by Pacific War Uncensored: A War Correspondent's Unvarnished Account of the Fight Against Japan
I was also flown down to the Gulf of Aqaba, where stories were still being told of Lawrence of Arabia. Aqaba had been one of his strongholds when he was forming the Arab armies during the First World War, and there were rumours that there was a buried hoard of gold hidden somewhere in the region. While I was there, Air Force men would often go out with metal detectors in their spare time looking for this buried hoard of gold, but none of them, I think, were successful. I also visited Basra on the Persian Gulf, where a lot of American companies were drilling for oil. The city was obviously very militant, and it seemed that the prospecting of oil had aroused nationalism within this part of the country. In Baghdad there also seemed to be a lot of discontent, with young men parading around the city with banners proclaiming communist ideas. I was quite sure that the country was on the verge of a revolt.
My next stop was Aden, in Yemen, where the colonial secretary there told me of the problems they had been experiencing with some of the tribes in the northern territories. In an endeavour to improve relations they were keen to make contact with a character called the Sharif of Beihan, who was something of an unknown quantity. The colonial secretary was not sure if the Sharif was on the side of a rebellion, or whether he was in favour of remaining in what was known as the British protectorate. They thought that I might be able to help with this situation, as a newspaperman may present less of a threat by not being viewed with the same level of suspiciousness as officialdom would.
So it was that I went to meet with the Sharif of Beihan, along with a delegation of official representatives from the colonial office, and although he was, in appearance, quite a fearsome character, he seemed to take a liking to me. I spent many hours sitting on the floor of his palace partaking of his hospitality. Our conversation was translated by a young man called John Savage, and the entire time we were surrounded by the Sharif’s tribesmen, who stood along the walls of the palace with piercing eyes and fang-like teeth. After what seemed to be many hours of conversation, the Sharif suddenly decided that he wanted me to be his blood brother. I was astounded by this request, and asked why, to which he replied, “Your hair is white, which shows that you have great knowledge. Your face is unlined which shows you have a young heart. You have a great wound in your leg, which shows you are a warrior. Therefore you are fit to be my blood brother!”
Meeting with the Sharif of Beihan. West Aden Protectorate and Wing Commander Forsythe is greeted by the Sharif prior to his meeting with Harold, when they became blood brothers. United Press
The rest of my journey through the Middle East took me to Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Red Sea area. After this I went onto Karachi in the newly formed country of Pakistan, which I had previously known under Indian rule. I found that everything had deteriorated under the new regime, and that there was terrible inflation. I only spent two days there before flying onto Ceylon, where I was able to take a look at Colombo, and once more I was shocked at how dilapidated it had become. I looked forward to the next destination in my trip, which was Singapore.
Oil pipes being laid in the Middle East—the cause of much trouble, as Harold was to discover on his trip in 1953. United Press
Harold of Arabia—modelling an Arab headdress that was given to him during his travels through the Middle East. Author collection
After landing in Singapore, I was put through quite a lot of intense questioning from the authorities about the purpose of my visit. It was then that I got a really nice surprise. The RAF public relations officer, who was due to meet me at the airport, had brought with him Wee Kim Wee, the Singapore Chinese who I had employed when we first opened the United Press Office in December 1940. I had last seen Wee Kim Wee when I left Singapore in something of a hurry in February 1942, just as the Japanese were taking over the island. It was a great pleasure to meet with him again, and we had plenty to talk about.
He had a car and took me around to see some of the old familiar places. I went to see Marie’s former quarters in the Alexandra Barracks, where I found little had visibly changed. I was told, though, that if I wanted to go to the Swimming Club that I could only do so as a guest, because Europeans were not allowed there alone. It seemed that the local population were starting to assert themselves, and that the British were no longer considered “top dogs.” I was billeted at the RAF station in Changi, which had once been a dreaded place because it was there that the Japanese imprisoned most of the British troops in 1942. Wee Kim Wee told me that during the Japanese occupation, Johnny Fuji had contacted him, and together they went to find out if I had been captured. Of course they were unable to find me, and assumed that my getaway had been successful.
I took the opportunity of also travelling back up to Kuala Lumpur. At that time there was an “emergency” in Malaya, and for the past two years communist guerrillas had been travelling down into the jungle from the north, and the defence forces had been trying to force them out. I met with a General Sir Gerald Templar, who had agreed to meet with me as long as anything that he told me was off the record. When I met the general he gave me a long explanation about the difficulties the armed forces had experienced in getting rid of the guerrillas, but they were now getting the upper hand on their enemy after two years of tackling the problem.
It occurred to me that the size of the ground forces stationed in Malaya was as large as that which had fought in 1941, but they had the added advantage of support from the air and sea. Given that they had been unable to defeat their enemy, surely it vindicated the efforts of those who had fought there eleven years ago? I put it to the general that the criticism, which had been made of those who fought in the Malayan Campaign, had been harsh, given these facts, but he made no comment.
I also had my first-ever helicopter ride from Changi. I was taken up by a young naval pilot on a sortie into the Malayan jungle—and found the whole experience to be most exhilarating. Later on at a party I achieved another first, when I met a man from the Malayan Broadcasting Company. I was talking to him about my impressions of Singapore and Malaya, both past and present, and he invited me to talk on his radio station about what I had told him. It was the first time I had done such a thing, and although I made copious notes, I found that once I sat down behind the glass screen with a microphone in front of me that my mind went blank. I sat there and talked for fifteen minutes completely off the top of my head. One evening in the officer’s mess at Changi, someone turned on the radio and I heard my story being broadcast, which thankfully sounded fine and everyone enjoyed it.
From Singapore I made a brief stop in the Philippines, where I spent some time with the American forces, before finally moving onto Hong Kong. This was the place that I was looking forward to seeing more than any other, after an absence of what was now nearly thirteen years. I landed at Kai Tak Aerodrome in what was known as the New Territories, in the middle of a stormy Sunday afternoon. There was nobody to meet me there, and so I made my way over to the airport buildings as quickly as I could with all my baggage. I was soon met, though, and given a very good room within the officer’s mess, which was accompanied by a great deal of hospitality. It was all very nice, but I was anxious to go back and look at Hong Kong, so at the soonest possible opportunity I got a bus down to the Star Ferry to make the crossing over to the island.
Standing on that ferry brought back many memories, and I felt like I was going back home. When the ferry had docked I then walked up to the offices of the South East China Morning Post, where I had first opened the United Press office in 1935. Everything seemed to be exactly the same, and I went in and took the lift up to the office where I had sat all those years ago. The United Press man there, Jack James, was not at his desk because he was taking time off that Sunday afternoon. So I made my way to the Hong Kong Hotel, which had been a favourite place of Marie and I. I was disappointed to find that it was no longer there, and had been replaced by a rather garish amusement arcade. Down the road, however, at the Gloucester Hotel, there was still a restaurant on the ground floor, and I was delighted
when one of the head boys there recognised me straight away.
On the following day the weather improved, and so I went back to the offices of the South East China Morning Post. There I met up with a lot of people who I had known before, including Stuart Grey, who was the editor of the paper, and Percy Franklin, the general manager. They made me feel tremendously welcome, and took me out to lunch, after which I went for a walk around the places that were once so familiar. I went up to Garden Road and stood outside our old accommodation for such a long time that a lady came out and asked me what I wanted. I explained myself, and she told me that it was no longer a school quarter, but accommodation for one of the military police.
There seemed, though, to be changes all over. One of the most striking was the new National Bank of China, which had formerly been the communist Chinese Bank. I found out that the manager of the National Bank of China was a man called George Kwok, who I had previously known as the manager of the communist bank. He was a man with good connections, and I decided to go and see him. After a certain amount of haggling on the ground floor, I managed to get myself a meeting with George Kwok. We chatted for some time, and I asked him if there was any chance of me being able to visit China. He did not think it would be a problem, and made a few phone calls, before telling me that I would have to wait a couple of days. Unfortunately nothing came of this, because another United Press man had been out sailing and accidentally crossed into Chinese waters. As result, they had been suspicious about his motives, and did not welcome any more United Press men at that time.
I was determined, though, to try and get a glimpse of China, and went to see George Moss, who I had known previously when we lived in Hong Kong, and was now a police superintendent. He was able to take me right up to the border, where it was possible to look across at the communist Chinese soldiers patrolling up and down. Standing there reminded me of the time before when I had visited the border, and we had been in fear of a Japanese invasion; in some ways it seemed that things had hardly changed at all. I also went to see an RAF radar station that supposedly operated twenty-four hours a day, though I found out that this was not actually true. The twenty-four hour vigilance was maintained only up to Friday nights. This was a funny situation—apparently both sides of the border had an agreement between them that on a Friday night the radar was stopped so that the Chinese and RAF could have a night off!
The time had now come for me to go home to London, and there was a flight available carrying soldiers back to start their leave. In those days they used to take troops on chartered flights, as opposed to troop ships, and they all wore civilian clothes. At the same time I found out that the de Havilland Comet, the fastest civilian aircraft at that time, was also leaving Singapore for London. I thought that if I could get a flight on this plane it would make a terrific story, so I made enquiries and found out that the plane was fully booked until it reached Calcutta, making it possible for me to join the flight in India.
I went back to the military and asked if their plane would be stopping at Calcutta, which it was, and so I told them that I would join the Comet at that stage. My plan went ahead, but when our plane arrived in Calcutta, I was told that my seat on the Comet had been taken by a V.I.P. So I had to return to my original flight, and was very disappointed to have missed out on this opportunity. We had to spend the night in Calcutta in The Great Eastern Hotel, sleeping on camp beds, before getting up the following day to resume our journey. It was then that we heard the terrible news that the Comet had met with disaster over India. Once I was over the shock, I was thankful for having had such a lucky escape. Then it suddenly occurred to me that the United Press in London would think I was on the flight, and so I quickly phoned our local correspondent to pass on the news that I was safe and well.
When I returned to London I had lots of stories to tell about what I had seen, but everyone seemed to be preoccupied with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and also with the British Expedition that had conquered Mount Everest. My old friend Patrick Maitland was still promoting the Commonwealth of Nations, which after the unrest I had seen on my travels, seemed now to be even more important.
I was rather surprised then to receive an invitation from the government of Sudan to attend the opening of their first parliament. The United Press was more than happy for me to go, and I spent about ten days in the Middle East, after which time I returned back home. Soon after my return I suffered a bout of illness, and was diagnosed as having heart trouble. I do not know whether it was the heat in the Middle East that caused the problem, but a doctor told me that I needed to rest for quite a long time, which I then proceeded to do.
I was finally able to get back to work early in 1956, when the big news was the “Suez Crisis,” the outcome of which seemed to leave Britain isolated from the rest of the world. This was disastrous for Patrick Maitland’s Commonwealth of Nations, and to compound his difficulties, he got into trouble with the Conservative Party for not voting with the party line over Suez. As a result, the party whip removed him, forcing him to become an independent member of parliament; at the next general election he lost his seat.
I think that 1956 shattered a lot of my dreams, not only in politics, but also in my interest in news coverage. It seemed to me that communications were outstripping the whole idea of news coverage, and there were great masses and volumes of words being used that did not get to the bottom of a story. Young men were coming into the profession with new ideas, and I gradually started to get the impression that the old ideas that I had followed and believed in were no longer considered to be any good. I started to lose heart in the job I had done now for almost twenty-five years. Along with all the problems I had suffered with my health, it seemed that my time in the news service was coming to an end, and I started to look forward to my retirement.
Harold Guard with John Tring in 1970 in the back garden of his retirement bungalow at Friars Cliff, Nr Christchurch, Dorset, UK. The place where many stories of the Pacific War were retold and recorded. Author collection
Epilogue
My grandfather retired in 1959, and went with my grandmother Marie to live in a little town called Friars Cliff on the south coast of England, where he remained until his death at the age of eighty-seven. They spent many happy years there, in spite of him suffering from failing eyesight, which in the end left him almost totally blind. The United Press gave him a television as a retirement present with a plaque that read, “A window on the world for one of its most famous and finest foreign correspondents.” My grandfather would always keep in touch with world affairs, and by drawing on his own experiences, was often able to add some insight to the stories he would hear. Even as his eyesight worsened, he would sit close up to the television, side on, using the remaining peripheral vision he had, or listen to the radio to make sure that he was not missing out on the latest news.
My own memories of him are mainly from when I was a small boy and teenager, and of course, the stories that he had to tell. Even though these tales of being in the jungle or taking part in bombing missions were very entertaining to me, I did not really understand their significance until later on in life. Since I began preparing this book, I’ve discovered additional stories from his tapes and papers that I did not know about or had forgot ten, all of which has been quite a revelation for me. He would often show me some of the artefacts and photos he had collected from his naval and newspaper career, which were consigned to a black metal trunk in his garage (as my grandmother seemed to not want them in their bungalow), and these things, along with his cassette tapes, have never left my mind. I sometimes wonder if he showed them to me in the hope that I would someday write his book, as he knew that the time for him to do it himself had long since passed.
Why he never wrote the book himself, I do not know, but the task of bringing together all the various parts of his legacy has been a lengthy one, and one which he may not have felt up to, having spent many years of reporting, at times from dangerous and terrifying places
. In amongst his belongings there were also many letters that had been written to him from the relatives of people fighting in the Far East, thanking him for providing them with up-to-date and detailed information about the conflicts in which their loved ones were involved. It must have been extremely touching for him to receive these. They were kept in amongst other formal accolades, such as the Asiatic-Pacific Service ribbon that was awarded to him by General MacArthur, and the letter of good wishes from Lord Mountbatten after my grandfather had his heart trouble.
This demonstrates, I believe, his values—the most important part of his stories were the people that he met, whether they were Gibson, the Papuan native boy, the Sharif of Beihan or General MacArthur himself. All of them seem to have equal standing and importance, and it may be that my grandfather’s sense of humility and character are what enabled him to ingratiate himself to others and allow him, at times, to get the scoop or exclusive interview. I remember that he also had a tremendous sense of humour and the ability to make people laugh, a quality I hope has been demonstrated in his observations within this story. Harold Guard was admired and well thought of by many people. His tales are a legacy that my family has enjoyed for many years, and I hope that you have too.
