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Secret plans were in hand to attempt to ensure the safety of Admira Chan Chak, the chief Chinese leader in Hongkong, should surrender prove necessary. The Admiral at great personal risk was working closely with the -authorities to preserve internal order and a full appreciation of the VI ue of his services will no doubt be furnished in due course by the Commissioner of Police. In general, the best chance of safety for Chinese offi- cials in the event of the Japanese breaking into the Colony lay in donning coolie clothes and mingling with the crowds on the streets. In view of the fact that he had a wooden leg and that he and his chief aides were being closely watched by fifth columnists, Admiral Chan Chak had little hope of availing himself of this easy disguise and the authorities therefore attempted to arrange to smuggle him and his party out of Hongkong in a motor torpedo boat, as soon as the situation became hopeless.
KIS DEPARTURE
His personal situation was that could not be concealed for long and that, once it was known, the encouragement given to the fifth column and the consequent apprehensions inevitable among his own followers, would combine to render doubly difficult the task of preventing civil disorder on the scale organised immediately prior to the evaauation of Kowloon. The Admiral accordingly considered it his duty to remain in the besteged city until the last possible moment, altho none knew better than he the fate that awaited him if he were to fall into enemy hands. He asked me, as a friend of many years standing, to make myself responsible for informing him when the psychologiaal moment arrived; and this responsibility, being in thrice daily contact with Battle Headquarters, I naturally accepted.
The arrangement was that the Admiral would be informed at the time of his departure where and when there would be the best chance of making contact with the motor torpedo boat. No hard and fast rendevous could be fixed since the boat might have been sunk by enemy action by the time of the capitulation, or (as actually happened) be forced by bombing and shelling to dodge contin- ually from one hiding place to another. The loose was therefore inevitable, however unsatisfactory. I maintained contact with
arrangement noted above the Admiral twenty-four hours a day during the final week of the siege. I had little hope of sharing his escape since it appeared likely that his attempt would be made just prior to the capitulation and I naturally considered myself debarred from leaving the Colony until after hostilities had ceased.
In this situation, on the afternoon of Christmas Day, the military authorities informed me that our last line of defence guarding the centre of the city had broken, that the Japanese were coming through in force, and that an Armistice was being asked for. I therefore collected Admiral ChanChak and his party, who had remained near my office, and together with my assistant, Mr. C.E. Ross, took them in my car to the village of Aberdeen where I had been told a few minutes previously the motor torpedo boat was most likely to be found. In the confusion and the speed with which events had proceeded all day it appeared that the authorities had lost touch with the boat in question. Before leaving my office I instucted the staff to go home; I had previously seen to it that they understood the necessity of destroying the nature of papers and badges which they might bear on their persons to
any evidence in connect them with the British progranda office; all secret papers and files had been burned some days previously. From the beginning of the siege my staff had been reduced to a bare minimum; all other members had been co-opted into the various civil defence organisations leaving, besides Mr. Ross and yself, one Chinese assistant, one temporary Portuguese typist and a handful of Chinese
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