[
    {
        "id": 208606,
        "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": 63,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "36 \n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS \n\ntions were flying thick and fast from both sides. Everybody was happy and elated, and when we retired it was with the thought of arising the next day to celebrate the glorious Feast of our Blessed Lady, Her Immaculate Conception, and to make preparations for our trip to the missions. \n\nDecember eighth in the Far East and December seventh in the Western world! Maryknoll at Stanley rose as usual. Masses and breakfast followed and shortly after we were electrified by the report that Kai Tak airport had been bombed at 7:45 and that the Pan American Clipper which brought our new missioners had been destroyed. WAR! And Hong Kong is in the news! Being eleven miles over the mountains from Hong Kong we had, of course, heard nothing of the bombing, and were inclined to believe that the whole thing was a hoax of some kind. But soon we were entirely disillusioned when the radio flashed news of Pearl Harbor and when shortly after tiffin the planes flew over Stanley and dropped a few bombs to the west of us, apparently over the sea. We tried to get news from Hong Kong over the telephone but nobody seemed to know just what was happening. We anxiously gathered around the radio and tried to pick up what news we could. Evidently, war was on in earnest and America and we were involved. \n\nAbout five o'clock in the afternoon, our telephone jangled and we heard the voice of His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, saying that all his Italian priests had been interned by the British Government, and that he would like to have Father Downs come to help him out at the Cathedral. His priests were given only a short time in which to pack up their personal belongings and were immediately taken away to a destination which was not disclosed to the Bishop. Father Downs hastily packed his suit case and caught the half past five bus for Hong Kong, and it must be confessed, with no little trepidation. The trip to the city was a tense one. Along the route the bus was stopped periodically by the British sentries, inspected and finally diverted by way of Aberdeen, instead of the usual Happy Valley route. The whole city, too, was tense, and though the downtown streets were crowded, there was fear and uneasiness everywhere. \n\nAt the Cathedral were His Excellency, Father Rosello, a Spanish priest attached to the Cathedral and Father Craig S.J., from Wah Yan College, as also a few young Chinese priests. His Chancellor,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208608,
        "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": 65,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "38\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nabout six inches in diameter through the concrete roof of the sanctuary, and inside toppling over a huge granite pillar, and finally burying itself in the floor. The next shell apparently went beyond us near the Canossa Hospital, but did not yet reach the gun emplacement. After this, Masses could no longer be said with safety in the Cathedral, and were instead said in the Bishop's house. In the Bishop's house, throughout the day, a great number of people gathered during the air raids and remained all day, bringing with them their meagre food and eating it as best they could. They filled the reception hall, and corridors and finally overflowed into the priests' refectory, where some of them even slept at night, fearing to return to their homes. During the air raids and shelling they continually recited the Rosary and litanies and finally Father Rosello got out his small organ and led them in singing hymns.\n\nDuring these terrible and anxious days, many came back to the Sacraments after years of laxity; confessions were heard almost everywhere, in the streets and in dugouts and pillboxes, where some of the Fathers visited the defenders. At the Cathedral calls came in for confessions to be heard in certain places. For instance, the Portuguese girls in the Telephone exchange who could not leave their posts, asked for this privilege, and the priests were kept busy. The Jesuit Fathers were extremely busy and were in constant demand. Father Rosello visited various outlying convents and institutions, and related how he had repeatedly to wend his way over and around shell holes in the pavements. Despite the danger on the streets many came to the various Masses in the Bishop's house, and many pagans asked for baptism. While we, of course, only observed the happenings at the Cathedral, no doubt the same scenes were being enacted at the various churches, in the city and in Kowloon, and many an heroic act will never be known except by the angels in heaven.\n\nFor the first few nights we all slept in our usual rooms on the upper floors of the Mission House—the building is one of four or five stories—but as the shelling increased in intensity and kept up sporadically at night, we decided to seek safer quarters, and as preparations for this eventuality had already been made in the cellar, we accordingly wended our way down to the depths. Our dugout was none other than the wine cellar into which had been put some benches over which were laid boards and these constituted our box",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208609,
        "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": 66,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n39\n\nmattresses. As the Bishop's house is built on the side of a hill, as are in fact practically all the houses in Hong Kong, the outer wall of our dugout, facing north, was on a level with the garden, so as an extra precaution against bomb fragments, a heavy loose stone wall had been built up outside as high as the ceiling. There was but one small window and this we covered up in accordance with the blackout regulations. In this emergency dugout, His Excellency, Fathers Craig and Downs slept a little more securely than in the upper rooms. Father Rosello, however, kept to his upper room. One night, during the early days of the war, we were rudely awakened by a terrific blast, which must have shaken the whole island. We could hear fragments of shells or bombs falling just outside of our improvised loose stone wall, and it seemed as if the Cathedral had been hit with a salvo of shells. We could learn nothing that night and after a while returned to our couches.\n\nLater we heard the story. It seems that the British had a large store of dynamite or TNT on Green Island and it was decided to transfer this explosive to the Hong Kong shore. For this duty a squad of volunteers was chosen, comprising some British and Chinese police. As the story goes, they were instructed to leave Green Island at a certain predetermined time, but in some way or other, they started earlier. As their boat containing this high explosive neared the Hong Kong side, someone, fearing it was an enemy vessel, fired on it, and that was the tremendous explosion that shook the whole island, and which blew all those brave volunteers into eternity.\n\nAs was remarked above, the Bishop's house is situated on quite an eminence overlooking the harbor, and consequently we had a real grandstand view of the attack on Hong Kong. From our vantage point we saw shells fall in various parts of Kowloon; saw them encircle and finally land directly on Stonecutters Island, a fortified zone in the harbor; heard them whistle over our heads and strike the Navy Yard and other points to the east, and the Peak to the South. We could not see the shelling and bombing of Mount Davis, another fortified zone, but we could hear distinctly enough. From our vantage point we watched ships burning and scuttled in the eastern approaches to the harbor; we saw planes circling over Lyemoon forts, we saw the feeble anti-aircraft actions against the marauding planes. The fire from these ack-ack guns seemed brisk",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    }
]