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to villagers, making personal and individual contacts. He told Endacott how he met farmers and fishermen, Hoklo and Hakka speakers, and gradually won acceptance: at one stage, he had to undergo a “blood ceremony” with some pirate families in the Mirs Bay and Bias Bay area. Trained in SOE tactics, he realised that these close-knit communities, with their tradition of secret societies and their sometimes justified tradition of being outlaws, alienated from established government, were an ideal ready-made resistance underground. Strategically, the hinterland behind Hong Kong was a critical buffer zone in the event of Hong Kong being occupied. It would be the area through which information, personnel, and material would enter and exit. Hence the extreme importance placed on developing relationships with all the local people, whatever their politics, and channelling their interests in support of the British cause.
Shortly after the fall of Canton in 1938, a guerrilla unit was formed, nominally under national government influence, to assist in carrying out resistance against the Japanese in the East River Area, just north of Hong Kong, and along the lines of the Kowloon-Canton railway from Sumchun to Sheklung. This unit was commanded by the charismatic ex-seaman Tsang Sheng, whose vision of social change was far closer to communist values than to the increasingly right-wing KMT. Because his power base was the region behind Hong Kong, not especially loyal to the central government, he was able to break free and declare his communist sympathies. He consolidated his influence over the area by earning the support of the local populace and by controlling the worst excesses of bandits, many of whom at this period were KMT supporters. Tsang’s army of guerrillas, known as the Guangdong People’s Anti-Japanese Resistance Unit, or the East River Column, formed the strongest, best-organised, and most aggressive Chinese military formation in the vicinity of Hong Kong. Kendall noted that these men were well-armed with Mausers and decent equipment, funded either by the Communist Party or by the relatively prosperous villagers who had overseas remittances from men working abroad. He knew that many in the KMT were as violently opposed to the Communists as they were to the Japanese, and that working with the Communists would be a high-risk strategy, but it was essential in a region so crucial to Hong Kong. It is known that Kendall was involved in negotiations with the Communists. Ronald Holmes, a SOE agent seconded to the BAAG, was to refer to this in July 1944 when he prepared a report of
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to villagers, making personal and individual contacts. He told Endacott how he met farmers and fishermen, Hoklo and Hakka speakers, and gradually won acceptance: at one stage, he had to undergo a “blood ceremony" with some pirate families in the Mirs Bay and Bias Bay area. Trained in SOE tactics, he realised that these close knit communities, with their tradition of secret societies and their sometimes justified tradition of being outlaws, alienated from established government, were an ideal ready made resistance underground. Strategically, the hinterland behind Hong Kong was a critical buffer zone in the event of Hong Kong being occupied. It would be the area through which information, personnel and material would enter and exit. Hence the extreme importance placed on developing relationships with all the local people, whatever their politics, and channelling their interests in support of the British cause.
Shortly after the fall of Canton in 1938, a guerrilla unit was formed, nominally under national government influence, to assist in carrying out resistance against the Japanese in the East River Area, just north of Hong Kong, and along the lines of the Kowloon-Canton railway from Sumchun to Sheklung. This unit was commanded by the charismatic ex-seaman Tsang Sheng, whose vision of social change was far closer to communist values than to the increasingly right wing KMT. Because his power base was the region behind Hong Kong, not especially loyal to the central government, he was able to break free and declare his communist sympathies. He consolidated his influence over the area by earning the support of the local populace and by controlling the worst excesses of bandits, many of whom at this period were KMT supporters. Tsang's army of guerrillas, known as the Guangdong People's Anti- Japanese Resistance Unit, or the East River Column formed the strongest, best organised and most aggressive Chinese military formation in the vicinity of Hong Kong. Kendall noted that these men were well armed with Mausers and decent equipment, funded either by the Communist Party, or by the relatively prosperous villagers who had overseas remittances from men working abroad. He knew that many in the KMT were as violently opposed to the Communists as they were to the Japanese, and that working with the Communists would be a high risk strategy, but it was essential in a region so crucial to Hong Kong. It is known that Kendall was involved in negotiations with the Communists. Ronald Holmes, a SOE agent seconded to the BAAG was to refer to this in July 1944 when he prepared a report of
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