Daily Mail
12 JAN 1942
JAPS TRIED MUSIC TO 'ROT' DEFENCE
Broadcasts of 'Home, Sweet Home'
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From Daily Mail Correspondent
277
9
CHUNGKING, Sunday. HIS, the first full story of the historic last stand at Hongkong, was told by a British officer who escaped and has now reached Shaokwan, He was one of a party of Britons who, after all resistance had ceased, got away in a launch with the one-legged Chinese Admiral Chanchak and finally swam half a mile through artillery and machine gun fire to an island.
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The exhausted Hong- kong garrison were forced to submit to vastly superior forces on Christ- mas Day.
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Some days earlier water réservoir at Tytam had been put out of action, and the population were drinking from brackish ponds and wells.
The city was without light, save for a few oil lamps in the streets.
It was continually being bom- barded from the land and from the air so that food had to be distri- buted during the hours of dark-
ness.
On Christmas Eve the Japanese artillery blasted North Point. Happy Valley, and the waterfront areas. Yet the centre of the town is only slightly damaged, the build. ings standing up well.
A fair proportion of the shells failed to explode, and the central district was never blocked by débris.
The civilians behaved magnifi- cently. and the civil services-run mostly by Chinese-functioned to the end,
LEAFLET RAIDS
There was no panic and no riot- ing on the island, though the pres- ence of fifth columnists on the mainland caused looting and dis- order before the entry of the Japanese.
There was never a shortage' of! food; but the shelling caused tempo- rary scarcities in some districts.
Nearly 200,000 free meals were served each day at Government food kitchens, and free rice was distributed to those unable to buy.
Civilian casualties were astonish- ingly low-under 150 a day. This was due to the good sense of the populace in seeking shelter, to the efficacy of the A.R.P. tunnels, and to the fact that, apart from spasmodic bursts, the enemy concentrated his fire on military targets.
The Japanese tried to undermine civilian morale by showering Hong- kong with leaflets These were crude and, apparently, quite ineffec- live.
They were aimed chiefly ati Indian troops and at potential] Fifth Columnists, and were anti- British and anti-Chungking in tone.
Loud-speakers also blared out from Kowloon and the harbour, broadcasting messages about the hopelessness of the position of Hongkond d advising surrender.
Deathr Durbin records and amiliar melodies such as
CA Home Sweet Home and Swannee River"
were frequently played in an attempt to make the garrison feel homesick.
None of the propaganda Ron- tained anything specifically anti- American which suggests
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