by Pacific War Uncensored: A War Correspondent's Unvarnished Account of the Fight Against Japan
At the end of 1936 I was starting to feel very homesick, and had been getting letters from Marie, in which it was apparent that she was also feeling unhappy. She had been mourning the death of her brother, but she was also feeling very lonely, and asked whether it would be possible for me to come home and join her for a while. I was very much in favour of this, as it had been six years since I’d had a holiday, and during that time I had been working very hard to establish myself in a new career. So I wrote to John Morris and asked if I could have leave of absence, to see if I could go home and comfort Marie. At the beginning of 1937 John Morris wrote to me and said that providing I could make arrangements in Hong Kong to cover the operations of the United Press office, then I could have my leave of absence. I talked it over with John Shaw, the editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph, whose wife was also going on leave, and it was arranged that he would stay in the flat while I was away. I then employed a temporary member of staff to help in the office, a young Englishman named Les Pearson, who would work with George Baxter.
So I could now start making arrangements for coming home, and had thought of plans to travel in a rather spectacular manner. One of these was to come home on the Trans Siberian Express. It would have taken me from Hong Kong to London in about twenty-one days, but proved to be a very laborious business, because there were so many visas that were needed for the journey. The other more ambitious plan was to fly home on an airmail postage plane. At that time there was an airline called Imperial Airways that flew mail only from London to Hong Kong. It used to take about a week if weather conditions were good, but sometimes you were able to get a letter in five days. I hit upon the idea of getting myself on the plane, but as an item of mail. I asked Imperial Airways about this, and to my surprise they were very enthusiastic. The plan was to wear a leather coat that would be covered in postage stamps, which would cover the cost of my delivery. The main condition was that I would not be able to leave the plane at all, and would be treated strictly as mail. This presented a problem regarding feeding, though The Horlicks Company, who made malted milk, were interested in sponsoring me by giving me a supply of their tablets that would keep me going for the seven-day trip. The project seemed to be all set until somebody spoilt it by discovering that livestock could not be carried by the Royal Mail. Eventually though, I managed to book myself a passage on one of the Japanese NYK Lines, as they were the cheapest available. In April 1937 I finally embarked on my trip home, and I made up my mind that whilst on board I was going to rest. It was actually a very pleasant time on board, but I was glad when I finally arrived home.
When I returned to Hong Kong the war in China was intensifying— the Japanese had invaded the Chinese mainland and were sweeping through it quite rapidly. They had captured Chunking and Nanking, and were coming swiftly southwards. We were receiving terrible stories from our United Press reporters in the field; Hong Kong had now become a sort of clearing centre for all the news and I was getting run off my feet. I had to hire more assistance, as we were keeping a 24-hour watch because things were happening so quickly in China. The only happy piece of news that came during this period was a letter from Marie saying that she was setting sail for Hong Kong in December, and that she should arrive sometime in the New Year.
During this time I also had a very intriguing call from my correspondent in Macao whose name was John Brager. He was such a dependable correspondent that for him to call me and ask me to go down there made me realise that something exciting was happening. So I went down as soon as I could, and he explained to me that there had arrived in the colony a Baron Ernst von Rusmunsen.*
The background of this Baron was that he had, until recently, been one of Hitler’s top men, and had ranked about number five in the German hierarchy. He had then fallen out with Hitler because he did not agree with Hitler’s plan for the invasion of Poland. As a result he had gone to China, where he had hoped to ingratiate himself with Chiang Kai-shek, who around that time was hiring a lot of German military advisors in his war against Japan. Baron Ernst Von Rusmunsen had failed to get along with Chiang Kai-shek, and in no time at all found himself short of money. He was now in Macao, and wanted to sell his story to the news papers.
I met with the Baron in what seemed to me to be somewhat amusing circumstances. I was put into a big motorcar with curtains drawn down so I could not see where we were going, and we then drove for quite a long way. Macao’s total area is only five square miles, so we must have driven for quite a long time in circles in order to confuse me, but we eventually arrived at a house, and in it was a man who could be described as looking similar to Lord Montgomery. The Baron was a slight moustached figure with a military bearing, and not at all the big German Nazi bully that I had envisaged in my mind. He had a lot of very interesting things to tell me about Hitler’s plans for the invasion of Poland, then of France, and then ultimately the British Isles.
A lot of these ideas sounded rather fanciful, but what impressed me most of all was some blueprints he had of a glider that he said could carry up to fifty troops, and be launched across the channel. I was sufficiently well versed in reading blueprints to know that these things were genuine. He also had a blueprint for a pilot-less aircraft that would be propelled by a rocket, and I was convinced that the intention was to use this rocket as a missile.
All the things he had told me seemed to be genuine, as we had plenty of evidence from all our dispatches that Hitler was determined to wage war. I returned to Hong Kong, and I sent a message to New York giving a very detailed account of what Baron Ernst Von Rusmunsen wanted to sell to us. The Baron wanted $50,000 as a down payment, and then a percentage of any of the syndication rights for his information. A very quick reply came back from the United Press in New York, which simply said, “Tell your Baron, go smoke another pipe!” I was very much surprised by this attitude, as the story appeared to be genuine and of great significance. Despite the setback, I thought that the Baron’s information might be of interest to somebody else, so I went to see the contacts I had in Hong Kong who were connected with British Intelligence, but they thought the stories were fanciful and showed no interest at all. Shortly after that a man from Colliers Magazine came to Hong Kong, whose name was Jim Marshall. I told him the story of Baron Ernst Von Rusmunsen, and he went immediately off to Macao to see if he could find the Baron, but was unable to do so. That was a chapter closed as far as I was concerned, and I never heard anything more about it.
Another thing that happened around this time was the arrival of the “O-Class” submarines to Hong Kong. I took the opportunity to meet up with a lot of old shipmates of mine, and they had a very interesting story to tell me. They said that the “O-boats” were laid up with engine trouble and that there had been a very thorough enquiry into the cause of this; it had been established that the lubricating oil with which they had been served in the naval dockyard had not been a mineral oil at all, but a vegetable oil. This had caused a lot of problems in the engine, and the bearings and pistons had been badly scored. There was a theory amongst the crew that this had been an act of sabotage, and a court of enquiry had been set up to investigate the matter.
Later in 1939 another most interesting story came my way, from a British naval lieutenant called Richardson, who was on a light cruiser called the HMS Dorsetshire. Neither America nor Japan was in the war with Britain at the time, and yet this British cruiser had intercepted a Japanese liner, which I think was called the Tatsuta Maru, on the seas between San Francisco and Yokohama. In mid-ocean they had put aboard a boarding party, and had promptly arrested 60 American citizens. They then brought them aboard HMS Dorsetshire, and taken them down to Hong Kong where they were put into Stanley Jail.
I have it on good authority that those American citizens were of German extraction, employed by the Standard Oil Company of California, and had been part of a very well organised sabotage ring against the Allies. It was the Standard Oil Company of California that had been responsible for delivering the lubricating oil
to the naval dockyard in Hong Kong, and it was this lubricating oil that had put the six “O” class sub marines out of action. The German-Americans working in the Standard Oil Company had got wind that naval intelligence were on their tracks, and had then tried to escape to Japan. Lieutenant Richardson, who had actually intercepted the Japanese cruiser, had pictures of the incident, but I could not use them in any way because I would have been prevented by the Official Secrets Act and censorship. To this day I do not know whether any official news was released about this incident, but it was most remarkable, and indicated to me how much subversive activity there was in Hong Kong at this time.
For me, 1938 started in a much happier way, when Marie and Patricia arrived back in Hong Kong, and I was overjoyed to be reunited with them. We now lived in a spacious well-appointed 2nd floor military flat on Hankow Road. Life, though, was getting more and more hectic, as the war around the world was escalating and news about it was flooding in day after day. By the middle of 1938 the Japanese had landed in a place called Bias Bay, which was not far from Hong Kong—they had confounded all the military pundits and charged across the great Chinese province of Canton. They captured Canton, and from there they spread out right along the Hong Kong border. More than once I went out to the border, and was able to look across and actually see the Chinese sentries with their bayonets fixed, standing under the Japanese flag glowering straight back at us. Back in Hong Kong a German cruiser, The Gneisenau, had sailed into the harbour to be used as a voting station. It was anchored for 48 hours, and all the Germans living in Hong Kong went aboard to cast their votes. It became apparent to me that a lot of them, who were long-term residents, were simply going to vote upon this German warship because they were frightened, and had been pressured into doing it. This was another indication to me that Hitler was busy putting his plans into place.
We frequently would meet quite a famous and legendary character in Hong Kong at that time, known as General “Two-Gun” Cohen. He was Jewish, and born in Manchester. His real name was Maurice Cohen, and somehow or other had gained a reputation for being a “tough guy.” He had been a gunman in Canada, and I think perhaps his activities had made him a wanted man, and so he ended up in China on the run. I am not quite sure how it happened, but he became a close confidant of Doctor Sun Yat-Sen, who was the leader of the first Chinese rebellion against the old Imperialist rule in about 1911. Maurice Cohen had become a kind of bodyguard to Doctor Sun Yat-Sen, and a legend had grown up around him that he always carried two guns, hence his title “Two-Gun” Cohen. Maurice Cohen became very fond of Patricia, and at times we would meet with him in the Hong Kong Hotel, which was not far away from The South Morning Post building. He would frequently take Patricia off somewhere, after which she would return with a huge box of chocolates. In fact, Two-Gun Cohen, in spite of all the terrifying stories about him, was a very simple and kindly type of character.
In Hong Kong at the beginning of 1939 life was quite pleasant, and we used to go out to Repulse Bay where we had our bathing hut. The routine in the office was now at a workable level, and the pressures on me were decreasing. However, the menace of the Japanese was very real, and I was convinced that the only thing that stood in the way of a Japanese invasion in 1939 was that Germany and Russia had signed a non-aggression pact. The news from Europe, though, was ominous, as we heard about Hitler’s invasion of Poland. The investigation that Inspector Shannon had done in identifying key German figures in Hong Kong had suddenly come into effect, and the suspects were immediately rounded up and placed straight into jail. The big question now was what would the Japanese do? It was a very menacing time, and I think that everyone in Hong Kong felt the pressure.
Things were very busy in the United Press office, and I found that the only way of coping with this was by drinking heavily. This upset Marie a lot, and didn’t really like the person who I was becoming. I think it was a stroke of luck that I then had an accident which led to the end of this habit. My friend Arthur Campbell, with whom I had covered a lot of stories in the drug trade, invited myself and Marie out one evening to a party. It was a strange party. Though there were not many people we knew, it was still a very nice party. When we came out of the house where the party was being held, it was very dark, and there were some shallow steps to walk down. Nearing the bottom of these steps, and in the darkness, I stumbled and fell, and felt my stiff leg crack. I knew it was broken. This was a frightening thing for me because I knew how frail the leg was, but fortunately we were not far from the naval hospital.
We had a group of people with us, and I asked them to get one of the sedan chairs and take me to the naval hospital. It was an agonising experience, because the sedan chairs tend to bounce up and down when they are being carried, so I was glad when the chair was set down outside the hospital and the duty surgeon came out to see me. They gave me a shot of morphine to take away the pain, got me set down for the night, and Marie then went home. In the morning she came back, and I was taken away for an x-ray—it was confirmed that the leg was broken, and it would need an operation to put it right again. So there I was back again in a naval hospital.
The operation was performed for no given reason under just a local anesthetic around the knee, with the intention of putting some pins through it. I was propped up on the operating table and could see everything that went on. The surgeon got a drill, and drilled a hole straight through my leg where the knee joint used to be. To my surprise this was quite painless. The surgeon then put some wires through my leg, and a plaster cast was placed around it from my ankle to my hip. I was then put back in bed, where I stayed for about three weeks before being allowed back home.
I had to spend about three months in the plaster, which seemed to be very thick. This proved to be quite a difficulty living in a second floor flat, but Marie made a seating pad for me, and when I wanted to go down the stairs, I did it on my backside. The weeks in that plaster were rather annoying, and difficult. Eventually I was called back to the hospital to have it removed. It was, however, a turning point that taught me a lesson about the heavy drinking, and getting things into perspective.
Christmas 1939 was very happy for us, but as it transpired it was to be the last one that we would spend in Hong Kong. International politics had taken many unexpected turns. Germany and Russia had formed a nonaggression pact, and this seemed to upset any plans Japan had for joining in the general offensive against Britain. Their troops were still stationed on the Hong Kong border and there was no doubt that they posed a massive threat, which made the Hong Kong government very uneasy. As a result it was decided to form an additional defence force in Hong Kong, and all British males of eighteen years and over were to be conscripted.
They wanted to set things up very quickly, and decided to organise a mass medical inspection of all eligible males, and this included me. The garrison school was taken over for a day, where about a dozen doctors congregated, and all the men had to pass between these doctors very quickly to be inspected. We all had to strip off down to our socks and shoes, and each of the doctors we passed before had a delegated task. One would look at your ears, another would sound your chest, and they gave all the men a very thorough check over. The comical part, though, was that I managed to go past all these doctors, and not one of them noticed that I had a stiff leg—so I passed fit for the Hong Kong defence corps! What they planned exactly to do with me I don’t know, but I cannot think I would have been of much use to them.
In July 1940 the decision was taken to evacuate women and children from Hong Kong, except for those women who were performing what was called “essential services.” The army wives and children had to go, and this included Marie and Pat. So one dreadful afternoon they boarded one of the Empress boats, which were boats that had been stripped of all their amenities so that they could be used to carry troops. They were embarked onboard very quickly, and set off for the Philippines, with a stop at Australia. It was not until I got back home that night that I suddenly felt a great emp
tiness. I was, however, able to move in with a friend, Bill Hirst, which helped ease my loss.
The situation in Hong Kong was getting now very worrying, and I started to make my own plans for getting out. As things turned out it was not necessary, because I had a message late in November from John Morris in Shanghai instructing me to pack up everything in Hong Kong and move down to Singapore. The United Press wanted to open an office there, and they wanted me to set it up. So I said goodbye to Bill Hirst, and left George Baxter to take over the office in Hong Kong, before sailing off to Singapore on a ship called the President Jackson. The trip was not that pleasant because there was a strike by the staff on board, but I arrived in Singapore safely and booked into the Raffles Hotel.
*Baron Ernst von Rusmunsen is the closest interpretation that can be made from the original tapes, and further research has failed to verify any other spelling of the name.
CHAPTER FOUR
Singapore Defence
Establishing a news agency office anywhere is not an easy business, and is made even more difficult during wartime. Radio contacts needed setting up, along with other equipment like a teleprinter. I managed to find an office on Battery Road near the general post office to base our operation, and recruited some local people for staff. Chief amongst these was a man called Wee Kim Wee, who was a Straits-born Chinese, and had been Malaya’s champion badminton player. He was very bright and dependable, and later in his life became President of Singapore. I also recruited another Malay man who was a very proficient teleprinter operator, whose name was Arshad. When our little office got underway, the news started coming in very quickly, but we managed to cope with the demands and got the United Press news service up and running.
