[ { "id": 205750, "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-1969", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "50\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\nHer 12-pounders returned the fire and forced the Chinese gunners to abandon their positions. The British advanced under cover of \"Fame\"'s guns and drove the militia from the surrounding hills. During the withdrawal the Tai Hang militia lost its flag, which was subsequently found by the British.65\n\nFaced with these developments the Governor decided to hoist the flag the next day, 16th April, a day earlier than originally intended. He also ordered reinforcements to Tai Po. By mid-day on 16th April, the force there had been substantially augmented. It now comprised an artillery company and 500 men of the Hong Kong Regiment. H.M.S. \"Brisk\", accompanied by \"Fame\", stood by offshore. The flag was hoisted during the afternoon, salutes being fired by the artillery and by the ships, which were dressed overall. The pleasure of the occasion was diminished by fears that attacks would be made against both Tai Po and Kowloon. Reconnaissance patrols sent out from Tai Po had failed to make contact with the enemy and this seemed to strengthen the possibility of an assault on Kowloon.\n\nThat evening the destroyers returned to Hong Kong and took up stations on either side of Kowloon peninsula. Both ships spent the night searching the hillsides with their lights. Detachments of Hong Kong Volunteers and the 2nd Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, took up positions at the old northern boundary, emplacing Maxim guns to command the main approach roads.\n\nThese precautions were unnecessary. The Chinese were preparing for battle at Tai Po the next day (17th April). A supply of pigs was arranged and letters dispatched from an ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen, giving troop dispositions. The militia of Shap Pat Heung were told: \"We beg that the armed men of your worthy district will take rice in the 4th watch (i.e. about 3-4 am), and proceed to Ha Tsun, to be ready to fight. Do not wait for the signal drum.\"\n\nAnother letter was addressed \"to our clansmen of the Ping Shan district.\" It directed: \"we hereby inform you that 7 o'clock of the morning of the 8th [day, 3rd moon 17th April] has been fixed up as the date for commencement of the battle. The armed men of your worthy district should have their early meal at the 4th watch, and proceed at daybreak direct to Castle Peak ... Do not wait for the signal drum.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210372, "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-1984", "page_number": 343, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "322\n\nW.J. HOWARD\n\nWednesday and Saturday afternoon long walks up the hillside. We were allowed to go up to the Peak by way of Hatton and Harlech and Lugard Road gathering wild flowers and shrubs for decorating St Peter's Church for the Christmas festival.\n\nThe Rev. Vyvian H. Copley-Moyle, who was Cathedral Chaplain from 1912 to 1927, found time to teach Scripture to our matriculation class. He was a historian as well as theologian. He tempered his religious teaching with excerpts from Roman history and the boys listened with awe to his account of the Roman legions under Titus laying siege to Jerusalem in 70 A.D., about 37 years after the death of Jesus. Our class teacher, Henry Sykes, who ruled his class under a rod of iron, proved docile whenever Rev Copley-Moyle appeared in the school. His stern appearance changed to a full smile. At the Cathedral, Copley-Moyle's sermons were always refined as he was fully prepared with copious notes.\n\nOne evening in the Prefects' Room before bedtime Rev. Featherstone found me banging away at an old dilapidated typewriter. Thereafter he gave me some typing work, usually on a Sunday afternoon, at the same time relieving me of the 2.00 to 4.00 p.m. Collect and Gospel ordeal. That ancient typewriter of 1919 vintage served me in good stead, for even now in 1985, after 66 years and at age 82 I find myself still using a typewriter to produce this report.\n\nFeatherstone was a man of vision. He was responsible for the removal of the school from its cramped surroundings in Bonham Road to its present magnificent site in Kowloon, establishing a \"brick fund\" to pay for the move. Unfortunately, I believe, he lost his job because of this as the School Committee in those days thought he had committed the school to finances beyond its limit.\n\nWhen we passed our matriculation examination in 1919, one of our classmates, by the name of Ngan Chun On, went to the United States. He applied for admission to the University of Pennsylvania, producing his Hong Kong University Matriculation Certificate. The learned professors looked askance at the certificate saying they had never heard of the Hong Kong University. Finally one of them said: “We cannot admit you on the strength of your", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212176, "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-1990", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "95\n\nsuccessful in winning scholarships to England under the terms of the British Boxer Indemnity Fund. The tea party was held in the grounds of a lovely little Elizabethan-style house recently opened as the headquarters of the Sino-British Cultural Association.\n\nIt was hard to believe that all the work of reconstruction, the town planning, the laying out of parks, the building of government offices, which had continued uninterrupted since Nanking had become the capital, those material expressions of the national effort to drag administration out of the centuries-old morass of incompetence and venality, were so soon to be wrecked.\n\nThe fighting in the north went badly for the Chinese, who were repeatedly compelled to withdraw. They accordingly decided to divert the Japanese effort to a terrain more favourable to themselves, and nearer to the main bases of their army. Two divisions were concentrated on the outskirts of Shanghai, and it was their attempt in August to drive the small Japanese garrison into the Whangpoo, the tributary of the Yangtze on which Shanghai stands, that unleashed the aerial war in central China. The Chinese light bombers tried to sink the Japanese flagship, H.I.J.M.S. \"Idzumo\", where she lay anchored off the Shanghai waterfront, and the Japanese retaliated by attacking Chinese airfields in the vicinity of Shanghai, Hangchow, and Nanking.\n\nRealising the danger of air raids, but without experience, the authorities in Nanking in an excess of zeal issued instructions that all light-coloured buildings were to be painted black, and so through the advancing days the view from our windows turned from the bright red and green of brick and tile to a blurred dirty grey. Even the white and blue omnibuses were changed to match the mud of the roadway. For our part we got hold of some bituminous paint and caused it to be spread on our red-tiled roof; but in the course of time rain streaked it and spoiled the effect.\n\nThe first air raid caught us by surprise at lunch on August 15th. A warning system had been established, but when the 'phone rang to advise us that the alarm had gone we did not know what to do. Someone remembered we had a large Union Jack in the attic, which after some discussion, feeling rather foolish, we decided to spread on the lawn. Tim, the pup, thought it was a new toy to be pulled at and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]