Stanley View

A cluster of two splinter proof shelters covered by undergrowth at top of Headland Road (Stanley View)

Two destroyed splinter proof shelters on the hillside north of the road near the machine gun pits. These two shelters had been occupied by squatters at some time after the war.

At or around Stanley View, 'D' Coy accessed the catchment path shown below. The water catchment is about 5ft deep,  but gets deeper as it approaches Repulse Bay View where it is about 6ft deep proving good cover for the advancing troops.

It was about here that 'D' Coy accessed the catchwater

In the photo above you can see the hill south of the road (then called Island Road) with the pipeline running up to the small reservoir on the summit. I believe the reservoir may be post-war, but I suspect there was a pre-war reservoir on that site, because references are made in wartime accounts to there being water pipes running up from South Bay Road, beside a path leading to Stanley View.    The advance started at 1100 hours in broad daylight and so the infantry would have moved inside the catch water to avoid their deployment being seen.

As one gets closer to Repulse Bay View you get a view of Violet Hill

The photo above, taken from the catchment, shows Violet Hill in the background. In 1941 there was less forestation and the path along the catchment was more visible than it is today. This stretch shown in the photograph is open and gives an impression of what it was like in 1941. This view taken in 2017 is unchanged from December 1941, except then there was less undergrowth and less trees. The Japanese were on top of Violet Hill and along the path (Violet Hill Path) that runs along the southern slopes of Violet Hill to WNC Gap Reservoir. In the battalion war diary, Major Parker estimates they proceeded along this catch water for about 1,800 yards which was consistent with my observations.  It leads to an intersection of paths referred to in 1941 as Repulse Bay View. This nomenclature is no longer used. Current maps refer to it as Repulse Bay Gap. Most people would know it as the junction of paths at the bottom of the "one thousand steps" on the Wilson Trail leading up to the Twins. There are two sets of splinter proof shelters remaining at this location but they are entirely covered by the undergrowth. One of these is shown in the photo below.

Hidden from view the splinter proof shelter at Repulsec Bay View with the inevitable rubbish and plastic bottles.

There is another shelter higher up the hill. They were used by the platoon  stationed at this gap in the hills. The position was originally manned by Winnipeg Grenadiers and later by No. 2 Platoon No. 1 Coy HKVDC. They had abandoned these shelters when ordered to evacuate to the Stanley Perimeter on Friday 19th. When Major Parker arrived here at around noon on Saturday 30th he wrote in the battalion war diary that they passed "shelters in which conditions indicated that troops had vacated them hurriedly." At this point they had to cross an area of open ground and proceed uphill to another catch-water running parallel to the first one. This catch water runs northeast towards Gauge Basin. The catch-water is much shallower. The troops went past the low knoll on which Tai Tam Bungalow stands. This was a residence for senior Water Works Engineers and their families in pre-war days. It had been used during the battle as Coy HQ for Captain Harry Penn's No. 1 Coy, HKVDC, until they evacuated to Stanley on Friday 19th.

Workmen's Quarters adjacent to Tai Tam Bungalow

The ruins of Tai Tam Bungalow

The second water catchment (much shallower than the first).

The water catchment ends here right next to the road track which led to Stanley Gap Road and WNC Gap

The catchment path comes to an end at this bridge (shown in photo above) which emerges next to the road track that led up to Stanley Gap Road and WNC Gap. On the right hand side is the knoll on which the Gauge Basin 3.7-inch howitzer battery was situated. The guns had been disabled and abandoned on Friday 19th December.

The lead platoon was Lt Simmon's No. 18 platoon.  After going along the catchment for some 1,500 yards they emerged at Byewash Reservoir soon after having gone past the Tai Tam Bungalow.  At this point they came across a Japanese mobile battery with pack mules. This battery had been observed and engaged as it came down from Tai Tam Gap, crossed the lower reservoir and then drove up Mount Parker Road to occupy a position at Gauge Basin. No. 18 platoon was only 100 to 150yards from the battery. They crawled along the shallow water catchment to get into the best firing position. Then they opened fire causing a large number of casualties to the enemy. Mules screeched and ammunition boxes exploded. Lt Power's No. 17 Platoon had been sent up a higher path and observed Japanese troops at and around Gauge Basin battery and joined the action by opening  fire on them. It was clearly impossible to get through to WNC Gap, and with ammunition running low, the Japanese alerted and in pursuit,  the company withdrew along the two catchments back to Stanley View.

An open area on the road that the battery came up from Tai Tam X-Roads. The battery could have been deployed here when they were ambushed by 'D' Coy

Another view of the open area (possible site of the Japanese mobile battery). The path taken by 'D' Coy was on the hillside across the reservoir

George MacDonnell was a Platoon Sgt in No 18 Platoon. In his book One Soldier's Story (2002) he described how as they were preparing to fire on the mobile battery a Japanese staff car pulled up. As the officers disembarked the platoon opened fire. The range was less than 200 yards, they fired from the cover of the catchment, with the sun behind them. As they withdrew down the catchment they  came under fire from Japanese troops on Violet Hill. One Rifleman was wounded by a bullet in the leg as they crossed the open ground area between the two catchments. They arrived at Stanley View in the dark and rain at 2300 hours. They spent the night at the food stores building at Chung Hom Kok two or three hundred yards from Stanley View.

The mobile battery and troop  column had been fired on, that morning, by Bren gun carriers from No. 3 Platoon (Carrier Platoon) No. 1 Coy, HKVDC, as they approached the dam over the lower reservoir and the Tai Tam X-Roads. The battery had fired on Cash's bungalow thinking that was the source of fire. The battery crossed the dam and turned right at the X-Roads driving up to Gauge Basin.  'D'  Coy took them by surprise. The Japanese had no idea that Canadian troops had infiltrated into that area. 'D' Coy had struck back and struck hard, destroying the battery and causing heavy casualties to both men and mules. George MacDonnell wrote that after the surrender the Japanese tried to find out who had led this audacious raid on the battery, and the Japanese positions at Gauge Basin, but that they were met with a wall of Canadian silence.

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Addendum:

My thanks to Geoff Moore for posting this pic on FaceBook Page  Battle of  Hong Kong  - the pre-war photograph shows Repulse Bay, Repulse Bay View and the water catchment running from Stanley View to Repulse Bay View and gives perspective. It was taken from the road above Eucliffe.

A Tale of two Batteries - Dungeness, England & Pinewood Battery, Hong Kong

A tale of two batteries

I was in London in May, and although not related to the Battle for Hong Kong, I thought I would begin with an article about the ruins of a coastal defence battery at Dungeness, in South East Kent, dating back to the Napoleonic Wars, and then finish with a look at the ruins of Pinewood AA Battery in Hong Kong.

Ruins of Napoleonic Battery at Dungeness

Dungeness is situated in the southeast corner of Kent. To day it is well known for the nuclear power station, for its bird life, the two lighthouses and the masses of shingle. There is a sense of windswept desolation. On foggy nights you could hear the blast of the foghorn from the new lighthouse. In bygone years this area was famous for smuggling. It was an important area of defence against continental invasion over the centuries.  There has always been a constant struggle against the sea. In Roman times Romney Marsh was a large shallow bay over which ships sailed to the Roman port of Portus Lemanis. There were sandbanks and shingle spits and in Saxon times these were "inned" and reclaimed from the sea. 

Dungeness Nuclear Power Station

There have been several lighthouses over the years. The shingle spit keeps growing out to sea and the lighthouses gradually became too far from the point. This one (below) is referred to as the old lighthouse.

The old lighthouse 

The new lighthouse

The water at Dungeness is deep and drops away sharply

During the Napoleonic Wars it was this area known as Romney Marsh which was considered a likely landing ground for Napoleon's Army. A military canal was built from west to east along the base of the line of hills that mark the Saxon shoreline. Martello towers (circular forts with a gun on a swivel on top) were built along the coast together with redoubts and batteries. This post is about one of those batteries. No. 1 Battery at Dungeness. There is not much left of it now just a grass covered mound, and brick works, but the road sign nearby gives us a clue as to what that mound and walls once were.

The mound in the background is all that's left of No 1 Battery.  

The remains of Napoleonic ramparts

A swivel for the guns

Ruined battery walls and stonework. 

Surrounded by seaside houses 

Gun emplacement and swivel

Two hundred year old ramparts

Nobody ever goes there, there is no information sign, just the windswept ruins. Old maps of the area show the battery and nearby batteries numbered 1 to 4. In the 1904 map below the inlet can still be seen between Greatstone and Littlestone. This has now been reclaimed but the inlet originally led to the port of New Romney now some two miles from the sea. No. 1 battery was originally built close to the seashore but is now several hundred metres from the high water mark.

The Invasion Coast (1904 map)

1867 map showing the batteries at Dungeness (the Martello towers are numbered 21-27)

Dungeness is derived from the word Denge. The map shows Denge Marsh and Denge Beach.

The word Ness means headland in Old Norse. So Dungeness was once Denge Ness as depicted

on the 1819 map.

Ruins of Pinewood Battery in Hong Kong

Pinewood Battery was an AA Fort equipped with two 3-inch guns. It was built on the north west slopes of the Peak. It was heavily bombed and shelled by the Japanese after war broke out on 8th December 1941.  The photo below shows the battery being shelled and bombed.

Pinewood Battery under bombardement

The battery had to be abandoned because of damage to one of the guns, the emplacements and equipment. The damage is well depicted in the photo below showing one of the wrecked 3-inch guns.

One of the badly damaged 3-inch guns 

One of the two 3-inch gun emplacements

Battery buildings

Blast and fragmentation damage to battery walls

Battery buildings at Pinewood

The battery was originally built/completed in 1905 to house two 6-inch coastal defence guns. In 1936 the two 3-inch AA guns were installed. The battery was abandoned on 15th December 1941 after severe damage.


Further Reading and Photos on Romney Marsh and Napoleonic War fixed defences. Please click the link below:

Romney Marsh, the English Arcadia and Napoleonic War defensesbattleforhongkong.blogspot.com

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Rifleman Ray Jackson - a WW2 soldier's watch found in hills of Hong Kong

A wrist watch found in the hills of Hong Kong, once owned by a Canadian soldier who was killed in action during the Battle for Hong Kong in December 1941, is returned to his family in Canada 

On Monday 27 March 2017, Dave Willott, one of the military history group in Hong Kong, was searching the hillside of Stone Hill, near Stanley, when he found and unearthed a wrist watch. There is nothing particularly unusual about finding a watch, except that in this case, when he cleaned it, he found engraved on the reverse, the name and rank of a Canadian soldier who had served with the Royal Rifles of Canada (RRC) in the Battle for Hong Kong in December 1941. The watch had once belonged to twenty-one-year-old Rifleman Ray Donald Jackson who served with 'D' Coy RRC.

At noon on Monday 22 December 1941, two platoons from  'D' Coy had been redeployed to Stanley Mound, from their positions at Chung Hom Kok. At 1700 hours Battalion HQ, at Stone Hill Shelters, ordered the two 'D' Coy platoons to move to Stone Hill in order to strengthen the centre of the battalion front. Rifleman Jackson was part of this force.  Later that evening the 'B' Coy and 'HQ' Coy platoons on Stanley Mound were pushed off the crest by Japanese infantry supported by mortar and artillery. The  crest was re-taken after a Vickers machine gun barrage was opened on the crest of Stanley Mound on Tuesday morning (23 Dec) from 1/Mx positions in Stanley Village.

Pre-war map showing location of Stone Hill and the Royal Rifles of Canada Bn HQ at Stone Hill Shelters

The 'D' Coy platoons remained at Stone Hill during  the night of 22 December. Throughout the following day they were involved in fire-fights with Japanese troops. The amount of spent ammunition found on Stanley Mound and Stone Hill testify to the extent of fighting that took place on 22 and 23 December on these two hills on the Stanley perimeter. The hills were strategically important  because they overlooked Stanley where British and Allied forces had concentrated and were preparing to fight a last stand. Possession of these hills by the Japanese permitted observed and therefore accurate fire to be brought down on the military positions on Stanley Peninsula.

The Canadian infantry had been in continuous action since the Japanese landed on the Island on the night of 18/19 December. The  battalion had been seriously depleted by battle casualties, and the men were physically exhausted. A decision was made to withdraw the battalion to the flatter ground around Stanley. At dusk on Tuesday 23 December, the battalion, withdrew from the hills on the Stanley perimeter, under cover of darkness, to new positions near Stanley Village. A new battalion HQ was established at Bungalow 'A', one of the staff bungalows in the grounds of St Stephen's College, Stanley.

Rifleman Jackson was reported as missing in action and was "last seen on Stone Hill" (source Tony Banham Not the Slightest Chance). He was most probably killed at the location on Stone Hill, where the watch was found, and this may have occurred during their evacuation under fire in the evening of Tuesday 23 December, two days before the colony surrendered.

The photograph below, by Stuart Woods shows the reverse of the watch after being cleaned by Leigh Hardwick both members of the military history group. The engraving reads:  "Pte. Ray D. Jackson B68205." The rank of Pte rather than Rifleman on the engraving denotes that Ray Jackson was in a different unit before joining the Royal Rifles in 1941, although his Army service number was unchanged.

Very often those reported as missing in action have no known grave. However in Ray Jackson's case his body must have been recovered because he is buried at Sai Wan Military Cemetery. His grave is shown in the photograph below. He may have been given a battlefield burial by his own troops during the battle, or may have been buried after hostilities ended by Allied burial parties allowed out from initial incarceration at Stanley Fort,  to collect wounded and bury the dead. Such burials would take place at the location where the body was found. Those buried either during hostilities, or after hostilities ended, were exhumed after the war and reinterred in one of the two military cemeteries, which were located at Sai Wan and Stanley. 

Ray Jackson's grave (Courtesy Craig Mitchell)  

Dave wanted to return the watch to the soldier's family and our small group of history enthusiasts rallied round to help. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission on-line records confirmed that Ray Jackson  died on 23 December 1941, and that his next of kin were George and Charlotte Jackson from Wiarton, Ontario, Canada. Tony Banham's web site www.hongkongwardiary.com contains a list of garrison members, Ray was listed as being in 'D' Coy which fitted with his being killed in action on 23 December on Stone Hill.

The next step was to contact Jim Trick and Lori Atkinson Smith of the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association in Canada (HKVCA). They worked with Lillian Randall, a researcher in Canada, and within twenty-four hours had discovered a family member. There was no direct descendant as  Ray was killed whilst still a young man, and before he had a chance to marry and have children of his own. It appears he was adopted by George and Charlotte Jackson who were from a farming family in Ontario. I think he may have been adopted within the wider family, as his birth parents  appear to bear the same family name. George and Charlotte Jackson only had one child, a daughter Ida Pearl Jackson born in 1904. She was seventeen years older than Ray her adoptive brother. She married Clifford Burgess in September 1925 when Ray was still a young child. We found that Ray's closest surviving family member is Steve Burgess who is the grandson of Ida and Clifford Burgess. He was astonished to be contacted by the HKVCA and told about the watch which had been found on a battlefield in Hong Kong only twenty-four hours earlier.

Ray's Attestation Record (Ancestry.com)

Leigh Hardwick, a professional modeller, and member our group made a beautiful walnut presentation box to hold the watch with the emblem of the Royal Rifles of Canada engraved on the lid. 

Presentation box made by Leigh Hardwick with photo courtesy Stuart Woods

The HKVCA presented the watch  to Steve Burgess in May 2017. It is very rare to find something with a name on it. It is good to think that this personal item that one belonged to a young Canadian soldier, who gave his life in the service of his country,  fighting in the hills on Hong Kong Island, is finally going home, after seventy-five years, back to Canada, and back to a member of his family. 

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HMS Rattlesnake

Wandering around the enchanting Hong Kong cemetery at Happy Valley ones finds the memorial stone for William Brodie, RN, the commander of HMS Rattlesnake. He died aged fifty-six in June 1841. His grave is the oldest in the cemetery dating back to only five months from the de facto possession of Hong Kong in January 1841, during the First Opium War (1839-1842). Dr Edward Cree, the Surgeon onboard Rattlesnake, recalled Brodie's delirious death in his diary. He died from malaria, a debilitating disease that still effected British soldiery on the Gin Drinkers Line one hundred years later in December 1941.  The painting, below,  by Dr Cree depicts the military procession to the burial place in what was then an unspoilt Happy Valley.

Edward Cree (Forgotten Souls - A social history of the Hong Kong Cemetery) 

He was buried at that place before the Happy Valley Cemetery became an official cemetery in 1845, and at some stage, his coffin was exhumed and he was reburied at the Wan Chai Protestant Burial Ground and then relocated again in 1889 to Happy Valley. The Wan Chai cemetery was only used from 1841 until 1845 when Happy Valley was officially opened. At the time of the closure of the Wan Chai cemetery, some fifty graves (all from 1841-1845) were relocated to Happy Valley. The name Happy Valley was thought to have been derived from its use as a euphemism for cemeteries. 

   I wondered what was HMS Rattlesnake's story with such an aggressive but memorable name. The ship's artistic Surgeon, Lt Edward Cree, prolifically produced such beautiful watercolours of the pre-digital world of the early 19th century. It turned out that the ship was a 28-gun sixth-rate corvette launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1822. She had been ordered for the Royal Navy in 1818, and her keel laid down in 1819. She was one of a class of fourteen similar vessels known as Atholl class corvettes. The corvettes were similar to a frigate with one main gun deck, and further guns placed on the quarterdeck. Rattlesnake had ten 32-pdr cannons on each side of her main gun deck,  and six 18-pdrs on her quarterdeck and two 9-pdrs on her forecastle deck. Here's how she looked in 1853 as depicted in the Illustrated London News.

 HMS Rattlesnake depicted in Illustrated London News February 1853

We know that during the period 1827-1829 she was stationed off the Greek coast during the Greek War of Independence. The war was fought to liberate Greece from the Ottoman Empire. Britain, France and Russia supported Greece. Rattlesnake's commander was Captain The Hon. Charles Orlando Bridgeman who later became a Vice Admiral. The ship's logbook for this period,  kept by Midshipman Talvera Anson, still survives in the New York Public Library. 

   In 1834, HMS Rattlesnake under the command of Captain William Hobson was serving on the East Indies and China Station. A naval station that covered the Indian Ocean and the China Coast. In 1836, Rattlesnake was dispatched to Australia and New Zealand. In 1838 she returned to England. We next see her on the China Station during the First Opium War (1839-1842) at that time under the command of William Brodie and with Surgeon Dr Edward Cree recording her adventures through his diaries and watercolours. Other corvettes of the Atholl class on the China Station included North Star, Alligator, Samarang and Nimrod. A monument in Happy Valley Cemetery commemorates the death of Lt Benjamin Fox who died in May 1841 following cannon shot wounds incurred whilst leading a landing party during the attack on the high ground north of Canton. HMS Nimrod was the last survivor of her class being broken up in 1907.

   When Hong Kong was acquired by the British Crown in January 1841 - Palmerston had criticised Captain Elliot the Plenipotentiary and Superintendent of Trade for not getting enough concessions from the Qing dynasty court. He regarded Hong Kong Island as a "barren rock with hardly a house on it",  and which would "never be a mart for trade." Dr Edward Cree on Rattlesnake took a similar view. "a mountainous, desolate-looking place with only a few fishermen's huts to be seen." The main habitation was a placed called Chek-chu, now known as Stanley. The oldest graves in Stanley Military Cemetery date back to this precarious time on the edge of empire. 

   In 1845, Rattlesnake was converted to a hydrographical survey ship and between 1846 and 1850 took part in a voyage of discovery and marine survey in the Antipodes, under the command of Captain Owen Stanley, and which was documented in detail in a journal by John MacGillivray, the botanist and in paintings by Oswald Brierly the ship's artist. The Assistant Surgeon Thomas Huxley was a naturalist and the papers he wrote on Rattlesnake established his reputation as a scientist. He later worked closely with Charles Darwin and was one of his strongest supporters. It was during this voyage that Rattlesnake rescued Barbara Thompson (1831-1916) from a small island north of Queensland. She had been shipwrecked from the cutter America some five years earlier and had lived amongst the local tribes who were thought to be cannibals. One of the tribe members had taken her as plunder for a wife, but she had been treated well by the tribe. She would have been about 14 years old when taken. She had come out to Australia as a child with her family on the immigrant ship John Barry travelling in steerage class. At the time of her shipwreck, she was living with a sea-captain in Brisbane. The Rattlesnake brought her back to Sydney where she was reunited with her family.

HMS Rattlesnake in 1853 by Oswald Brierly

As for Rattlesnake, she was finally broken up, where her life began, at Chatham Dockyard in 1860. 

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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