White Cottage,
65
Your Ref: 54447/5/49
Dear Mr. Hall,
Apple Grove, Aldwick Bay, Bognor Regis, Sussex. 22nd. February 1950.
Phone No. PAGH AM
(16) mm 149 Thank you for your letter of 16th February.
(2) The War Office's interpretation of the matter is incorrect. They appear to have forgotten that there were two seperate consignments of wagons. The 600 wagons under dispute were made good in Hong Kong before shipment. The missing parts, which were considerable, were manufactured to the order of the K.C.R. by the South China Iron Works, and the Liu Ho Kou Iron Works Ltd. The work was carried out by Mr. James Smith, then Chief Mechanical Engineer of the K.C.R., now retired, acting under my orders as Director of Supply Hong Kong. He would, no doubt, give you fuller details if you require them. To assist him in this work he engaged the full time services of a Chinese mechanical engineer. A K.C.R. claim for stripping, assembling, sorting, making-good, and marking and delivering the 600 wagons on board ship, is quite in order. Another large consignment of wagons, I cannot remember the actual number, were sent to India to enable missing parts to be made there. The War Office is undoubtedly mixing up this other consignment with the purely Hong Kong supply of 600. A search of the Hong Kong War Supplies Board minutes which were sent to the Eastern Group Supply Council New Delhi should give details, including the exact number of wagons, in this other consignment.
(3) Early in 1941 Major Walters R.E. arrived in Hong Kong as the representative of the Director of Transportation Middle East, to make a survey of such railway material as could be spared from the Colony for use in the Middle East. There was considerable railway material in Hong Kong at the time belonging to the Chinese Government Ministry of Communicat tions. This material had been diverted to Hong Kong due to the Sino-Japanese War. Major Walters spent some considerable time in the Colony, and a large quantity of Locomotives, Goods Wagons, Rails and Fittings, and Spare Parts, etc., were requisitioned for him despite trouble with the Chinese Auth- I am not orities who were loath to part with the material.
sure whether I, as Director of Supply, or the Controller of Stores, requisitioned the material, but I believe the latter
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