Brave Portuguese and Macanese...

Submitted by yolanda on Sat, 03/10/2018 - 20:13

Having just read The Lone Flag about the British Consul, Reeves, I am keen to find a book, which refers to brave acts by Portuguese and Macanese people. [My mother is Macanese.]

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"The Lone Flag" is indeed an excellent book about WWII in Macau. 

Club Lusitano in HK has a book for sale about Macanese family history. Maybe that could be a plow to start?

Many years ago I escorted a chap called Bill Bethell back to Stanley Internment Camp. Bill actually entered the Camp in 1942 at the age of 12 or 13, together with his 16 year old sister and his parents.

In addition to wishing to revisit Stanley, Bill wanted to find the grave of his father in Hong Kong. After gentle questioning from me, it transpired that who Bill described as his father was, in fact, his step-father. Bill entered the Camp using his birth father’s name, but while in internment he went in front of Franklin Gimson and officially changed his name to Bethell. (Gutsy thing for a young man to do)! His step-father was a Brit HK policeman who served in the Traffic Branch and who was actually nicknamed “Traffic” Bethell.

Bill explained that his mother’s maiden name was Noronha. She was Macanese and pre-War had run a beauty parlour in Lock Rd, TST. As a Macanese she didn’t have to be interned, but she decided that the whole family would go in the Camp in order to stay together and survive.

Her 2 sisters, (Bill’s aunts), chose not to be interned. They stayed out and no doubt at great risk to themselves gave assistance to their sister (and probably others) who were “behind the wire.”

Bill showed me letters, signed by senior British military officers and dated after the War, thanking his aunts for the help which they had given to internees during the Japanese Occupation. There must have been many similar instances of Portuguese and Macanese nationals giving assistance to British (and other) internees.

We eventually found Bill’s step-father’s grave. It didn’t help that Bill forgot to mention that his step-father was a Roman Catholic and was therefore NOT buried in the HK Cemetery where we were originally looking! We found his grave in the Catholic cemetery.

Bill left HK in about 1946 to attend school in the U.K. and never returned here until the occasion when I met him. His step-father died not long after the War - things were not good for him for reasons into which I would rather not go.

An interesting piece of social history I felt. How Bill’s mother met his step-father is worthy of a separate post!

Thank you for this. I really enjoyed reading the comment and it will add to my redraft of final manuscript. Please let me know if I can have permission to post this onto Facebook. I have a new post going, which kickstarts with an act of courage by my great uncle Nando dos Remedios.

Please feel free to post the story on Facebook or wherever. (Not that I really know what that is, having nothing to do with such social media).

Bill recounted how his mother met the man who became his step-father. Bill was in hospital when he was about 7, (before the war), having fallen out of the family car during a drive one day.

In the bed next to him was policeman “Traffic” Bethell who had been injured when he fell off his motorcycle. Bill’s mum became friendly with Bethell whilst visiting her son and, as they say, the rest is history!