Graeme shares one of his father Alec Dinnen's experiences in Hong Kong in WW2, and links to another post that describes how a chance meeting before the war saved Alec's life twice over.
Freddie has been exploring the site of the old Tai Koo firing range, and found that a surprising amount of remains still exist. Here's a row of metal target hoisting frames lined up behind the protective stone wall:
I'm a regular visitor to the hkmaps.hk website to explore their historic maps of Hong Kong, and see it has just had a major upgrade. I asked the website's founder Tymon Mellor for some of the highlights of the new site, and he replied:
can now search every building address and lot number
more aerial photos including the wartime images
improved 1924 aerial image for the urban areas
3D imagery based on an older digital terrain model
2026 Gwulo meet up lunch in Hong Kong on 18 November - please leave a comment on that page to let Annelise know if you'd like to join. (Annelise has been organising these for several years, to give Gwulo's contributors and readers a chance to meet up.)
Behind the scenes I'm working on an upgrade to the Gwulo website, to keep up to date with the latest version of the software it runs on. If there are any features you'd like to see added to the site, this is a good time to see what's possible - please leave a comment below with the details of what you have in mind.
25 Oct 1942. The American Air Force makes its first bombing raid over Hong Kong.
1943
25 Oct 1943. It’s the first night of “La Czigane”, a popular show performed at the Shamshuipo POW Camp.
29 Oct 1943. Thirty three people are executed on Stanley Beach soon after 2 p.m. All have been involved in one way or another with resistance activities organised by the British Army Aid Group.
1945
27 Oct 1945. The repatriation ship carrying two of our diarists, Barbara Anslow (née Redwood) and R. E. Jones, arrives in Liverpool.
Thank you for the donations of historic material I've received over the last few months, including old Hong Kong newsletters, articles, slides, photos, and a massive scrapbook from the 1960s. The clocks are about to change here in Wales, which brings the long, dark evenings. I plan to use the extra indoors time to start sharing this new material on Gwulo.
New books:
Allan Bartley writes about Francis Woodley "Mike" Kendall in his book Beyond Operation Oblivion - A Canadian Spy Before, During, and After the Fall of Hong Kong, 1941. Readers may recognise Kendall from his appearances in the wartime diaries as the leader of Z Force, and his part in the Christmas Day escape with Admiral Chan Chak. But as the book review shows, there's much more to his story.
I can send book orders to the US again. With the changing tariffs, deliveries to the US have been on hold for a long time, but now the Royal Mail is accepting parcels to the US again. The full set of my books (Volumes 1 -5) costs £96.90 (appx US$130), including shipping to a US address and the 7.5% tariff because the books are printed in China. Please get in touch if you'd like to order a set.
Thank you to everyone who came along to my recent talks in Cheltenham and Exeter. I can recommend both venues if you want somewhere that is affordable and has good audio and video: The Chapel in Cheltenham, and the Rougemont Room in Exeter Library.
Cheltenham talk 2026
Exeter talk 2026
Recent news in the wartime diaries:
1942
18 Oct 1942. The bankers T. J. J. Fenwick and J. A. D. Morrison begin their escape from Hong Kong, aided by the BAAG and communist guerillas.
1943
19 Oct 1943. Men and women involved in resistance to the Japanese go on trial at Stanley Prison. The trial doesn’t include any meaningful defence, as the outcomes had already been decided. Many of the defendants will be sentenced to death.
1944
16 Oct 1944. US bombers conduct a large raid on Hong Kong. They attack the Kowloon Docks at Hung Hom, but many bombs miss the target and fall on the dockworkers houses nearby. Many civilians are killed or injured.
17 Oct 1944. John Charter explains the ‘Canteen’ system in Stanley Camp, which was a formal system allowing internees to buy food and other necessities – if they had money.
I went on a tour of the Hall some years back, and enjoyed hearing about its history - some parts of the building date back as far as the 1860s.
Other interesting locations nearby include Bethanie, Pokfulam Village, and the walk to / from the Peak via Pokfulam Reservoir.
We've just finished transcribing Leo Landau's Prisoner Of War diary. Thank you to all the volunteers who have helped, and special thanks to Brian McDouall, morbach, and wingcli2015, who have handled the bulk of the work.
If you have friends in South West England that have a connection to Hong Kong, please could you let them know about the talks I'm giving next week in Cheltenham (Wed 7 Oct) and Exeter (Sat 10 Oct).
A bonus for the Cheltenham talk: historian and author Patricia O'Sullivan will join us, so if you have any questions about the history of Hong Kong policing & prisons, or you have copies of her books you'd like signed, please bring them with you!
After the talks we've got the rooms for another hour, so there will be plenty of time to enjoy chatting and sharing memories of Hong Kong with the other guests.
27 Sep 1942. Just over 1800 POWs from Hong Kong start their journey to Japan, where they expect they’ll be put to work as manual labour. They notice the name of the ship they are boarding is the Lisbon Maru. Conditions in the holds are terrible.
1 Oct 1942. American submarine Grouper fires torpedoes at the Japanese ship Lisbon Maru, unaware that over 1800 allied POWs are on board. A torpedo strikes the ship, which starts taking on water. The Japanese crew and soldiers are removed to other ships, but they keep the POWs locked in the holds, only lowering a hand-pump to the POWs who must use it to slow down the rising waters.
2 Oct 1942. The POWs in the holds of the Lisbon Maru realise the ship is going to sink and decide to break free. Japanese ships nearby shoot and kill many of the men. Some men are rescued by local fishermen, and eventually the Japanese ships also start picking up men from the sea, but over 800 of the POWs who boarded the Lisbon Maru did not live to reach Japan.
1943
23 Sep 1943 : The second repatriation ship leaves Hong Kong. The Teia Maru sets sail with mostly Canadian repatriates, but also several from the USA and Latin America. [CORRECTION: Greg Leck notes that only the group who boarded at Hong Kong were 'mostly Canadian repatriates'. He says that the vast majority of the repatriates on the ship were from the United States, from camps throughout the Far East. Thanks to Greg for the correction.]
1945
2 Oct 1945. Mabel Redwood wakes up in Colombo, believing her fiancee is far away in Hong Kong. In fact he has also arrived in Colombo on board a different ship. There is a reunion, a wedding, and by that evening Mabel is a married woman with a new husband and a new name, Mabel Large.
Thank you to everyone who attended my recent talks in York and Edinburgh. The audience was a good mix of long-term followers of Gwulo, and people who have a connection to Hong Kong but are new to the site. It was a pleasure to meet you all.
After our visit to the North East, next month we're heading in the opposite direction, to give talks in Cheltenham and Exeter. Please use the following links for booking and details, and I look forward to seeing you there.
The project to put Leo Landau's Prisoner Of War diary online is going well. Volunteers have already processed the pages from 1942 and 1943, and are making good progress with 1944. If you'd like to help, please reply to this newsletter by email with DIARY in the subject line, and I'll send you the files for the next page in the queue.
One more mention of the York & Edinburgh talks - if you need venues for illustrated talks I can confidently recommend the Main Hall at Clements Hall in York:
Both had clear audio and screens that all the audience could see clearly, plus the staff were both helpful and knowledgeable, which made the setup very straightforward.
While preparing for the Edinburgh talk I discovered not only did famous photographer John Thomson grow up in Edinburgh, but that his childhood home was just five minutes walk from our venue, at 6 Brighton Road. I went along to pay homage, and as you'll see in the photo below, there is a brass plaque on the wall commemorating him. It turns out that plaque is there because of the good work of Jamie Carstairs - he has written up how he tracked down Thomson's house and got the plaque installed.
