CO129-590-25 Accounts of events leading up to surrender and subsequent treatment of prisoners- etc 23-4-1942 - 28-9-1943 — Page 196

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speakers on the Kowloon side of the harbour and treating us to

recitals of Deana Durbin singing "Home Sweet Home" "The Old

Folks at Home "Way Down Upon the Swanee River", and other

fruity and plaintive numbers. They chose the dawn hours for

these recitals and the conclusion we reached after much thought

was that they were trying to make us homesick.

The story of the siege itself i

itself is soon told. The attack

started on Dec. 8th at 8 a.m. with dive-bombing on the air port.

A few hours later enemy forces crossed the frontier. The

next two days saw our gradual withdrawal, in accordance with

the defence plan, to the mainland inner line guarding Kowloon:

all prearranged demolitions of roads and bridges went off like

clockwork and in the early patrol encounters we seemed to

establish an easy man-for-man superiority.

On the night of

the 11th came the great disaster. The enemy pierced our line

by night, endangering the whole prepared position, and by the

morning of the 12th all our forces had been evacuated to the

island. Kowloon was surrendered and on the 13th was

completely occupied by the Japane se. All European and as

many Portugese as possible were brought over to the island.

There was much bitterness among Chinese that they were left.

Husbands and families were split, some on one side of the

harbour and some on the other. There were heartrending scenes

at the ferries. The European staffs of the hospitals in

Kowloon stayed behinä to carry on their work.

The next four

days/