Seventy Years Ago Today: A Personal Account

Not long after 2 pm. on October 29, 1943 – seventy years ago today – 33 lives were brought to a brutal end on Stanley Beach.1

32 men and one woman were executed by beheading. Their trial had been held in two sessions on October 19, and the interpreter provided by the court made little effort to convey to the prisoners what was going on, but at one point he did offer a rather feeble English summary of the proceedings. William Anderson, the Stanley Camp Quartermaster and one of those in the dock during the afternoon session, was able to pick up the gist of the accusations:

Anderson’s understanding was that it was primarily to do with the prisoners hindering the Japanese in bringing about a new order in Asia.2

Yes, indeed. They had all done so through contact of one sort or another with the resistance organisation, the British Army Aid Group. Most had been agents, but the one military man who was executed on October 29th, Captain Mateen Ansari of the 5/7 Rajputs, had been a POW in Ma Tau-wai Camp and some of those who died beside him had been caught when a plan to free him was betrayed.

By the end of October 19, 33 people had received the death penalty; the rest, including William Anderson, got 15 years – this was simply a slower death sentence, even when it was reduced to ten later, as conditions in the Kempeitai jails were so bad that British prisoners who came out after two years were barely clinging on to life even though they’d received extra rations both openly and through smuggling. But happily most of this group were alive at the end of the war – although not David Edmondston, the number two at the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, who died of malnutrition and medical neglect in 1944.3

Like so many others my parents made the decision not to pass on the burden of suffering by telling their children about what happened to them during the war; my mother occasionally spoke about the (relatively!) lighter side of things – for example, finding a centipede in her shoe and calling my father to kill it – while my father was occasionally forced by the pressure of emotion to speak about his grimmest experiences.

It was clear to me even as a child that for him the worst time of the Hong Kong war was not the hostilities, with their constant threat of sudden death from the incessant shelling and frequent air raids, but the occupation that followed. And it wasn’t the hunger, the cramped conditions, the lack of decent sanitary and washing facilities, or the restricted life he was forced to lead that had scarred him the most: it was the fear of the Kempeitai.

No wonder. To be arrested by the Gendarmes was to enter a world of deprivation and terror that it’s hard for those of us who have known only peace-time conditions to even imagine. The cells themselves were torment enough: prisoners were packed tightly into rooms far too small for their number, the stench was foul – one or more of them was almost certainly suffering from dysentery – and it was not unknown for newcomers to find themselves forced to squeeze in next to the corpse of a poor wretch who had succumbed to mistreatment and neglect. In the Happy Valley Gendarmerie – where my father would probably have been taken if arrested during his time of greatest risk4 when he was outside Stanley, living in the French Hospital in Causeway Bay and baking bread for the hospitals – no bedding was provided – you had to wait for a cell-mate to die, be transferred or released.5 Some cells had natural light, others didn’t.

The food, as I’ve already indicated, was not enough to keep anyone alive for long: it seems to have varied at different times and in different prisons, but I think that a typical daily ration would be about 12 ozs of rice, salt, and a little vegetable marrow. But the inmates couldn’t expect even this much food to be served regularly: the gendarmes used starvation to ‘soften up’ prisoners, so interrogation would often take place when the last meal was nothing but a distant memory; sometimes longer periods of food deprivation were applied.6 For similar reasons, at least one prison was kept deliberately cold. In most cases prisoners were expected to spend much of the day cross-legged, silent and staring at a wall. Beatings were handed out for the slightest deviation.

And those already enduring these unendurable conditions lived with the pain of previous interrogations and the fear of future ones. I do not intend to describe these hideous occasions in any detail; suffice it to say that a session might begin with a beating (an amazing variety of objects were used for this) and proceed to worse measures if this failed to get the desired co-operation.

It’s probable that most or all of the people who died on October 29 had been interrogated under torture. I argued in a previous post7 that in general the Kempeitai, although brutal, treated ‘European’ prisoners with a great deal of procedural scrupulosity: they were not routinely tortured, but they almost always were if they were suspected of spying, and there’s evidence that the severity and extent of the brutality depended on the degree of involvement in espionage suspected by the interrogators. Most of those dying seventy years ago today were not ‘European’  and those who were, had taken part in activities such as military espionage, the operation of secret radio sets, and the passing on of messages, some of which were from the BAAG.

The 33 who died reacted differently to this ordeal. Two are known for certain to have been unbreakable and to have told their tormentors nothing – I think it highly probable that many more also said nothing of any value to the Japanese, only admitting to what was already known, trying to give the impression of providing information without putting anyone else at risk. We can be sure that, whatever was wrung out of them, almost nobody told everything they knew: there were many people involved in resistance whose activities were known to some of these prisoners, who were never arrested. Only one man is believed to have broken completely and attempted to spy on his fellows for better conditions and in the hope of a reprieve (which was not granted). Those who are certain they would never have done the same may wish to condemn him.

Most of those who died seventy years ago today had been arrested in the period from late April to late June – as far as I know at the moment Charles Hyde was the first and Thomas Monaghan the last, but I have very little information about the arrests of the non-Europeans. The main investigations ended around August 19.8 After that, the prisoners were probably left to await trial and then the carrying out of the sentence.

At about 2 pm on October 29 the condemned were taken out of solitary confinement and assembled inside Stanley Prison. They were refused a visit from a priest, but were allowed five minutes together to compose themselves. Captain Mateen Ansari gave an impromptu talk:

We will die strong and healthy for an ideal; not as traitors but nobly in our country’s cause.9

Wong Shiu Pun, who had worked at St. Paul’s College, led prayers. Then it was time to go.

The prisoners had their hands tied behind their backs and were roped together in groups of three. They were taken to the prison’s administration compound and put into the large prison van.10 They set off on the short drive to Stanley Beach soon after 2 pm; the blinds were pulled down, and the van was followed by two Japanese staff cars.

The American Chester Bennett was briefly interned in Stanley before being released to buy extra food for the Camp. War reporter Hal Boyle tells the next part of the story from Bennett’s perspective:

He gave the note ((a final message to his wife)) to a friendly guard and soon it was time to go. The crowded black van pulled out from the steel gates of Stanley Prison and moved slowly down the rough, narrow road leading to the small bay where British redcoats had planted the empire flag more than a hundred- years before.

As the van passed a number of internees toiling up the slope someone put his face up to the rear wire grill and called out: “Goodbye boys. We shan’t be seeing you again.” ((Believed to be Scott or Fraser.))

At the bottom of the hill the prisoners were forced to dismount and follow a trail winding around the edge of the bay. It must have been torture at every step to Chester Bennett. Rope burns on his left leg had become badly infected, the leg had become gangrenous and needed amputation. But he walked upright and limped only slightly. To all outward appearances he was utterly calm. The prisoners marched in single file to a small clearing. Ringing the hills around them were scores of Chinese gravestones. Before them in the center of the clearing the prisoners saw two trenches dug by Indian warders and knew how they were to die.11

They were all blindfolded. Captain Ansari, Walter Scott and John Fraser were led forward first. The others followed, also in groups of three. The whole business lasted about an hour. The beheadings began, but the executioner tired and the swords lost their sharpness: some of the victims had to be finished off with bullets – some internees heard the shots and believed that the prisoners had all been executed by firing squad. Anne Ozorio describes the unflinching demeanour of Wong Shiu Pun as these dreadful events were playing themselves out:

By the time it came to him the swords were blunt. But he kept praying.12

There was no intention on the part of the executioners to cause their victims additional suffering; just incompetence and indifference.

There were 33 victims in total: seventeen Chinese, eight British, four Indians, one Canadian, one American, one Portuguese, one Eurasian. 32 were male; Lau Tak Oi, the wife of resistance leader David Loie, was the only woman.13

After it was all over, the Indian guards filled in the graves, while the Japanese became very serious, and bowed deeply as water was sprinkled on the graves. Then they returned to the prison for a raucous celebration.14

October 29, 1943 was one of the few war-time experiences my father spoke to me about. He could obviously never forget this day on which he was with Mrs Florence Hyde while her husband Charles was being executed on Stanley Beach. He was, I now believe, part of a quickly improvised plot to keep her from leaving the bungalow: the part of the beach where the executions were taking place would have been visible from the path outside.

My father must also have felt a strong affinity with another of the brave men who went to their deaths seventy years ago today – his fellow Lane Crawford employee Frederick Ivan Hall. Mr Hall was in the company butchery department and at some point was living almost next door to my father in Morrison Hill Road (they probably had company flats). They were both also in the Lane Crawford bowls and cricket teams. And both had married Eurasian women earlier in the occupation.

 

He also knew one of the radio operators in the execution party – either Douglas Waterton or Stanley Rees. He wrongly believed that this man was falsely charged. He was wrong: both Mr. Waterton and Mr. Rees had been part of a team that monitored the news and passed on important items to John Fraser, the co-ordinator of most of the resistance activities in the camp.

The events of that day still haunted my father more than twenty years later. Why bring them back now? There are many reasons, one of them to me absolutely compelling.

While awaiting execution Douglas Waterton scratched a calendar on the walls of his cell – every morning he wrote the date and crossed it out –

‘EXECUTED DATE CALENDER STOPS’.

Mr Waterton also recorded some basic facts:

ARRESTED STANLEY CAMP JULY 7 1943
COURT MARTIALLED OCTOBER 43 AND CONDEMNED DEATH
NO DEFENCE

His fellow prisoner, William John White, did something similar: he inscribed all the names he knew of the condemned with sometimes a little information – for example, after Alexander Sinton’s name he put ‘SD’ for Sanitation Department. 

These men, and I’m sure the 31 others who died alongside them, wanted their story to be told. In the grimmest of circumstances, with all hope of survival gone, they began the process of historical recording that those of us who live in the world made possible by their courage and sacrifice must continue in humility and gratitude. 

1 For some of these people see:

Alexander Christie Sinton

Thomas Christopher Monaghan’s Resistance Work

Charles Hyde’s Resistance Work

Chester Bennett – ‘The American Hero of Hong Kong’

Lau Tak Oi (Gladys Loie)

2 George Wright-Nooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads, 1994, 182.

3https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/1944-4-two-deaths-a-move-and-a-release/

4February 1942 to May 1943.

5http://gwulo.com/node/8235

6https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/part-4-of-hal-boyles-series-on-chester-bennett/

7https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/how-did-the-kempeitai-treat-british-civilians-in-hong-kong/

8Wright-Nooth, 1994, 177.

9 Wright-Nooth, 1994, 186.

10Wright-Nooth, 1994, 186.

11https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/part-4-of-hal-boyles-series-on-chester-bennett/

12https://www.facebook.com/groups/308617469269780/

13https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/the-executions-of-october-29-1943-update/

14Wright-Nooth, 1994, 187.

 

The Lane, Crawford Bakery In Stubbs Road (1): Before the War

On Wednesday, September 5, 1935, the Lane, Crawford shareholders assembled at noon for an Extraordinary General Meeting to reorganise the company. The Chairman, Sir William Shenton, told them:

Our bakery and cold storage plant is out of date, and if the Company is to maintain its position of supremacy in bakery products and to cope with the requirements for further cold storage facilities, it is essential that up-to-date plant should be acquired in the near future.[1]

The old one was in Burrows Street in Wanchai.[2] The Café Wiseman (the Lane, Crawford restaurant) had its own bakery on the premises, and my guess is that this work was transferred to the new bakery when it finally arrived – The Stubbs. Rd facility didn’t open until the second half of 1938.  The company chair, J. H. Taggart, told the ordinary yearly meeting at the Exchange Building on May 28, 1938:

Commodious and eminently suitable premises have been acquired in Stubbs Road and the preparation of the building and the installation of  plant are progressing with despatch. No expense is being sapred in the interests of public health and I confidently affirm that – when completed – the new bakery will be without equal in the Far East in the manufacture of bread, cake and confectionery under the most efficient and hygienic conditions. (Hongkong Daily Press, May 30, 1938, page 2).

The meeting was assured of the ‘complete modernisation’ of this ‘important branch of your activities’ and heard about the ‘most up to date methods of production based upon the latest mechanical methods employed by leading British and American bakers and confectioners’.

Harry Randall, later to be interned with Thomas in a small room in that very building, was one of the staff shareholders present, and it’s possible that the bakery manager himself was in the audience to listen to this glowing tribute to the premises he’d journied so far to take charge of. Thomas came to Hong Kong on the HMS Carthage, which left London bound for Yokohama on April 8, 1938[3]; mail from this ship was advertised as available in Hong Kong on May 11,[4] which suggests it docked either on that day or on May 10, which is consistent with a contract running from June 1. It’s possible that he was hired specifically to move the company into the new premises; in any case, it was under false pretences, as Thomas altered his birth certificate, and probably elaborated his CV, to seem more experienced than he was. 

An ‘advertorial’ in the Hong Kong Telegraph Weekend Supplement for November 26, 1938 seems to be connected to the recent or imminent opening of the bakery. (The illustrations from this advertisement can be seen at the bottom of this post.) It presents a picture of a bakery in which the very latest machinery creates bread of the highest quality in thoroughly hygienic conditions – ‘the mechanical wrapping of bread provides complete protection from handling before it is delivered to the consumer’. All bakery and delivery personnel were, it seems, examined weekly by the Company doctors – reassuring news for a disease obsessed expatriate population.

Thomas’s article in The British Baker (September 13, 1946) lists some of the equipment at the bakery:

Lane, Crawford’s bakery contained, besides bread-making equipment, 4 oil ovens (2 peel, 2 drawplate), 4 gas ovens (2 peel, 2 drawplate).[15]

Some of the ovens and the modern ‘bread-making equipment’ is described and illustrated in the ‘advertorial’ below. The exact location of the bakery is not known, but Staff-Sergeant Sheridan’s account gives us the rather surprising information that it was ‘up a very narrow passageway’ – narrow enough for a large van driven by frightened driver in wartime conditions to get jammed.[5]

S-S Sheridan’s first contact with the bakery and its manager came some time between may and September 1939  after the death of one of his RASC bakers from cholera:

Next morning what a panic! The Army and Civilian Medical and Hygiene were at the Bakery. All Chinese bakers and all European bakers were inoculated. Bread making was stopped. The Bakery was closed and disinfected from top to bottom. Even the doughs made during the night and the bread baked, of which Chan Ar had no contact had to be destroyed. The troops had a one day biscuit issue. Arrangements were made with a local Bakery owned by a firm named Lane & Crawfords to supply bread for 14 days. The Army supplied flour, yeast, salt etc. This was the job Hammond and I had to do every day, transport the materials and collect the breads from the Bakery in Happy Valley near the Racecourse. Lane & Crawford’s Master Baker was Tommy Edgar who came from Windsor. We became quite good friends. He as a bachelor and lived in a nice flat overlooking the Racecourse. It was owned by Lane & Crawfords. (Memoir, 29)

As we shall see, this was the start of what could have become a very close relationship with the Stubbs Rd. bakery!

In early 1940 the bakery staff had a stroke of luck. They clubbed together to buy 75 tickets in a sweep at the Happy Valley races. One of them carried the number 132569, which assigned the punters Satinlight, one of the favourites, who duly came in first ‘in smashing style’ after a thrilling race.[6] Thomas’s share worked out at about £28,000 in today’s money, and he quickly sent home some of it to help pay for his brother’s wedding. The Kowloon Amahs’ syndicate(s) which had won for the last four years[7] must have been disappointed but it’s nice to report that most of the money continued to go to ordinary Chinese workers. The bakery staff got very drunk on rice and then abandoned bread making to buy small plots of land where they could grow rice and live off the proceeds. Although Thomas was thrilled at his big win, he did note that he’d now have to train  new staff![8]

S-S. Sheridan’s memoir notes that he almost took over as Bakery manager in 1940 as Thomas wanted to go home when his contract ended in June.[9] There is a problem here: S-S. Sheridan says that Thomas’s three year contract was at end, but in fact he’d only been in Hong Kong two years in 1940; the obvious answer is that Sheridan made a mistake and that it was a two year agreement, and this is probably the case. But, given the cost of getting someone out to Hong Kong, I can’t help but feel that a three year contract was more likely.

In any case, why did Thomas want to leave Hong Kong? After the war, I never heard him say anything negative about ‘my thirteen years in Hong Kong’ and in fact I always got the sense he longed to be there still. And the letter that reported his big win to his family contains an insight into his feelings a little earlier in 1940, as well as a glimpse of a fascinating story which I’ll tell in a future post:

I went out to dinner last night with Chuckie + Jean they are both glad to be back in H. K as I think the cold & Blackouts had them beat.[10]

Chuckie (Charles) and Jean Sloan were two of Thomas’s best friends pre-war – Jean seems to have also worked for Lane, Crawford, and, surprisingly enough, they’d just returned from a visit to the embattled British Isles. Thomas’s comment hardly suggests a strong desire to rush back to his cold, blacked-out homeland! I think the most likely explanation for his plan to give up an excellent job in an interesting location is simple: he wanted to be back with his family and doping his duty in time of war. He was therefore all in favour of Lane, Crawford’s offer of his job as bakery manager to Sheridan. He’d been showing the Staff-Sergeant the impressive new American machinery at Stubbs Rd.[11] (some of which can be seen in the images at the foot of this post),  the two had become friends[12] and Thomas obviously respected his baking skills. S-S. Sheridan was impressed by the big increase in salary and the chance to move into that pleasant Thomas’s company flat at 82, Morrison Rd. – furnished, rent free and enjoying a view of the race course.

But there was an obvious problem: S-S. Sheridan was a soldier in the British army. Mr. A. W. Brown,[13] the Lane Crawford manager thought he had a solution; the RASC commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Andrews-Levinge was a friend of his and he approached him on S-S. Sheridan’s behalf. It seems that the Lieutenant-Colonel was willing to go along with the plan, but the war Office would not release any army bakery in a time of war, so Mr. Brown had to try and persuade Thomas to stay.[14]

The bakery’s fortunes and that of the company generally in the new decade became linked to the progress of the war. On June 7, 1940 the ordinary yeraly meeting wa stold that although profits were down that year they should be considered satisfactory given the world situation and the problems obtaining supplies. The directors still felt able to recommend a staff bonus, and this seems to have been a regular part of company policy. (Hongkong Daily Press, June 10, 1940, pages 9 and 11). In early 1941 Lane, Crawfordwas running a ‘food parcels for relatives and friends in the UK’ scheme, although this seems to have been organised by the Grocery Department.[16] On June 21, 1941 the Company AGM was told that the sum approved last year had been written off against alterations at the bakery – this suggests that in spite of the long gestation period, the original building had been problematic in design or construction. The ‘conditions’ – that is the evacuation of many women and children – had led to a tough year’s trading in almost all departments, and profits were down –  this no doubt included the bakery. The meeting was also informed that the air conditioning at the Café Wiseman (in the Exchange Building) that had been installed in the previous September had proved worthwhile.[17]

On December 8, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack, Thomas was appointed Deputy Supply Officer Bakeries. A new period in the bakery’s history was about to begin.

---

[1] China Mail, September 25, 1935, page 9.

[2] http://gwulo.com/node/9038

[3] Manifest accessed through Find My Past.

[4] China Mail, May 11, 1938, page 14.

[5] Memoir, 75.

[6] Honkong Daily Press, February 20, 1940, page 2.

[7] Hongkong Daily Press, February 21.

[8] https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/thomas-edgar-some-documentation/

[9] Memoir, 30-31.

[10] https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/two-pre-war-letters/

[11] Memoir, 31.

[12] Memoir, 29.

[13] https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/sheridan-exchange-building/

[14] Memoir, 32.

[15] https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/thomas-edgar-some-documentation/

[16] Hongkong Daily Press, February 11, 1941, page 5.

[17] Hongkong Daily Press, June 23, 1941, page 5.

George William Mortimer

George Mortimer was transferred from the ‘combatant’ to the ‘general’ group of Essential Service workers in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps on September 4, 1941.[1] He’d been moved in the opposite direction two months earlier,[2] and I guess this means some uncertainty as to how many bakers could be spared from the fighting if war broke out. His new ‘general’ status might have meant that he was assigned to bake rather than fight throughout the hostilities, and that he was one of the five European bakers Thomas said were working in the Stubbs Rd. bakery from December 8, 1941 to December 21 when the bakery had to be abandoned.[3] Or it might have meant that he was slated for combat in the early stages of the battle but with the possibility of being re-assigned to essential service work later. This is a point I am unclear about – I need to find out more about the terminology employed by the HKVDC.

The first certain reference to him is in Staff-Sergeant Sheridan’s Memoir[4] in a diary-style entry for Tuesday, December 23:

We distribute the equipment and supplies of flour, yeast, etc. to the two bakeries and get everything ready for a start next day. Edgar manages to recruit a few more bakers. We decide to put Hammond with seven Chinese in No. 62 and a chap named Mortimer with another seven in No. 84. {A‘pokey hole’ of a bakery at 84 Queen’s Rd. East.} Edgar and I with the van will keep supplies, and collect the bread from all four bakeries.[5]

At this stage, Staff-Sergeant Sheridan and Hammond, two RASC bakers, were helping the civilians open up small Chinese bakeries that operated by wood burning. It’s not clear if Thomas really did ‘recruit’ Mr. Mortimer – in other words, got permission from the authorities for him to leave his unit and start baking, or if he was working with him all along (Staff-Sergeant Sheridan only joined the Lane, Crawford team on December 23 and I don’t suppose that matters of historical record were much on anyone’s mind!)

The next reference is after the December 25 surrender:

Mr Brown, the manager tells me that there is an order from the Chief of Police to hand all weapons into the Gloucester Hotel next door. After doing this, I go with the van to the bakeries to collect Hammond and Mortimer.[6]

Staff-Sergeant Sheridan brought him to the Exchange Building, the Lane, Crawford headquarters, where the bakers were being held.

Mr. Mortimer doesn’t seem to have taken part in the distribution to the hospitals of the already-baked bread,[7] but he was one of the team that were allowed out to start baking again – mainly for the hospitals – in early January:

Tanaka {the Japanese officer in charge} agreed to provide transport and escort. The party was Edgar, Mortimer, Hammond, Leung Choy, Leung Tim, {Two RASC bakers}myself and Peacock (Russian) naturalised British and his father Piankoff. [8]

He carried on baking with the rest of them until the day the civilians in the Exchange Building were rounded up:

Now the Kempetai (Military Police) similar to the German Gestapo have now taken control. All British, Dutch and Americans have been rounded up and interned in Chinese Hotels on the waterfront. On that day while we were working the Bakery, Mortimer who was feeling sick stayed in the Exchange Building and was interned with the others.[9]

Messrs. Mortimer and Brown were all taken to the Mee Chow Hotel preliminary to being sent to Stanley: all the following listings are from Tony Banham’s Hong Kong War Diary[10] website, and based on Japanese records:

Brown,  A.W. Mr. Room 401 MCH

Mortimer,  G.W. Mr. Room 401 MCH

Room 403 of the same hotel also contained two Lane, Crawford employees:

Hall,  F. Mr. Room 401 MCH

Ogley Child Room 403 MCH

Ogley, W.C. Mr. Room 403 MCH

Ogley, W.C. Mrs. Room 403 MCH

As it happens, both butchery salesman Frederick Ivan Hall[11] and shipping manager W. C. Ogley[12] played bowls for the same company team as Thomas. I’ve not been able to find out if everyone in rooms 401-403 was from Lane, Crawford. Mr. Hall, who was executed by the Japanese for his role in sending messages in and out of Stanley, also lived close to Thomas in what was probably also company accommodation at 76,[13] Morrison Hill Rd. (Cecil Carr, another employee also lived at 76, Morrison Hill Rd, although a Dairy Farm employee has the same address as Thomas, number 82, which suggests either that the company rented some of these units themselves or that it rented them out to others).

When did this ‘round up’ take place? Thomas’s British Baker article says that the hospitals asked Captain Tanaka for permission to have the bakers back at work on January 9, and implies that work was begun soon after. In Staff-Sergeant Sheridan’s account it is A. W. Brown who approaches Tanaka,[14] and, although the dates are not given explicitly, my sense is that he places the start of baking a little earlier than that. On January 4 the civilians were told to assemble the next day on the Murray Parade Ground. Things were still rather chaotic at that time, and a fair number didn’t get the message or decided to risk ignoring it – but I don’t know why the people in the Exchange Building didn’t go to the Parade Ground, as they were living close to the centre of things and must surely have heard about the notices. In any case, I doubt that the Kempetai bothered to round up stragglers on that day, as the whole operation has an improvised feel, and, as I said, there were many people who failed to present themselves, and some even managed to go straight to Stanley without undergoing the nightmare period in the hotels first.

All in all, I think the most likely period for the removal of the people in the Exchange Building is January 7-January 14. At first, Mr. Mortimer probably cursed his luck in being ill that day. Staff-Sergeant Sheridan’s Memoir makes it clear that once they got to the French Hospital in early February, and probably before that while under Captain Tanaka’s protection, the bakers and their fellows considered that they were fortunate indeed in being out of Stanley, or in the case of the two RASC men, Shamshuipo. But by May 7, 1943, when Thomas, accompanied now by Evelina, and a party that included Sergeant Hammond (now posing as a civilian under Tanaka’s orders) and Serge Peacock made their way down to Stanley, Mr. Mortimer, if he knew anything about what had been going on in town, would have realised that the luck had been largely his. Staff-Sergeant Sheridan had escaped on June 4, 1942, but the other bakers had remained in the French Hospital to experience gradually worsening conditions and the dreadful Kempeitai crack down on the Hong Kong resistance that began in February, 1943. The terror had got closer and closer, until on May 2 a squad of sailors entered the Hospital and arrested at least three of the British citizens there, perhaps more, and kept the rest imprisoned on the premises while they searched it thoroughly for evidence of spying.[15] The initial advantages of greater freedom and access to a superior black market must have been more than wiped out by those last few months of fear, and the continuing anxiety that one of those being held by the Kempeitai would name others.

---

[1]  http://hkgro.lib.hku.hk/archive/files/5b8816880d12247f13ec3447afcbfe1d.pdf

[2] http://hkgro.lib.hku.hk/archive/files/5b8816880d12247f13ec3447afcbfe1d.pdf

[3] Article in The British Baker, September 13, 1946.

[4] Kindly sent to me by Helen Dodd.

[5] Patrick John Sheridan, Memoir, 76.

[6] Memoir, 80.

[7] https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/how-the-bakers-started-baking-after-the-surrender-1-delivering-old-supplies/

[8] Memoir, 83.

[9] Memoir, 85-86.

[10] http://www.hongkongwardiary.com/searchgarrison/nonuniformedcivilians.html

[11] https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/frederick-ivan-hall/

[12] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stanley_camp/message/2119

[13].http://hkgro.lib.hku.hk/archive/files/7843c8a4f253de90eb25318fa3065f56.pdf

[14] Memoir, 82.

[15] https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-french-hospital-arrests-a-synthesis-of-sources/