[
    {
        "id": 208615,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 72,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n45\n\nthe road, and had showered down this debris. We halted not, but sped on, and finally turned into the lower road at Repulse Bay. Here Mr. Brown had some business to transact with his Chinese foreman and workmen who were engaged in demolishing the bathing beach matsheds, lest they be an obstruction to defending troops, or a hiding place for invading forces. Another dash up the hills and around curves brought us breathless but happy to Stanley, and Father Downs was indeed glad to get back among his confreres.\n\nArrived at Stanley Father Downs found the situation rather tense, though not quite so \"hot\" as at Hong Kong. During his absence he was told that Stanley was fairly quiet, except for occasional planes passing overhead, when they dropped a few bombs on and near the Prison, one also hitting Dr. Hackett's, the Prison Doctor's house, demolishing one wing of it. Of course, \"Big Bertha\"—a 9.2 inch gun at the fort on the promontory to the south of us—kept up an intermittent booming day and night, shelling enemy positions on the mainland. When \"Big Bertha\" spoke, she shook our building and made our windows rattle twice, but we did not mind that.\n\nLong before the outbreak of hostilities British Government and Army officials had visited Maryknoll at Stanley with a view to taking it over in whole or in part if any emergency arose. At one time it was intended to be a hospital, but the Army seemed to have prior rights and they decided to take over a part of our building. Accordingly when Japanese planes began flying overhead and Japanese troops began attacking His Majesty's Crown Colony of Hong Kong, His Majesty's Royal Engineers came out to Stanley and occupied the western end of our building: that is, the servants' quarters downstairs, with the classroom and room adjoining, the recreation room upstairs together with two small private rooms close by. Our Ford V-8 was immobilized, our garage taken over by a number of coolies, and the Engineers prepared for eventualities. They brought out with them quite a supply of food, in the way of huge sacks of rice, soya beans and large tins of army biscuits or hard-tack. The five or six Engineers and Mr. Brown ate at our table with us, and we shared their food, so that we were quite a family.\n\nAs in Hong Kong the delivery to Stanley of daily food, such as meats, vegetables, bread and so forth by the Dairy Farm and Lane",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208619,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 76,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "The next day, the twenty-third, snipers' bullets began pelting our house from the north and we promptly retreated to the south. A couple of these bullets came in through the glass windows in our front hall, and our only casualty was Father Meyer who received a very slight scratch on the cheek evidently from a piece of flying glass. Artillery shells now began coming our way, apparently from the west and north, proof enough that the Japanese had succeeded in getting on the island of Hong Kong. The targets of these shells were evidently gun emplacements in and around Stanley village and near the Prison, for the shells struck along the water's edge—sometimes in the sea itself—and along the military road leading to the fort. A number of these shells actually hit the Anglican School and the Police Station in Stanley village. Some also struck buildings of St. Stephen's College and the various buildings on the Prison Compound. Many shells seemed to fall just between the buildings on St. Stephen's campus, one building of which had been turned into a hospital. From our own hilltop we again had a grandstand view, but our interest was not exactly that which one has when viewing a competitive game.\n\nBombs also dropped out of the sky on the fort and attempts were made to cripple \"Big Bertha\", but she came out of the fracas unscathed and continued to hurl her deadly missiles over the hills until the end. One Japanese bomb fell at the foot of our hill, striking a portion of the village market and killing eight or nine people. All around our hill the British had constructed trenches and machine gun nests, and we were in momentary fear of the shells finding these objectives. British soldiers could be seen moving steadily in among the trees, and many came in to our house occasionally for a drink of water.\n\nAs a further safeguard against snipers' bullets we barricaded the exposed doors and windows. We also moved our provisional recreation room from the lower chapel to the refectory, this latter being on the south side. During these hectic days we could do nothing but huddle downstairs in the corridors while air raids and shelling were in progress, and look forward to the night time when the din (except from \"Big Bertha\") was silenced. As we had no electricity we retired early and rose late.\n\nOccasionally we could observe a few straggling soldiers on the mountain just across from us, but could not distinguish whether",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    }
]