The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945

by Oliver Lindsay

  The Japanese Governor of Hong Kong was Lieutenant General Rensuke Isogai. He had an undeserved reputation for good living and geisha parties, whereas he preferred to be studying calligraphy and walking in his garden in his slippers listening to the croaking of bullfrogs. He was quite ineffective; it was the Military Police who wielded the power. Government House had been badly damaged before the war when air raid tunnels had been dug in the rock beneath its foundations. It was gradually rebuilt as a tiered and turreted east-west hybrid vaguely reminiscent of Japanese palaces and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Its completion coincided with the Japanese surrender.

  Within one month of the Japanese capitulation, trains, ferries, telephones, electric power, lighting, docks and wharves were all working once more, albeit on a reduced scale. The corpses found rotting in the streets were buried; the filthy hospitals cleaned up; rice, fuel, wood and vegetables were imported. Trade rapidly resumed. Over the next five months 250,000 Chinese flocked back into the Colony which had staged such a remarkable recovery. Hong Kong’s Chinese, encouraged by this restoration, expressed no wish to be part of China.

  Chiang Kai-shek wanted his representative to take the Japanese surrender in Hong Kong, just as he asked for all the Japanese war material found there. Prime Minister Attlee appealed to President Truman for help; he promptly gave it. Chiang Kai-shek had never made formal claim to Hong Kong and appeared satisfied that he could use the Colony’s port to redeploy his troops prior to his unsuccessful campaign against the Communists. Japanese ships and transport captured by the British in the Colony were given to him. The deadlock was therefore broken and the formal surrender took place in Government House on 16th September.

  The British fleet took so long to reach us because Attlee, the War Office and indeed all the Allies did not anticipate the relatively quick surrender after the atom bombs were dropped.

  * * * * *

  The Privileged Nightmare

  During these weeks, following the news reaching us in Shamshuipo POW Camp that the war was over, I wondered what had happened to General Maltby. I had considerable admiration for him; he had stood up to the bullying enemy so well on our behalf in the camp. It is not for me to judge some of the events in Hong Kong, but I did have an insight into General Maltby’s problems over the captive years. He was indeed a great man.

  I discovered subsequently that he and the other senior officers from Hong Kong had been sent to Shirakawa in Formosa. Lieutenant General S J M Wainwright, together with A E Percival and Sir Lewis Heath from Malaya, were already there.

  Sir Mark Young was also in Formosa. Following his surrender of the Colony on Christmas Day 1941, he had been treated with humiliation despite the fact that, or perhaps because, he was the King’s representative and former Commander in Chief. In February 1942 Private J Waller of the Middlesex Regiment was sent to the Peninsula Hotel to become his batman. “He called me John. To my mortification, when he wanted us to start doing press-ups together, he could do ten more than me. The following day, we were flown to Formosa. I had never flown before,” recalls Waller, “and Sir Mark seemed mildly surprised when I asked him where the parachutes were. We sat between two Japs who vomited continuously into their hats as the weather was bad.”4 As usual Sir Mark was quite imperturbable just as, throughout the shelling, mortaring and machine-gun fire, he had been found by Maltby’s ADC inspiring people to keep going, when the Japanese were closing in on Victoria.

  The former Governor was moved on to Shanghai where Waller managed to smuggle meat to him. It was given to them by British awaiting internment there. But Sir Mark refused to eat the meat as it was not available to other prisoners. In September 1942 they were flown to Formosa to be joined by Maltby, Wallis and other senior officers from Hong Kong and Singapore.

  They were shocked to hear of the final days in the battle for Singapore. Armed deserters forced their way onto ships which were evacuating women and children. Two Commanding Officers of units which melted away had claimed that during the battle they could scarcely lay their hands on 100 men. Yet each unit possessed almost 800 men in captivity, having suffered few casualties.5

  In October 1944 the Governors of Hong Kong, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies and Sumatra, with the most senior officers, were moved to Japan and marched to Bappu. They saw three aircraft carriers at anchor in the bay.

  The prisoners spent several delightful days in a small tourist hotel there. “Another boon,” recalls Brigadier T Massy Beresford who had been captured in Singapore, “was that we were able to indulge in hot sulphur baths which were 20 feet wide and five feet deep. We were startled when the hotel girls jumped in and rubbed us down.”

  They were sent to South Korea and then on to the bleak Manchurian village of Sheng Tai Tun, close to the Gobi Desert. It was freezing cold and the prisoners’ teeth clattered like castanets. Morale soared when Red Cross parcels arrived. Moreover, news reached them that the Allies had advanced to the Rhine and Japan was being heavily bombed.

  On 20th May 1945 the Governors and senior officers were next moved to Mukden in Manchuria to work in a factory. Life was hard there; 200 Americans had died in the camp during the first Winter.

  In early August 1945 the POWs were seriously alarmed to hear that haversack rations were being prepared for them. “This meant an imminent move to some remote encampment,” recalled Brigadier Wallis. “None of us could have marched more than a mile, and we knew that thousands of Americans had perished on Japanese forced marches in the Philippines. Intense uncertainty descended upon us.”6

  * * * * *

  That week I was still in Shamshuipo Camp. A rumour was spread to us by some of the guards that if there was a surrender or an American attack, all of us would be put in the specially prepared basements in tall buildings which would then be blown up; the Japanese, we were told, would then claim that we had been killed by American bombs.

  Many of us believed by early August 1945 that the Allies would triumph, but we were far from certain that we would live to see the liberation. Major Charles Boxer, Commander J N Craven RN, Lieutenant H C Dixon RNZNVR and Commander R S Young RN, now imprisoned in Canton, were surreptitiously warned by one well-meaning Indian guard that the Japanese were preparing to kill all their prisoners. This may well have been true. But on 6th August the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima as already related. Three days later Russia attacked the Japanese in Manchuria and elsewhere. The second atom bomb was also dropped on Nagasaki. The Japanese military prevaricated and seemed determined to fight on. The Supreme War Council and Cabinet remained divided, incapable of recognising the inevitability of Japan’s defeat.

  On 15th August Emperor Hirohito announced that “the war did not turn in our favour… the new outrageous bombs used by the enemy caused incessant bloodshed of innocent people and havoc which cannot be stopped.” Just as relevant to us, he ordered all military forces to lay down their arms forthwith to “endure the unendurable and bear the unbearable”. His orders were obeyed to the letter. He dispatched members of his family to different battle zones to ensure that was the case.

  All the lives of the POWs and internees in the Far East were immediately saved, just as the lives of the many thousands preparing to invade Japan were not endangered.

  Many years later in Bath Abbey, Oliver Lindsay heard a Bishop in the pulpit announce that it would have been better if the atom bombs had been dropped on green fields in Japan. “Anyone with dissenting views can discuss them with me afterwards over coffee,” he graciously added, not anticipating the strong views Oliver expressed to him after the service! It took two atom bombs and the Russian invasion to bring Hirohito, if not the others, to his senses. A vast explosion amidst “green fields” would not have proved effective to save our lives!

  Notes

  1. The Colonial Office files CO 980 59 HN 00493, CO 980/53 and 129 590/18 HN 00152 have details on the Stanley Internment Camp. Gimson’s story is recorded in his Personal Impressions. See also CO 129 590/18 HN 00152. All the above ar
e in the Public Record Office (National Archives). See also At the Going Down of the Sun, Chapter 4.

  2. South China Morning Post, 4.6.50.

  3. CO 129 591/4 HN 00035.

  4. Letter Waller to OL.

  5. Interview Brig. T Massy Beresford with OL. The Brigadier’s lengthy reminiscences, read by Oliver Lindsay beforehand, are in RHQ The Royal Green Jackets, with a time embargo preventing their being read for many years.

  6. Interview Brig. C Wallis with OL in Aldershot in 1978.

  CHAPTER 22

  The Calm after Thunder:

  Returning Home

  On 10th September 1945 I boarded The Empress of Australia bound for Manila after almost precisely five years in Hong Kong.

  I arrived there and spent three weeks in a US transit camp, where some 25,000 American Servicemen had been getting ready to invade Japan. The American camp was something I had never imagined. There were four films to choose from every night showing on open-air screens, and almost every kind of facility. We were issued with Australian blankets, one of which I still possess.

  The approach to Manila up the 50-mile Gulf was dramatic since there was line after line of American ships, all loaded to the gunwales, all carefully placed for the coming invasion of Japan. It was the largest assembly of shipping I have ever seen or am likely to see.

  When we arrived at the head of the sound after some six hours, we were given a berth adjoining one of the few undamaged quays. Around us were masts and funnels of ships projecting above the water. These were Japanese ships which had been sunk in the capture of Manila.

  The Americans had provided some 40 ambulances for those seriously ill. But before the ambulances arrived on the quay the American Marine Musicians struck up God Save the King. All cheered, and the American national anthem was then played. Very few of the ambulances were needed as the Royal Navy had earlier brought the hospital ship Oxfordshire to Hong Kong and she had collected those who were in a serious condition.

  After about two weeks I boarded a P37 American transport, a 6,000-ton landing ship designed with many others to capture the Pacific islands one by one. On board were 2,000 Americans and 40 British and Canadians. We all had mattresses. There were no complaints. We were all going home. I need hardly say the food was excellent; the galleys never stopped serving us. It was the first time I had seen food being served on a tray with indentations for all the different courses. After a three-week voyage on the P37 we arrived off Honolulu. At the entrance to what had become one of the world’s greatest naval bases was anchored a British aircraft carrier with the White Ensign flying at her stern – a most moving sight.

  We spent the day on board the P37 as the Admiral at Pearl Harbor had prohibited our landing. Our Captain made amends for our disappointment by asking the ship’s company to gather round the main hatch at 2.00 p.m. Right on time he posted 40 Marines around the hatch; a few minutes later Hawaiian dancers in grass skirts arrived to everybody’s delight.

  Just before arriving in Seattle a message came through to the Captain that we would be diverted to Esquimault (the Canadian naval base in the Pacific), near Vancouver. The reason was that America had withdrawn lease lend and there was no money to send us home across the States!

  On arrival in Esquimault the names of the first POWs to arrive were read out in turn before each of us went down the gangway. It was dark, but floodlights were on and we were being televised. We saw a large group on the quay below and were greeted individually with cheers and clapping.

  That night we were taken to a transit camp on the outskirts of Victoria, where we stayed for about ten days. The camp was still there 35 years later when I visited it, being used as part of the University of Victoria. We then took the Canadian Pacific train from Vancouver to Halifax, the first POW train to make the four-day journey; the Canadian Government had given the officers first-class accommodation. The next day we climbed up and over the Rockies; the scenery was beautiful. In the evening we steamed into Edmonton for a half hour stop. We had gone to sleep wearing pyjamas for the first time for many years. Suddenly a band struck up outside the carriage, God Save the King. The station and the town were lit up because everybody was celebrating. A number of girls came into our carriage and pulled us out on the platform in our pyjamas, and started to dance with us. If you have not seen or been with a girl for four years, when something like that happens, you have an extraordinary feeling. The Mayor of Edmonton was there with his gold chain of office while the ladies served tea and cakes. It was an amazing experience.

  The next day we crossed the prairies to Winnipeg, deciding to be well prepared and remaining dressed, ready for the reception which we saw as the train drew in. The people of Winnipeg had turned out with the Mayor and a band. Whenever we stopped, whatever the hour, however isolated the outpost, local residents were waiting on the station to give us chocolates, hot coffee, buns and fruit. On the third day we arrived at Montreal, where some Servicemen made a good profit selling their worthless Hong Kong military yen notes to the Canadians as mementos.

  Going across Canada we met trains going in the opposite direction, bringing Canadian Servicemen back from Europe. They shouted, “Don’t go back. They are watering the beer. England is finished.”

  Finally we arrived at Halifax. I was able to telephone my mother and asked what I should bring her. “We would love a tin of butter,” was her reply.

  We waited two weeks to fill the Ile de France, a large French ocean liner. Great was the excitement when it was announced that a Royal Army Pay Corps team was about to pay us. Equally great was the disappointment when the ‘team’ turned out to be a bespectacled Lance Corporal with sufficient funds to pay only 25 men, let alone a couple of thousand of us. Notices were everywhere on the ship telling us not to steal the towels. The POWs retaliated by numbering in Japanese during the ship’s boat drills, and released several men from the ship’s cells.

  On arrival at Southampton on 31st October there was no reception and no Mayor, as there had been at Manila, Esquimault, Edmonton and Winnipeg. There was no Garden Party for us: it had to wait 50 years to be put right by The Queen on VJ Day 1995.

  I had taken five and a half years to circumnavigate the globe, leaving from Platform 2 at Woking station and returning to Platform 2 from Southampton. My expenses had been met by the British Government, the Government of Hong Kong, the Emperor of Japan, the President of the United States of America, the Prime Minister of Canada and finally the British Government once again!

  “It was misty and a very moving sight when this great ship came in,” wrote my father. “Freda and I had been lucky to secure a pass for the quayside. We spotted John at the aft rail and he spotted us. As she tied up, gangways went down, a band struck up welcoming music and John was quickly down the gangway to us at last, after five years. Praise and thanksgiving welled up in our hearts as we welcomed him, and then had to release him for formalities to be gone through.”

  After spending several days in a hut in Southampton, I received a railway ticket for Woking, the station nearest to my home. And that was my discharge!

  * * * * *

  The healthier Canadian POWs were embarked on HMCS Prince Robert, the same merchant cruiser which had escorted them to Hong Kong 45 months earlier. Thirty-one who were seriously ill were carried aboard the Oxfordshire. The remainder paraded to board the Empress of Australia. Captain S M Banfill of the Royal Rifles remembers how “the Senior Medical Officer shouted ‘Attention! Right turn.’ Then he looked at the emaciated, ragged men and said quietly, ‘I won’t say, ‘Quick march’ but toddle on the best you can’.”1

  At Manila, the Canadian Shamshuipo survivors were reunited with their comrades who had been imprisoned in Japan. “Nearly every man who came home had physical and psychological problems of one kind or another, and many of them would suffer the effects for the rest of their lives,” concluded Brereton Greenhous in National Defence HQ, Ottawa.2

  Many of the Canadian veterans “had returned with undetected dy
sentery, and as there was only one doctor in Canada with experience in diagnosing the disease, these cases were neither identified nor treated. One of the more unfortunate results of this was the contraction of dysentery by wives and medical personnel.”3 After considerable political pressure, by 1976 the Canadian Government “generously gave Hong Kong veterans with assessed disabilities an additional 30% pension. Each man therefore collected a minimum 80% pension.” The British who were imprisoned in Hong Kong receive no special pension unless they can prove disability. Health in the three camps was governed by the gradual weakening of the prisoners. The doctors who were with us said that if the war had lasted another six months many prisoners would have died. The rations were of course inadequate for health, comprising rice twice a day, a watery vegetable soup and occasionally some unexpected addition.

  In my case, and it was probably fairly common, I developed beriberi towards the end of our imprisonment and from then on found myself considerably weaker when walking round the camp. In the Autumn of 1943 beriberi affected my sight. I understand that without a healthy diet eyes become weaker after some months, and this happened to me. Francis Rossini, a POW with us who was an eye specialist from Harley Street in London, collected a small party and each afternoon read to us some pages from a book.

  Beriberi is a deficiency disease resulting from sub-standard nutrition, including vitamin deficiencies. The usual symptom was burning pain in the feet. Beriberi also caused my legs to blow up like balloons, and my joints began to ache. I had one injection of thiamine, which was all that could be spared. Was the drug smuggled into the camp by BAAG? I never discovered. I needed thiamine injections for 20 years after the war.

  I expect that many British POWs were suffering in the same way as me and the Canadians. Gradually they joined me before we all sailed on the Ile de France. It was interesting hearing of their experiences.