Date. District.
14. Shaukiwan.
15. Gough Hill.
19.12.41.
1.
Bay View.
Time.
38.
19.12.41
53
Major Patterson instructed the remaining men to hold the post until the Mobile Section could assist in procuring safe evacuation. Sgt. Morrison, who made this report, adds that he was unable to gain access to the telephone to inform No.2 Station of the enemy landing. He was in charge of the Police guarding the Hong Kong Electric Vital Post. The Cantonese had deserted earlier in the day as the result of the shelling and he was the only Police Officer left on the premises. 21.30 Sub Inspector Taylor and Sub Inspector Daly on patrol
observed a body of thirty to fifty Japanese soldiers at the east end of the Commercial Press building. Sub Insp. Daly returned to 390 King's Road, used as a Dispersal Point, to warn Police to evacuate over the hill to Bay View Station (Dragon Terrace) and then returned.
They informed a Captain of the Volunteers at the junction of King's Road and Power Street who observed the Japanese soldiers himself and then went to warn his men in the Hong Kong Electric. The two Sub Inspectors then went to Bay View Station and notified P. S.A. 214 Mawer, the Offi- cer in Charge, who immediately informed Mr. Fay, Assis- tant Superintendent of Police, by telephone.
Mr. Fay shortly afterwards informed Bay View that he had warned Military Headquarters of the landing but that it was not believed. The Military Authorities later on however con firmed that the information was correct.
23.00 The Officer in Charge investigated report of red lights
having been fired. He found them to be our own Military
ones.
00.01 The Hong Kong Electric - During the night sand bag defen to ces of the outer office buildings were strengthened but 16.00 at day break accurate fire from trench mortars forced
02.30
to 07.30
the defenders to withdraw first to the ground floor and then to the first floor of the Power Station after a number of casualties had been sustained. An attempt to relieve the party was unsuccessful and at about 10.00 hours it was decided to evacuate. A party of sixteen, of which Sgt. Morrison was a member, managed to reach Ah King's slipway at the cost of three wounded. A pill box at the junction of Causeway Bay and Kings Road manned by British troops who could not, owing to smoke from the A. P. C. fire, identity the party held them up and they remained there in the road sheltering be two buses or taking refuge in near by tenement houses being sniped at until 16.00 hours when after having repelled a bayonet charge Sgt. Morrison and one other were the only unwounded members of the party outside the tenements, and they were captured by the enemy coming up from the front and rear. Mr. T.E. Pearce and a Taikoo Engineer were killed in the bayonet en- counter referred to above. Sgt. Morrison was eventually taken to the North Point Refugee Camp and detained there until after the surrender.
The General Alarm was sounded on information that a Jap- anese landing had been effected at North Point and Tai- koo. Police stood by until 07.30 hours.
Owing to the Japanese landing at North Point it was found impossible to proceed further than Causeway Bay and Police from No.2 Station posted at the Commercial Press and 390 King's Road Dispersal Points could not be with- drawn. Sub Inspector Taylor made three attempts during the night to reach 390 King's Road to ascertain what had happened to the Police there but failed owing to the presence of the enemy. On the second attempt he met a Sgt. Fox of the Middlesex Regiment who told him that a
2.
Police H. Q. & Central.
00.15
to 07.30
3.
Eastern.
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