[ { "id": 214425, "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-1998", "page_number": 283, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "between 1935 and 1937 consisting of three 9.2 inch?\n\n249\n\nAs part of a colony-wide reorganisation and modernisation programme of the armament, a new battery was constructed at Stanley with three 9.2 inch calibre Mark X guns mounted on Mark VII mountings. One of these guns came from the battery at Devil's Peak and the other two came from Mount Davis, as both of these batteries were being modernised. The gun shifts were difficult and complex operations as the guns were very heavy, the barrel and breech assembly weighing 28 tons. Everything was done by hand and the pieces, and all their mountings, were transported to Stanley by sea. The two lower guns (No. 2 & No.3) were situated on concrete emplacements now occupied by parabolic antennae dishes in the Cable and Wireless Ltd. Satellite Earth Station complex. These two guns could only fire out to sea and were later encased in concrete gunhouses or casemates by the Japanese who seemed to have kept them in service during the Occupation. The gun houses were demolished and the guns were cut up for scrap in 1952.\n\nThe No. 1 9.2 inch gun mounted on top of \"Gun Hill\" was equipped with all-round traverse, that is, it was able to engage any target, for it was mounted on a circular platform which was rotated mechanically. It was this gun which bombarded the Japanese almost continually from the 14th to 24th December, 1941, firing at the rate of three rounds per half hour at targets as far away as Kowloon City. The shells weighed more than a hundredweight each. The gun was able to fire at this great range due to its mountings which gave a thirty-five degree angle of elevation.\n\nAfter the completion of the new Stanley Battery, two 6 inch naval guns were installed on the Bluff forming a second emergency battery known as Bluff Head Battery. These smaller guns had an effective range of 9,500 yards and also seem to have been equipped with all-round traversers as they could engage land and sea targets. These two batteries were reinforced in December 1941 by two 3.7 inch howitzers in a position in Stanley Village with an observation post in the Officers Mess, and an anti-aircraft battery at Tai Tam Tau. The Japanese reported that \"long-range fortress artillery bombardments were extremely effective.\" Targets were engaged with clock code observation by the Infantry and also where possible by direct observation. In addition, many targets such as road junctions and bridges had been registered and carefully tabulated in the months leading up to the Japanese attack so that direct observation was not really necessary to know that the shells were on target. Japanese artillery set up at the captured", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214429, "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-1998", "page_number": 287, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "253\n\na quick sweep of the area then douse. 'Douse lights' was the official term used when passing an order. Coast artillery searchlights could not be used in an anti-aircraft role as they had very little elevation.\n\nThe Bluff Head Battery\n\nThe Bluff Head Battery was set up as an improvised emergency battery sometime after 1938 in the event of war. Although no two batteries were exactly alike they all conformed to a general pattern. A typical emergency coastal battery, such as that set up on the Bluff, would consist of two guns either fitted with their own gun shields or mounted in temporary steel framed casemates covered with sandbags which would later be rebuilt in brick or concrete, with sunken expense magazines or shell stores and air-raid shelters or dugouts for the gunners between them. There would be two searchlight emplacements, one on each flank of the battery, so that the guns could be used at night. A battery observation post equipped with range finder, predictor, and fire-control equipment would be sited behind the guns, if possible on higher ground, otherwise in a two or three storey tower, or in a convenient nearby building.\n\nThe battery would have been surrounded by barbed wire entanglements, and protected by infantry defences such as pillboxes, sandbagged machine-gun emplacements, and slit-trenches. The searchlights were housed in small brick or concrete shelters protected by steel shutters, each searchlight powered by its own diesel-engined generator housed in a small engine room at the rear of the shelter. Alternatively wet cell accumulator batteries in series could be used and probably were at Stanley, as a number of carbon rods, which were a component of this type of battery, have been found discarded in old bunkers and several old battery charging rooms have also been found. Emergency sandbagged searchlight emplacements could also be set up quickly if required.\n\nOther Gun Emplacements\n\nA mobile anti-aircraft battery, 18th AA Bty, 5th AA Regt RA, is known to have been captured at Stanley on 25 Dec 1941. An AA position is shown on old wartime maps on the spur above Tai Tam Tau,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214433, "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-1998", "page_number": 291, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "LEGEND\n\ngun emplacement\n\nMGP\n\nFinckhe\n\n12 15/\n\nCASL\n\nTHE BLUFF HEAD\n\nBCP\n\nBATTERY\n\nStatko\n\nFP\n\n1116\n\nBarracks\n\nMost\n\n6 fn gun\n\nCASL\n\nklau\n\nin gun.\n\nCASL\n\n-\n\nbattery buildings\n\n黄麻角\n\nCASL coast artillery searchlight\n\nWong Ma Kok\n\n(Bluff Head)\n\nBCP battery command post\n\nMGP machine gun post\n\nFP footpath\n\nDKI gate\n\nStanley Fort\n\n257\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]