51.
¿trict.
Time.
A
.een.
00.30
to 04.00
Stanley.
Early
morn-
ing.
Eastern.
06.00
4.
Aberdeen.
08.00
5.
Gough Hill.
6.
Special Branch.
Special Branch.
1
25.12.41
68
volunteer Police party consisting of Mr. Searle, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Sub Inspector Taylor, L. Ss. A. 83 MacDonald, A.147 Pope, A.54 Hewitt, pro
oceeded to Aberdeen joining a Military convoy at the University in order to make a fourth (and success- ful) attempt to obtain one thousand hand grenades from the Military Magazine at Shouson Hill. An armoured car was sent ahead at Aberdeen to scout and as nothing happened the main party followed ten minutes later. The hand grenades were collected and later handed over to Mr. Wilson, Assistant Superintendent of Police, at Police Headquarters, except for 36 boxes supplied to the Naval Headquarters at the Industrial School who were very short of them. The Poli e party assisted the few coolies, six to eight, to do the loading as the Military merely acted as guards throughout the expedition. A short burst of machine gun fire with tracer bullets was loosed off by the Japanese towards the end of the operation, hitting the embarkment on top of the Magazine. Small spasmodic sniping by the enemy was encountered on the return journey. A lorry of dead Indians was seen on the road. The Japanese were still in possession of Shouson Hill itself. In the retreat carried out during the early hours of the morning, P.S.A. 69 Simpson and L. S.A. 13 Whitley on instructions from an Officer collected troops and with them occupied trenches below Stanley Fort on both · sides of the road. They were separated during the fight which followed whilst the retreat was going on. They met again at the Fort at 19.00 hours when they left the trenches as they were full of troops by then and there was no room for all the men.
A Chinese car driver knowing the exact disposition of the enemy at East Point was taken to Command Head- quarters by Mr. Luscombe, Assistant Superintendent of Police, and handed over to the G.S.O.I.
Japanese planes tried to bomb the Motor Topedo boats Two shells landed in at the pier below the Station. the Station compound. Police moved to the Dockyard tunnel. The Officer in Charge reports that all the ordinary A. R. P. tunnels were untenable through bad air and filth. Volunteers would no longer work in the open collecting and burying bodies. He had to arrange to dump the bodies at sea after dark.
Heavy bombing, including incendiary bombs, and shell- ing continued.
The Special Branch removed the archives from the Japanese Consul General's office to the New Oriental
in Building.
The Director of the Special Branch attended a confer- ence at Government House with regard to the living conditions of interned Japanese.
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