1945 (?) Fenwick Street

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1941 Fenwick Street

Japanese troops marching along Fenwick Street. Bomb damage to the building at the rear of the Sailors' Home and Mission to Seamen.

(Reviewed and replaced the photograph with an original version showing a full view of the same scene. The previous photo did not include the Japanese soldier on the left in the foreground and was captioned as showing "captured" Japanese troops in 1945 ? Unable to trace the origin of the photograph. Perhaps a wartime Japanese press photo (Asahi Shimbun ?) taken after Christmas Day 1941 showing Japanese troops entering the city. Amended the likely year of the photograph from 1945 to 1941 and back to 1945 (?) after comments received below)

Date picture taken
1945
Gallery
1940s Hong Kong
Shows place(s)
Sailors Home and Mission to Seamen / Harcourt House [1933-c.1983]
Junction of Fenwick Street & Jaffe Road [????- ]
Junction of Gloucester Rd & Fenwick St. [????- ]

Comments

Agree with 1941. Although the New York Times shows the same photo (without the soldier on the left) and dates it to 1945, I don't think that defeated Japanese soldiers would be allowed to march with their rifles.

Addendum: defeated soldiers look like this:

Japanese prisoners of war in Hong Kong 1945, by Klaus

The photo without the Japanese soldier in the left foreground began to appear in newspapers in the third week of September 1945 having the caption or a similar caption: The fully armed Jap garrison filing through the bomb-rubbled streets of Hong Kong towards ships that took them to the Chinese mainland for disarmament. Note the evidences of bombing raids in the modern concrete buildings.......... Source of photograph: International Sound Photo

Detroit Evening Times 22 September 1945: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn88063294/1945-09-22/ed-1/?sp=15&q=hong+kong&r=0.048,0.774,1.087,0.649,0. International Sound Photo is not a news organization that easily comes to mind.

Unable to say with certainty when the news photograph was taken or its origin. 

Like the photograph that you have posted, I think the Imperial War Museum and foreign news agencies have other photographs of Japanese soldiers without rifles being marched with their belongings and shipped or transported by KCR train to temporary internment camps. The main photo shows otherwise.

Admiralty House would likely refer to Marble Hall. Pre-war, it was used as the residence of the Naval Commander-in-Chief of the China Squadron. Note the White Ensign was raised after the Japanese naval contingent had left the residence.

(Update - The main photo also appears in the Australian War Memorial website: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C46610 No date and source are given. )

 

I'm leaning towards 1945, because the Sailors' Home and Mission to Seamen has a camouflage paint scheme, and we know that was something the Japanese did to buildings along the seafront during their occupation.

Also the damage to the buildings looks more severe than would be caused by any small arms fire in this district in December 1941, it looks more like damage from the later American bombing raids.

Thanks for the comments and other bits of connecting evidence. 

A few irritating points that stops me in saying with certainty that the photo is from 1945:

a) The presence of the Japanese soldier with his rifle on the left. He appears to be guarding the route march of the Japanese soldiers. I would have thought the rounding-up of enemy soldiers would have been under the watchful eyes of the recently arrived re-occupation forces. 

b) Who is the photographer ? Japanese or an Allied force member ? If it is the former, I doubt it would have been 1945. If it was an Allied force photographer in 1945, I am sure he would have been with his own armed security detail. But there is none to be seen.

c) I have looked in the Imperial War Museum photo and video archive and I cannot locate the main photograph to indicate that it is from 1945.

The photograph first appeared in U.S. newspapers in the third week of September 1945. International Sound Photo was given as the source or distributor.

From the comments provided by David and Klaus, would the photograph have been taken by a Japanese news agency in 1944 after the American bombing raids ? This may tie-in the presence of the Japanese soldier, severe bomb damage and camouflage paint scheme. 

Just speculation, International Sound Photo may have unearthed the photograph in Japan after its surrender and distributed it worldwide thereafter in its cropped form. Comments are welcome.

(Update: After a long think on David's comment regarding the camouflage paint job, I have changed the year to 1945 (?) in the title with a question mark. Hopefully, at some point in time more information can be forthcoming to reveal when the photo was taken)