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Station and shortly after midnight was ambushed at Chung Yuen Ha on the Border Road between Ta Kwu Ling and Lin Ma Hang. The attackers, a gang of more than ten men, fired on the officers and one police constable was killed instantly, while another was slightly wounded. The culprits escaped, taking with them the dead constable's service revolver. The same gang struck again fifteen days later on the night of May 17 with an attack on Nga Yiu Post, near Ta Kwu Ling, where four constables were on duty.
In those days the Post was only a brick structure of two rooms without any form of perimeter fence or facilities of any kind. Two constables left the post to visit a local teahouse, situated about 100 yards away, but out of sight of the post. A third constable decided to take a bath at a nearby matshed structure, leaving the fourth constable on guard duty outside the post. Whilst away from the Post the three constables heard the sound of shots being fired. Three men were seen running from the Post carrying weapons and the body of the constable who had been left on duty was found outside the Post where he had been shot twice in the back. The two constables in the teahouse were prevented from taking action by two armed men in what was obviously a well-planned operation.
The gang escaped in the direction of the Shum Chun River, and took with them a Sten gun and two rifles, and the dead constable's revolver. Three days later, acting on information provided by New Territories officers, a large body of Chinese troops mounted an attack on the gang's hideout in a village four miles north of Shum Chun. In the encounter, three of the gang were killed and five were captured. Seized in the raid were all the weapons stolen from the Post, including the revolver taken from the constable killed in the previous ambush on the Border Road.
It was as a direct result of the Nga Yiu incident that the then Commissioner of Police, Mr. Duncan Macintosh, decided to improve the design of border posts and the conditions of officers deployed at such outposts. On the hilltops lining the Border, a string of strongposts was erected which gave a view across the Border at strategic spots. The imposing concrete structures with their distinctive appearance and outline against the skyline were dubbed the "MacIntosh Cathedrals". The posts, of which seven in all were built up to 1953, provided police