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1941 there were thirteen operational batteries (complete with underground ammunition magazines, living quarters and access roads) on the Island, the earliest emplacements for these being built around 1895, an underground battle headquarters off Queen's Road near the naval dockyard (completed in 1940) and scores of reinforced-concrete structures comprising pill-boxes, observation posts, searchlight positions, anti-aircraft sites, bunkers, shelters, ammunition and stores dumps, tunnels and water tanks. On Stonecutters' Island the Royal Navy built between the World Wars a huge ammunition depot which included eleven large underground magazines; earlier the first land-based explosives' depot was completed here in 1876 from where it was transferred to Green Island in 1906. Of the original six battery emplacements designed and constructed on Stonecutters' Island during the period 1880-1905, only one remained commissioned at the outbreak of hostilities.
The two battery positions on Devil's Peak in Kowloon overlooking Lai Yue Mun gap were constructed soon after the New Territories' lease was signed in 1898 and a redoubt on top of the hill was completed by the Royal Engineers in 1914. The guns however were removed in 1936 and transferred to the Island. Subsequently the 18km-long Gin Drinkers' defence line was constructed during the mid-1930s across the hills to the north of the Kowloon peninsula and comprised a series of pill-boxes, trenches, bunkers and tunnels, the key feature being the underground Shing Mun Redoubt covering some five hectares on the northern flank of Smugglers' Ridge.
The decision to construct air raid shelters so that the whole urban population could be protected was not taken until 1940. In the space of about a year some 22 kilometres of 2.5m-size tunnels (of which about 80% still exist) were constructed on the Island and in Kowloon, including one adjacent to the Secretariat in Lower Albert Road which extended to Government House causing structural damage. In view of the urgent need for these tunnels, the project was arranged on a cost-plus basis and gave rise to rampant corruption, one architect involved even committing suicide to avoid giving evidence. The sub-standard pre-cast concrete breeze blocks made by the Director of Air Raid Precaution's girlfriend's firm are still (or at least until recently) known in the trade as Mimi blocks. Unfortunately the report on the Commission of Enquiry was never made public; it was taken into the Stanley internment
99
1941 there were thirteen operational batteries (complete with underground ammunition magazines, living quarters and access roads) on the Island, the earliest emplacements for these being built around 1895, an underground battle headquarters off Queen's Road near the naval dockyard (completed in 1940) and scores of remforced-concrete structures comprising pill-boxes, observation posts, seachlight positions, anti-aircraft sites, bunkers, shelters, ammunition and stores dumps, tunnels and water tanks. On Stonecutters' Island the Royal Navy built between the World Wars a huge ammunition depot which included eleven large underground magazines; earlier the first land- based explosives' depot was completed here in 1876 from where it was transferred to Green Island in 1906. Of the original six battery emplacements designed and constructed on Stonecutters' Island during the period 1880-1905, only one remained commissioned at the outbreak of hostilities.
The two battery positions on Devil's Peak in Kowloon overlooking Lai Yue Mun gap were constructed soon after the New Territories" lease was signed in 1898 and a redoubt on top of the hill was completed by the Royal Engineers in 1914. The guns however were removed in 1936 and transferred to the Island Subsequently the 18km-long Gin Drinkers' defence line was constructed during the mid-1930s across the hills to the north of the Kowloon peninsula and comprised a series of pill-boxes, trenches, bunkers and tunnels, the key feature being the underground Shing Mun Redoubt covering some five hectares on the northern flank of Smugglers' Ridge.
The decision to construct air raid shelters so that the whole urban population could be protected was not taken until 1940. In the space of about a year some 22 kilometres of 2.5m-size tunnels (of which about 80% still exist) were constructed on the Island and in Kowloon, including one adjacent to the Secretariat in Lower Albert Road which extended to Government House causing structural damage. In view of the urgent need for these tunnels, the project was arranged on a cost- plus basis and gave rise to rampant corruption, one architect involved even committing suicide to avoid giving evidence. The sub-standard pre-cast concrete breeze blocks made by the Director of Air Raid Precaution's girlfriend's firm are still (or least until recently) known in the trade as Mimi laus. Unfortunately the report on the Commission of Enquiry was never made public; it was taken into the Stanley internment
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