THEY WERE 68 and we were 79. “They” were the 68 Chinese, British and other allied military personnel and civilian officials who escaped from Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941 as the island surrendered to Japanese forces. Most escaped on five Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs), lightly-armed, three-engined speedboats capable of nearly 50 knots; some started in a small launch, then had to swim for their lives before eventually joining the MTBs, while others followed in a tug.
One reason for the dash, and the factor that ensured their success, was the presence of the senior Chinese nationalist representative on Hong Kong Island, the one-legged Admiral Chan Chak, an important figure in both the Chinese navy and in the ruling Kuomintang party. His future, were he to fall into Japanese hands, could be only too easily imagined, and there was a gentlemen’s agreement that he should be helped to escape. Some senior British officers and civilians joined him.
Chan Chak had at that time recently arrived in Hong Kong to organise assistance to the British in resisting the Japanese, an assistance that was only belatedly welcomed by the British who, historians suspect, aimed to surrender the colony to the Japanese rather than leave it to the Chinese. Only thus, they believed, could the British recover the island after the war; for were it to be handed over prematurely to the Chinese, hope of getting it back would vanish.
The admiral, with his peg-leg cast off and a bullet in one wrist, was one of those who had to swim from their launch through a hail of bullets to an offshore island. Giving his life-jacket to his non-swimming assistant, he swam slowly to join the others. Others swimming included David MacDougall, who was to return to Hong Kong as colonial secretary and Colin McEwan of SOE, who was to help set up the escape line for others.
Once on the island they found the MTBs waiting for cover of darkness on the other side, hidden from the Japanese. When darkness fell, the flotilla set off for Mirs Bay off mainland China some 50 miles to the north-east of Hong Kong. There they made contact with a band of guerrillas who escorted them for 80 miles on foot through Japanese lines and difficult terrain to safety in nationalist-held China.
But who rescued whom? The British may have considered that their MTBs were rescuing Chan Chak, but he certainly considered that he was rescuing the senior British officers in the group. The guerrillas with whom he made contact in fact ensured that the whole group got to safety: but to whom did they belong? Were they part of the Communist East River Column? Or were they freelance bandits with an on-off relationship with the Communists? This still seems uncertain.
“We” were a group of 79 descendants and relatives of the escapees, who re-enacted the escape on Christmas Day last year. To our knowledge, none of the escapees remains alive, the last one dying in 2009, but we had Kay Collingwood the 90-year old widow of John Collingwood, captain of MTB 11 and descendant of Nelson’s colleague, and the group also included some 18 descendants of Admiral Chan Chak. Of the nine-man crew of MTB 11, on which my wife’s cousin David Legge was number two, four were represented.
Following an introductory lecture by Philip Snow, author of the standard work on the fall of Hong Kong, and a nostalgic banquet on the spot from which the escape took place, we proceeded by boat to Tung Ping Chau island in Mirs Bay where the escapees first set foot.
The Chinese authorities offered a reception in Shenzhen, and the next day we congregated on the mainland beach on which the escape group had landed, inspected the temple where they had hidden, walked through terrain that they would have crossed, visited the wartime headquarters of the East River Column, met the son of Leung Wing-yuen the commander of the column, and toured two ancient fortified villages where the group had spent a night.
We entertained each other by reading the diaries and letters of the escapees, of which there are quite a few, extraordinarily well-written and redolent of the period. Notably they paid tribute to the Chinese villagers who “had very little to give us but that they gave gladly”.
It was instructive to compare and contrast the interpretations of these events from the two perspectives. For the Chinese authorities, the re-enactment was to celebrate the achievement of Chou En-lai and the East River Column in rescuing British forces from the Japanese. In the contemporary diaries and letters of the escapees, the admiral and the guerrilla leader Leung Wing-yuen share the glory. In any event, according to David Legge, the guerrillas were incredible; they had an excellent system of intelligence.
Relatives of only some 15 escapees were present in Hong Kong in December last, and for the majority of escapees, no living relative has yet emerged, including some with possibly Irish names such as able seaman Robert Hempenstall and Alexander Kelly, telegraphists Tony McQueen and Stephen Gavaghan, and stoker Samuel Carr. Their relatives, or indeed anyone related to anyone involved, are invited to make themselves known to the group. The website is www.hongkongescape.org. Who knows, the Re-enactment may be re-enacted.