[ { "id": 206351, "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-1971", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "152\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nin 1859 and spread outwards through the self-governing and other territories of what became the Commonwealth and Empire. It extended to Britain's Eastern Colonies and to the foreign communities of the treaty ports of China and Japan where, from time to time, various alarms and excursions added self-preservation to the list of factors motivating the continuance or periodic resuscitation of volunteer corps.\n\nIn Hong Kong the Laws of the Colony early provided for their existence as a constitutional force. A succession of Ordinances established volunteers on a proper basis. The earliest of these was No. 2 of 1862, which was repeated with slight variation in No. 18 of 1882. An important re-modelling was carried out by No. 6 of 1893. This was followed by a Volunteer Reserve Ordinance No. 25 of 1910. Both these Ordinances were replaced by a further Volunteer Ordinance No. 2 of 1920, still modelled largely on the important 1893 Ordinance.\n\nVolunteer forces were the rule in the various foreign concessions in China, though save in the larger ones local volunteer forces tended to be formed and reformed whenever events seemed to warrant it. For example, the Shameen Defence Corps was formed after a serious riot in 1884 and was reformed from time to time, e.g. in May 1911 due to the unsettled state of affairs in Canton (see Diary of Events and the Progress on Shameen 1859-1938 compiled by H.S.S. and privately printed about 1938, pp. 19-26).\n\nThe largest of the China volunteer units was, in time, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. This originated at two public meetings held in April 1853 and its early doings are described in Chapter XXXV of Lanning and Couling's The History of Shanghai, Part I (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1921).\n\nInteresting details of its development are given here and there in Brigadier J. V. Davidson-Houston's Yellow Creek, The Story of Shanghai (London, Putnam, 1962). As in Hong Kong, the passing of the first emergency resulted in the demise of the Corps. \"Enthusiasm for the Volunteer Corps sank to a low ebb, members neglected to turn up for training and it was soon practically defunct\" (p. 58). The Corps was again raised in August 1860 with the onset of the Taiping rebels, when 107 volunteers came forward for enrolment (p. 65). However, after the successful operations against the rebels the Corps \"wilted and died\" and was wound up in 1867 to \"pay for its debtor's balance by selling its rifles\" although the rifle club continued to function (p. 90). The Corps was again formed in 1870 following the Tientsin massacre and continued in being thereafter, its numbers fluctuating between 250-350 for the rest of the 19th century (pp. 92-93). It then continued to grow in size, like the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, to meet the difficulties of the troubled 1920s and the war with Japan.\n\nThe number of foreign residents in China is relevant to the size and location of Volunteer Corps. Some figures are given at pp. 292-295 of J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese or Notes Connected with China, 4th edition, Hongkong, Kelly and Walsh 1903. There were, for instance, 4,424 foreigners in Shanghai (exclusive of those living in the French Settlement) in 1895 and 6774 in 1900. The Hong Kong Census of 1891 listed 10,446 British and foreign residents.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206451, "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-1971", "page_number": 268, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "242\n\nTOOGOOD, C. W. -\n\nTORRENS, Dr. Paul R..\n\nTORRENS, Mrs. Paul R.\n\nTORRIBLE, G. R.*\n\nTOWNER, J. A.\n\nTRISTRAM, M. P. W.\n\nTSEUNG, Dr. F. I.\n\nTUCK, Miss Jean\n\nTURNER, Sir Michael*\n\nUHALLEY, Dr. S., Jr.\n\nVALE, Miss M. VARNEY, Dr. C. B.\n\nVETCH, H.\n\nVETCH, Mrs. H.\n\nVIÒ, Dr. E. G.\n\nVISICK, Mrs. M.\n\nVOSS, Dr. A.\n\nc/o Oxford University Press, 5th floor, News Building, 633 King's Road, H.K.\n\n59A Nga Tsin Wai Road, A2, Kowloon,\n\nAs above.\n\nc/o The Hong Kong Club, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\nRating & Valuation Dept., Murray House, Garden Road, H.K.\n\nChina Building, 4th floor, H.K.\n\nUnknown.\n\n'Whispers', Riversdale, Bourne End, Bucks, England.\n\nc/o Dept. of History, Duke University, Durham, N. Carolina, U.S.A,\n\n49 Talbot Road, London, W.2. England. c/o Dept. of Geography, United College, C.U.H.K., 9A, Bonham Road, H.K. Belmont Court 10A, 10 Kotewall Road, H.K.\n\nAs above.\n\n315, H.K. & Shanghai Bank Building, H.K. Dept. of English, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\n27, Babington Path, H.K.\n\nWAINWRIGHT, Mrs. J. A. 5, Goldsmith Road, Jardines Lookout, H.K.\n\nWALDEN, J. C. C.\n\nWARD, Miss J. E. A.*\n\nWATERS, D. D.\n\nWATSON, James L.\n\nWATSON, K. A.\n\nWATT, James C. Y.\n\nWEBSTER, J. L. H.\n\nWEI, Dr. Tat\n\nWEINREBE, H. M.\n\nWELCH, Holmes, H.*\n\nc/o The Colonial Secretariat, H.K.\n\nc/o National Provincial Bank Ltd., Bideford, North Devon, England.\n\nMorrison Hill Technical Institute, 6 Oi Kwan Road, Morrison Hill, Wan Chai, H.K.\n\nDept. of Anthropology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77004, U.S.A. c/o Lammert Bros., Pedder Building, H.K. c/o The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T.\n\nc/o The British Council, P.K. 15, Sisli, Istanbul, Turkey,\n\n3, Fontana Gardens, 5th Floor, Causeway Hill, H.K.\n\nc/o Weinrebe & Pennell Ltd., Room 805 The Bank of Canton Building, H.K.\n\n4 Holden Lane, Concord, Mass., U.S.A.\n\n*Life Member\n\nPlease notify the Hon. Secretary of any inaccuracy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207353, "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-1975", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "THE EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT: \n\nCHINESE TRADITION AND LATE CH'ING PRACTICE \n\nRICHARD J. SMITH* \n\nDespite China's persistent and often pronounced Sinocentrism, and her general distrust of aliens in the interior, the theoretically self-sufficient Middle Kingdom in practice had to make almost continual use of foreign military talents. This was true not only of conquest dynasties and periods when martial values were disesteemed.2 The expansive Chinese dynasties of Han and T'ang also employed barbarians in a great number of civil and military capacities. It has been estimated, for example, that at times more than half of the T'ang military posts were held by men of foreign origin.3 So pronounced was Tang Wu-tsung's appreciation for foreign administrative and military talents that he commissioned his minister, Li Te-yü, to compile the biographies of thirty foreigners from Ch'in to T'ang times who had rendered \"meritorious and loyal\" service to China. This two chuan work, no longer extant, bore the title I-yü kuei-chung chuan (Biographies of Foreigners Who Returned to Loyalty), emphasizing the idea that it was natural for outsiders to come to the fold of Chinese culture and offer their submission and service to the Middle Kingdom.4 \n\nWe do not know who the thirty individuals who \"left [their] distant lands and returned to China\" were, but there are several likely candidates. By looking briefly at a few representative foreigners in the Chinese military service, and examining the foreword to the I-yü kuei-chung chüan (preserved in Li Te-yu's collected works) and other evidence, we may gain some idea of the theory behind employing barbarian officers, as well as the circumstances under which they were engaged, the standards by which their loyalty was judged, and the means by which they were controlled. Such a survey provides the necessary backdrop for a discussion of Chinese policy toward foreign employees in the late Ch'ing period, when China faced unprecedented challenges both within and without.5 \n\nAlthough by 1860 at least a few Chinese had come to see that China was entering a new stage in her foreign relations, Chinese \n\n* Dr. Smith is Assistant Professor of History, Rice University, Houston, Texas.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207639, "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-1976", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "REFLECTIONS ON THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MODERNIZATION IN CHINA AND JAPAN: MILITARY ASPECTS\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH*\n\nPaul Cohen has recently warned against measuring nineteenth century China’s modernization by the yardstick of Meiji Japan. From the vantage point of Japan’s ‘success,’” he writes, “the late Ch’ing epitomizes ‘failure,’ and next to the dynamism of the Meiji era, China, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, appears as the very embodiment of stasis. The trouble with this perspective is that it glosses over a very important fact, namely that China and Japan, in their respective encounters with the West in the last century, did not start out at the same point.” Cohen suggests that a “much more valid way of measuring change in nineteenth century China is by internal points of reference.” “Modernization is not, after all, a horserace,” he maintains,2\n\nThis approach has much to commend it, if only as a reminder that China did not simply stand still in the nineteenth century. Thomas Kennedy correctly indicates, for example, that for all its weaknesses, the “self-strengthening” movement from 1860 to 1894-1895 brought “far more comprehensive and far-sighted [changes] than earlier studies infer.” Cohen notes that when we measure the modernizing experiences of China and Japan against those of the rest of the world, rather than against each other, “we find that both China and Japan come off relatively well.”+\n\nYet the knowledge that historians would eventually vindicate China’s modernizing efforts would have been small consolation to Li Hung-chang at Shimonoseki. One doubts that he muttered at the signing table in 1895, “How far China has come in the last thirty years!” The fact is that Chinese modernizers continually viewed their progress in terms of Japan’s accomplishments. Li Hung-chang wrote as early as 1872: “Japan is just a small nation. Recently she has begun to trade with Europe; she has instituted\n\n* Dr. Smith is Assistant Professor of History, Rice University, Houston, Texas. His article “The Employment of Foreign Military Talent: Chinese Tradition and Late Ch’ing Practice” appeared in Vol. 15 of this Journal, pp. 113-138.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208307, "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-1978", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "THE REFORM OF MILITARY EDUCATION IN LATE CH'ING CHINA, 1842-1895\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH*\n\nThroughout much of the nineteenth century, Chinese and Westerners alike perceived the need for meaningful reform in Chinese military education. The problem could hardly be ignored, especially after the disastrous Opium War of 1839-1842. But change in this key area of late Ch'ing administration came slowly. Not only did it involve sensitive political issues, such as internal security, civil-military relations, and central versus local government responsibility; it also raised basic questions of educational policy, including the relationship between elite and popular instruction, between Confucian moral cultivation and technical specialization, and ultimately between Chinese and Western forms of civil and military knowledge. Complicating matters were the usual practical problems facing Chinese modernizers in the nineteenth century: widespread and entrenched vested interests, bureaucratic inertia, scarcity of revenue, and foreign pressure.\n\nThe Ch'ing dynasty's basic approach to military education can be seen clearly in the Ch'ing-ch'ao t'ung-chih, officially compiled during the Ch'ien-lung period: \"Our Emperor, succeeding and exalting the sages, treats the selection of talents as most important. In the literary arts, elegance and refinement is the aim. In military examination, familiarity with riding and shooting is [most] important.\" During the Tao-kuang reign, this emphasis on technical military skills received special stress. In 1833, for example, the emperor issued an edict stating that the education of Bannermen should be in horsemanship and archery, so that they would be kept \"simple and straight and not exposed to weakening [literary] influences.\" Similar statements abound in the dynastic record,\n\n* Professor Smith writes: S. A. M. Adshead has recently remarked that while \"China's failure to industrialize is well known, her failure to professionalize is less often commented upon.\" (See his review of John Fairbank et al \"The I.G. in Peking\" in the Journal of Asian Studies, 36.4 (August, 1977). This paper may be viewed as a brief comment on China's early effort to professionalize in military affairs.\n\nThe author is Associate Professor of History at Rice University, Houston, Texas.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212559, "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-1991", "page_number": 113, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "93\n\nThe contributions the American cultural presence made to China's cultural pluralism are obvious. In the area of music, many pieces visiting American musicians played had never been included in the repertoire of Chinese musicians. Through their performances, American musicians also introduced to the Chinese people the works of American composers. In July 1980, the Minnesota University Symphony Orchestra toured China. The pieces it presented were almost exclusively by contemporary American composers. Some of what was served up for cultural consumption was especially impressive to Chinese audiences for its American characteristics. The dances by Graham Young's students were loudly cheered by the audience, a major part of which was of college students, as there had seldom been on Chinese stages such vivid and humorous performances or such a free treatment of the actor-audience relationship.\n\nThe diversity American artists brought to Chinese cultural life was also expressed in the expansion of activity to performances of some particular instruments on the Chinese stage, such as the harp and mouth organ. Before the Chinese-American mouth organist Huang Qingbai made his first visit to China in 1979, this instrument had been regarded by Chinese as merely a toy. Though his efforts, the mouth organ has been established as a musical instrument of artistic value and incorporated in the orchestra, though some Chinese musicians still hold a negative view of it. Similarly, Chinese audiences first saw a harp solo and harp ensemble during performances of incoming American musicians in 1981.\n\nThe influx of American artistic endeavours also affected the activity of already established Chinese artists. Thus the first generation of Chinese ballet dancers were trained by Russians. As a result, Chinese ballet followed a distinctive Russian tradition. But what has surprised the Russians in recent years was that they have seen a successful combination of both Russian influence and Western approaches in the current performances of Chinese dancers. There are, of course, many factors in this transformation, but the most direct source of the new approach came from Ben Stevenson, the artistic director of the Houston Ballet who has been deeply involved in China's dance education since 1979 and who has visited China several times since 1980 when he came to China as the first American on the short term exchanges sponsored by the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange.\n\nNurtured by a ballet school which originated in Russia and was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212560, "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-1991", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "94\n\nperfected in the United States, Stevenson adopts an approach which gives great emphasis to the expression of the inner, emotional state of the characters, an alternative to the approach Chinese dancers were familiar with. In the summer of 1979, he trained two Chinese student dancers at the Houston Ballet Academy. At the end of the summer, the students returned to China with a pas-de-deux Stevenson choreographed for them. In China, the performance of that piece caused a stir among the audiences and a revision of the approach Chinese dancers took towards their profession. In the succeeding years, Chinese artists choreographed some pieces, such as the Spirit of the Yellow River, which also suggests Stevenson's influence on dance in China.6\n\nObviously, the contributions American Cultural presence made to cultural pluralism are twofold: direct presentations gave a different feature to the cultural life of the Chinese people while they introduce new ideas. The latter, therefore, is of more significance as it is more persistent and penetrating. As for exchanges in arts education and exchanges of specialists, the consequences were also twofold: the influx of new ideas and the improvement in China's artistic activities.\n\nIn this context, the work of David Gilbert can be taken as an example of how American specialists helped Chinese artists in the improvement of artistic quality. David Gilbert, music director and conductor of the Greenwich Philharmonia in the United States, began to serve as principal guest conductor of the Central Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO, affiliated to the CPS) in June 1980. At the conclusion of his first term, he reflected: \"The players (of the CPO) are fine professional musicians but they have no repertory and no experience.” “The orchestra itself had never done Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, and when I scheduled the overture to 'Die Meistersinger' I discovered it was their first Wagner of any kind.\"37 Nonetheless, in mid-1981, he was able to tour with the CPO to Mudan Jiang, Harbin, and Changchun for two weeks with a repertoire made up largely of pieces learnt by the orchestra from him, and since then the orchestra had presented one concert every two weeks, rehearsing six days a week.\n\nIn evaluating the consequences of Sino-American arts exchanges in the 15 years since 1972, and particularly in the eight years since 1979, one important aspect to discuss is whether these exchanges have affected domestic socio-political development of China. It is important, and even vital, to the further development of China's arts exchanges with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214311, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "133\n\nSeveral questions remained unanswered. We have no idea what happened to Mary, his first wife who is not referred to anywhere after 1911. R R Sowerby recorded their marriage and added that she bore him a son.... \"there is one son of the marriage, now [1956] living in Australia.'\n\nAnother aspect of Sowerby's life about which we know nothing is the financial side. His father is unlikely to have left him much if anything. He is unlikely to have earned much teaching in Tientsin or working for the wealthy American. His printing press would not have been cheap and his and his wife's collecting hobby again reflects an adequate income. He had several business directorships, was the manager of China Industries and, of course, had an income from the Journal. During his earlier years he did, of course, receive financial support from Mr Clark during expeditions. There is no doubt that there was money; perhaps brought into his life by his second wife? The 1938 and 1939 China Hong Kong Lists record the Sowerbys as living in the area beyond Bubblingwell, and near the American Country Club, at 34 Lucerne Road, a very upmarket address. Of tangential interest only, their neighbours at No. 33 were Captain and Mrs J V Davidson-Houston, the British Assistant Military Attaché, whose autobiography of the era was quite gripping.\n\nSowerby's works include The Naturalist in Manchuria, A Sportsman's Miscellany, Sport and Science on the Sino-Mongolian Frontier, A Naturalist's Notebook in China and, in joint authorship with Robert Clark, Through Shenkan.\n\nMy sources have included The Passing of the Manchus, Through Shen-Kan and also Sowerby of China, a privately produced short booklet published in Kendal in 1956 by R R Sowerby.\n\nPost Script\n\nSince submitting this article to the Editor of the Journal, I have been fortunate to come across the 'Obituary of Arthur Sowerby' written in 1954 by Professor Frank Drake of the University of Hong Kong who had the great advantage of having personally known Sowerby.' It has thrown a little more light on the life and times of our subject and I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214314, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "136\n\nI am grateful to the Reverend Carl Smith for the following information:\n\nAn announcement from a China mail of 1925. Married, at Shanghai, yesterday, Miss Clarice Sara Moise, to Mr. Arthur de Carle Sowerby, publisher of the China Journal of Arts and Science. Will of wife, Clarice Clara Sowerby, probated in Hong Kong in 1948, written in Shanghai 1933, in favour of her husband Arthur de Carle Sowerby of Shanghai, and son, Arthur Mesny de Carle Sowerby. Sister, Nina Ethel Moise. Will of Sowerby himself: Arthur etc., probated in Hong Kong, 1955, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, scientist, at present residing at Fairfax Hotel (?), 2100 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC. Wife, Alice Muriel Sowerby. If predeceased, sister-in-law, Nina Ethel Moise, 6485 San Marco Circle, Hollywood, to receive half; and son, Arthur Mesny de Carle Sowerby, to get the other half. Will written 7th November, 1949. A death record of Arthur de Carle Sowerby, 16th August 1954.\n\nCarl Smith also commented that it was known that Sowerby had children (sic) by a Chinese woman. It would appear that most expatriates in Shanghai were unaware of Sowerby's first marriage in Tientsin to William Mesny's niece, Mary Anne, and that the reference to the 'children by a Chinese woman,' remembering that Mary Anne's mother had been Chinese, suggests that Sowerby's first marriage had been quietly 'forgotten.'\n\ni The bandits were referred to as the Ko-lao Hui, the Elder Brother Society, an old powerful secret society, membership to which was strictly forbidden by the Ch'ing government and punishable by death. Their gangs robbed and killed far and wide as well as causing trouble with their inter-gang feuding.\n\nii The British Residents' Association was formed in 1931 to enable long-term residents to have a say in the running of the Concession. At about the same time, in order to support the authorities in the Concession following the recent troubles and crises, a body known as the Shanghai Fascisti was organised, and led for a while by Sowerby. The Fascists at this time were regarded by many as an honourable force against encroaching communism.\n\niii John Mesny died in 1884 in Hankow leaving a widow and eight children, all under the age of sixteen.\n\niv Davidson-Houston, JV: Armed Pilgrimage : Robert Hale Ltd : London: 1949\n\nv Journal of Oriental Studies Vol. II. No. 1. January 1955 [University of Hong Kong]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214761, "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-1999", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "140\n\neverything off just before dark. The AIS is full of naval personnel all trying to find accommodation and food. After a mad scramble, manage to find a bed and retire early, tired and hungry.\n\nThursday eleventh. Commander Millet OC AIS asks me to form antiaircraft and defence posts for Aberdeen as RAF only people with machine guns. I fix up four posts on the roof with tommy gun posts on the verandahs. The AIS makes a wonderful target being only half a mile from the naval dockyard. A hospital has been set up next door to the armoury. For breakfast we get one slice of bread and a little butter and tiffin is the same. For supper, if we're lucky, we get hot stew. Intensive bombing of Aberdeen harbour causing heavy casualties. How we curse the bombers and wish we had a few Gladiators which would make short work of them. Jap fighters are quite slow.\n\nFriday twelfth. Up early and drive in to HK. Buy food, cash a cheque and have a steak at Jimmies. Send cables to Pam and Mother. HK shelled from Kowloon. All our troops evacuated from Mainland. Hear that Walter Rosa, Dick Stanton, Houston Boswall and Bell who messed with us at Kai Tak have all been killed. Small party of Indians still fighting on Devils Peak. Royal Scots fired on in Nathan Road by Chinese fifth columnists using automatic weapons but Scots wipe the whole lot out. Chinese reported assisting Japs on large scale. Amazed at sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, also Jap successes against Americans. No one however doubts the final outcome and we realize that HK is only small fry in a tremendous issue.\n\nSaturday thirteenth. I set up antiaircraft positions on Bennetts Hill and Reservoir Hill with RAF personnel. CO goes to battle HQ, leaving me in charge. Dolly goes to Little Saiwan and the Colonel to Stanley. After much sweated labour get guns etc. in position. Whimpeys is in charge of Reservoir Hill and I of Bennetts Hill. I return to AIS for the night and at midnight there's a hell of a commotion and everyone is roused as the Japs are supposed to have landed on Aberdeen Island. Whole thing a farce and return to bed.\n\nSunday fourteenth. Set up positions on Bennetts and start digging holes in side of hill for billets. Junior and I dig like mad but, owing to rocks, make little progress. Quiet day except for a few air raids. Bed extremely hard and rain comes in.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]