38
Confidential Report of Mrs. Andrew Lusk Shields to the Colonial Office, London.
Identification:
I am Aloha Ellison Shields, American, wife of Andrew Lusk Shields, British, senior partner in Shewan Tomes and Co., Ltd., one of the oldest importing and exporting firms in the Far East. Mr. Shields, who has been in Hongkong
thirty-five years, is a member of the Executive and Legislative Councils. H is on the Board of Directors of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corpora- tion and is also a Director in many other prominent companies of Hongkong.
A
In 1932 he aided Commodore Elliott in forming the Hongkong Naval Volunteer Re- serves and was made Commander of that Company. After several years he resigned on account of bad health and was made Honourary Commander. He was on the Ship- ping Board and many other war committees. For many years he was President of the NAVY League and Commodore of the Royal Hongkong Yacht Club. In 1939 he joined the company styled the "Hughesiliers", which was made up of the older business men of the Colony. They trained at the Hongkong Electric Company's plant and were ordered there when the attack came on December 8th, 1941. As Mr. Shields was in the hospital with severe bronchitis, he was unable to join his company and when he left the hospital on December 13th he was ordered by his doctor to remain at home and not to report for duty until December 21st. It was at this plant that so many prominent men were killed, including Mr. T.E. Pearce, Sir Edward des Voeux, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Sorby.
Mr. Jan Henrick Marsman, who was at the Repulse Bay Hotel at the time it was surrendered to the Japanese, has written articles in the Saturday Evening Post June 6th, 13th and 20th and also has published these articles in book form. While these articles are substantially correct as to the major details, they are filled with exaggeration as to the part Mr. Marsman played and also as to some of the events which took place. Mr. Marsman was not on any com- mittee and was merely an onlooker. One thing that was absolutely untrue was his statement that after the soldiers had been evacuated from the hotel, two men came back and that they were forced to leave the hotel and that we heard the Japanese shoot them. Several men lost their way and did come back to the hotel, but they were immediately given civilian clothes and they are now in the Civilian Internment Camp at Stanley. The Japanese do not know they be- longed to the fighting forces. Mr. Marsman also stated that all the soldiers who were evacuated were either captured or killed by the Japanese. That is absolutely untrue. General Maltby told Mr. Shields on Christmas morning when he took the order of surrender from the Japanese General to the Governor that he considered we had done a splendid job at the hotel in evacuating the fight- ing men and that every man so evacuated had reached Stanley. It is true that many of them were afterward killed at Stanley. Mr. Marsman's statement re- garding the raping of two women at the Kowloon Hotel is absolutely untrue. The Japanese guards did bother them, but they were not touched. Also his statements regarding the atrocities at Stanley were greatly exaggerated. It is true that when the Japanese soldiers first landed on the Island there was a great deal of raping especially in the North Point and Happy Valley dis- tricts and at the Happy Valley Race Course where a hospital had been estab- lished. There were many cases where women were raped for hours on end and mistreated generally. This I have heard from the women concerned.