"Sweet Waters" - sailing into Victoria Harbour at the end of WW2: View pages

The sea is very flat and the heat of the sun is fierce. It is August in the South China Sea. As the afternoon passes we come to shallower water ; we see the hills of China take shape suddenly out of the heat haze. Small, silent groups of men gather on deck to peer out over the bow.

This is a strange fleet; it sprawls over several miles of the light-green water. Ahead, five Australian minesweepers steam in line abreast. In the centre, astern of the sweepers, the submarine depot ship Maidstone casts her bulky shadow. On each flank is a group of four submarines in line ahead, their bright camouflage glinting as they catch the sun. Right astern is the Canadian cruiser Prince Robert.

As we approach the land a dark cloud swings away from the north, and rain comes fast over the water in a black line. Abeam now, the land is close but indistinct. It is a poor night for the navigators ; the shapes of the sweepers are blurred ; the submarines are almost invisible. We anchor some two miles off Joss House Bay and ten miles south of the entrance to Hong Kong.

There is no sign of life. A few small junks idle through the rain, but the Japanese make no move. We stare landwards and listen to the rumours. It seems that the British Task Group of cruisers and aircraft carriers, which is cruising somewhere over the horizon, is to fly off an aircraft to make contact with the Japanese surrender delegation ashore. We look at the sky. It is not a good night for flying, with a ceiling below six hundred feet. Someone says that the Japanese commander in Hong Kong has announced that he has no authority to surrender to the British without consent from his superior in Canton. This, it appears, will take four days.

The night closes in. At dusk Captain Shadwell of the Maidstone goes over to the submarine Selene, which steers away into the murk, Later the Selene returns. She has closed to within two miles of Hong Kong, but seen nothing. Rumours start again. All night the submarines take turns in cruising silently round our anchorage. If we overrated the fighting qualities of the Japanese we do not underrate their skill at treachery.

Dawn, 30th August.—At first light the minesweepers are off, creeping through the morning mist ; they swing seaward and then head north for the harbour entrance. The Maidstone follows slowly, her guns trained steadily on the green slopes, where we know the Japanese have a battery of 9-in. guns. We go slow ahead. Meanwhile the sun rises gaudily and the day begins to heat up. The topmasts of the Task Group appear over the horizon as they close for the day’s work. We can recognise them now— the aircraft carrier Indomitable, the cruisers Swiftsure and Euryalus, and a screen of destroyers led by the Kempenfelt. Farther to the south the great bulk of the battleship Anson creeps into view.

A mile off the boom we anchor. The sweepers pass on, then swing back to clear a wider channel for the approaching fleet. Aircraft from one of the carriers fly over. We hear that they are dropping supplies on the prisoner-of-war camps.

It is a glorious day, with blue sea and crystal-clear visibility. The green hills seem almost to sparkle. The white sails of the junks pass and repass, indifferent to the currents of war and peace. A small land-bird comes uncertainly aboard and peers down at us from the rigging.

While the fleet forms up to seaward of us a sampan is seen approaching, with a tall figure standing in the stern waving furiously. A launch dashes off to investigate, and returns with one of the prisoners from the internment camp. From him we hear our first news of the colony. It seems that the Japanese have been reasonable for some days and are pulling out where possible. The civilian internees are out and about; they have a provisional government trying to straighten things out, but the enemy are still on the island in force. It appears that the Hong Kong police are on duty once more, and that the Chinese have formed an auxiliary force of some sort. The Japanese are working entirely in their own interests, since they know that they will be much better off with the British in control. If the Chinese took things into their own hands, there would be a lot of blood flowing over those green hills.

While we talk, a squadron of fighters goes over and the leading destroyer steams slowly into the channel. Battle flags break out at her masthead. Things are on the move.

Admiral Harcourt passes in the Swiftsure, followed by the Euryalus and Prince Robert. We weigh anchor and follow up the narrow channel.

The first impression is of ruin and disorder. The American bombs are no doubt responsible for many of the wrecks ; they may have caused those tortured heaps of concrete and steel in.the dockyard, but what of the roofless houses on the hillside ? Everywhere there is an atmosphere of defeat.

The beauty of the place remains ; it strikes a happy note above the many details of desolation. Whatever the condition of the houses, the white walls still glint in the sunlight. The water of the harbour is as blue as ever; and the sails of the junks may be tattered, but they dance before our eyes, little white squares, as far as we can see.

We swing past the anchored cruisers towards the mole at which we are to berth. Landing-parties from the other ships are already speeding ashore, and our own men stand, ungainly in their equipment, ready to clear our allotted part of the dockyard. Over Admiralty House the Japanese Rising Sun folds and unfolds its brilliant red and white. A Japanese destroyer lies alongside the stone quay; her crew stand idly watching us approach.

In spite of the tension and the gleaming, blue barrels of the tommy-guns, the whole place has a Sunday afternoon tempo. There is no hurry; there is a peaceful, easy-going manner about the British ships as they swing gracefully to the tide. The Japanese, for their part, lounge in bored resignation. If they intend to try any tricks they are leaving it very late.

As we come alongside the vista opens up. Across the shattered mole, in the small basin, the rusted funnel of a merchant ship rises unhappily from the water. Tugs, motor-launches, and small submarine-chasers lie alongside each other in profusion. Not one of them seems to be in any state of repair; they are like dead ships, idly waiting for their own particular judgment day. The mole itself is a shambles, and so, it seems, is the rest of the dockyard. Twisted cranes, great slabs of steel, shattered boats lie around haphazard. It is difficult to believe that the Japanese intended to occupy Hong Kong indefinitely.

Now we are tied up and the gangway is down. Steel-helmeted sailors walk from place to place, prodding, searching in holes and corners. From somewhere in the dockyard comes the sharp crack of rifles and the chatter of submachine guns. We learn that a few ‘death and glory’ snipers are still holding out. A grenade explodes and the harsh chatter of fire flares up momentarily, then all is quiet. From our main-deck we can see our men running past danger-points. The welldirected scene from Hollywood unfolds swiftly.

From the little white mast over the dockyard signal station the White Ensign flutters uncertainly for a moment, then streams out in the hot wind. Sunday afternoon once more.

Ashore, every step over the rubble is taken carefully. In one of the sheds on the mole we find a room where the Japanese have quartered some men. Confusion and squalor. We open doors and lockers with long broomhandles, but the precaution is unnecessary. The residents have departed too quickly to set booby-traps. They have left most of their own personal gear, and, we find, a great deal of the stuff is British or American. The amount of British signal-pads is especially noticeable. In one small box are the untouched possessions of a British naval rating which have, presumably, been lying there for the last four years.

Six hundred Japanese naval officers and ratings are captured in the dockyard; they sit apathetically in the hot sun watching the dark barrels of the rifles that wave in the practised hands of the Royal Marine guard. Some look around with interest, but the majority sulk at high pressure. No doubt the Emperor will have something to say to them when they get home.

Hong Kong was not used by the Japanese as a major base. It had recently become a backwater. This was almost certainly due to the efficient sea and land blockade flung out by the Americans, but, even taking this into account, the general state of the Japanese ships is incredible.

The submarine-chasers are wooden built, diesel-engined, and of about two hundred tons. As far as armament goes they are well off, and the guns seem to be well looked after. In the living quarters, however, there is sordid squalor. Untidiness and filth are the general rule. Bottles of apple wine and beer lie around, some half full. The paintwork is shabby; it flakes off at the first touch, leaving a bareness of rust or soot. The ropes are fifth-rate. Perhaps it is in this poor living and obvious lack of essential materials that these men first saw defeat.

As the day unfolds the scene becomes clearer. No Japanese remain free in the dockyard. The area is divided into sectors, and one ship is made responsible for the clearance and smooth running of each sector. The work starts at once. The submarines slide gingerly into the basin; their crews also have been allotted various buildings to put in order. Outside the dockyard the situation is obscure. The Rising Sun still flutters from Admiralty House. We have about three hundred armed sailors and marines ashore in the dockyard: the Japanese have up to four thousand men in the town outside. In these circumstances the Admiral has, apparently, decided to bite only what he can chew, and there are many days’ chewing in the dockyard alone.

Our own particular mole was once graced by a rail track. Now the inner arm slumps wearily into the water, and our jeeps are unable to plough their way into the main part of the dockyard. One of us finds a harassed officer in charge of the Japanese and borrows thirty of the sulkiest for a working party. As their efforts begin to show results they become interested ; the road takes shape slowly. They work out their own plan of reconstruction, forming long chains to pass bricks and rubble for the holes and trotting off to collect barrows of sand. Only a fat and double-chinned Petty Officer is disinclined to co-operate. An occasional prick from the guard’s bayonet persuades him that the surrender is, as far as we are concerned, still unconditional.

These Japanese can be divided into three distinct types. There are the small, smooth-haired, spectacled ones whom we call the Hirohito class. They are not much good for work. Secondly, there is the tougher, happier breed ; these men take things as they come and seem quite happy to do their bit as long as they are led by the hand. We put them in the peasant category. The third lot are blatantly unpleasant. I imagine they have always been unpleasant, even before the war. They are obviously double-faced, sly, arrogant, and proud. We have to prick them pretty often. The Japanese officers are in a class of their own. Their features are more regular and their smiles rather less extensive than in Low’s cartoons of Togo. Nevertheless, in their plausible graciousness, they are probably the most dangerous of the lot.

We worked those men till sunset. They marched away in their heavy boots, a shuffling rabble of poorly dressed, poorly fed humanity. Beside them, in spotless whites, marched a six-foot sentry of the decadent West.

Night.—The Sunday atmosphere has been dispelled by darkness. The hills are black against the stars, black and very silent. The lights of the fleet shine in quivering lines over the water. Searchlights swing ceaselessly; they move regularly, pausing here and there on a junk. Motor-launches move, their engines going slow, circling the ships, intercepting any craft that seems suspicious. Sometimes, from the deep shadows of the town, comes a sharp crack. The snipers are still out.

The blue beam of a single searchlight swings over the hills, quickly turning the dark mass into relief, revealing the houses and roads to the searching eyes of the security patrols. A launch brings in some Japanese army men who have tried to slip away to the mainland. So the night goes on.

There is a certain amount of disorder outside the dockyard gates. The Chinese take the opportunity to beat a few Japanese to death, hauling them off the trams and smacking at their heads with hammers. Some collaborators are treated in the same way. One woman is stripped; she seeks refuge behind our stolid guard. On the whole, however, this is a very localised show of revenge or what will you: the greater part of the island is quiet.

3lst August.—Another clear morning. From the port the whole harbour appears calm and quiet. Sampans crowd along our side; they have produced flags that must have been carefully hidden during the occupation. The harbour is filling up and showing signs of life. A few of the tugs and water-boats are in commission once more. Chinese ferries run between the island and Kowloon. Hong Kong is suffering the pangs of rebirth quietly.

We wander ashore in search of Japanese labour, to find that the whole crowd has been kicked out of the dockyard and is now quartered in the Wellington Barracks. A weary interpreter digs up a Japanese officer from somewhere and barks out instructions. Yes. If we can produce a lorry from somewhere and drive out to the barracks a working party will be produced. We find a Studebaker lorry ; it runs uncertainly and noisily on Japanese petrol and lubricating oil. The Japanese officer climbs into the back with the men of our guard, who lean over the cab, their tommy-guns pointing dangerously.

Since the riots of the night before the Japanese have cleared the streets outside the dockyard. It is very quiet. Every hundred yards along our route stands a motionless Japanese marine his rifle at the ready. They do not appear to see us. They will have to do an awful lot of eye-shutting during the next few years.

The Wellington Barracks appear rather more orderly than the rest of the naval area. Sentries are on duty outside the gates and a small group of men stand in the guard-house. They look at us with surprise. Our little passenger beams with excitement at being among his own men once more. He is rather too keen to rush in through the gates, and therefore becomes a bit of a problem. Theoretically he is not a prisoner, since the surrender has not yet been signed. Our control over him is also limited because we are in enemy territory and outnumbered on every hand. Since he is our only method of contact, however, we hang on to him, and the guns of the guard cross noisily between him and his friends. The Japanese sentries shuffle their feet and bob around like embarrassed children.

Negotiations for collecting the working parties proceed with a great deal of shouting. A small crowd gathers and argues. We brandish our guns and look at our watches, giving a great show of imperial impatience. In fact, we shall be very glad indeed to get back behind the somewhat figurative boundary of the dockyard gates. Minutes shuffle past. When we are about to show real impatience a very tattered group of seedy-looking Japanese naval ratings marches out into the roadway and lines up by the truck. They are brought to attention with a rather terrifying shout; they are dressed and numbered. We wave them to the truck, and all is set for the triumphal return. At this moment we suffer a considerable loss of face because the truck refuses to start.

Later we were to become resigned to these mechanical failures, but on this occasion it was infuriating. What on earth were we to do now? The day is saved by the arrival of another truck belonging to the Hong Kong police. They give us a sharp push and we are off. We drive down the street, past a screen of Japanese sentries and into a crowd of silent Chinese. The faces of this crowd are a polite blank. They make no gestures at our batch of prisoners ; they have yet to be convinced that the Japanese have lost their sting.

Back in the dockyard we divide our party into two. One half goes off to clean out the dockside lavatories, a suitable job for them in this hot weather ; the other half is instructed to clear the jetty alongside the Maidstone. This is a very necessary job, and, besides that, it occurs to me that it will satisfy the scores of our men who are watching from the decks above.

The poor condition of these Japanese is obvious. They cannot work for long without showing signs of strain. They sweat profusely and idle whenever possible, not through laziness but because they are not capable of taking it. They keep going all morning until we drive them back for lunch; but somehow the results are not in proportion to the amount of energy they use.

Afternoon.—We are driving out to the internment camp at Stanley. The jeep sweeps up the broad curves that lead to the pass at the top. In the back are our passengers who have been interned here for three and a half years. They are returning to their prison after a quick visit to the town. They are father and son. As we rattle up the road the boy is full of excitement—old landmarks recognised and new buildings noted. The father tells us that the last time he came along this road it was covered with English and Canadian dead. Of sixtyfour men who took refuge in a certain house on our left, only six are alive. He is one of the six. He becomes silent, looking back over his shoulder at the blue harbour with the British fleet spread neatly in the anchorage.

We pass many beautiful houses. Nearly every one of them is looted to a skeleton. Even the roofs have been carted away for firewood. This wholesale destruction of most of the finest houses on the island shows clearly that the Japanese had no real future in Hong Kong. Either they decided to let the grass grow over the whole place and end the Crown Colony for ever, or they realised that they had not come to stay.

We sight the cream-and-white buildings of the camp. Our passengers beam. It is now a prison without doors. As we drive in through the gates a Chinese guard salutes carefully ; he grins in undisciplined glee. The rifle in his hands is a Japanese high-velocity .25.

Except for the prison there is nothing particularly grim about the outward appearance of Stanley. It might have been a very pleasant place before the war. As we see it now, the Formosan guards absent and the flags standing out against the sky, there is a ridiculous holiday-camp atmosphere everywhere. This is exaggerated by the bright two-piece coverings of the girls.

In the little rooms there is a complete lack of comfort, but most of the internees seem to have collected a few bits and pieces. Food, of course, is coming through now in ever-increasing quantities.

It is necessary to see and hear a good deal before getting a true picture of life in the camp as it was before the Japanese pulled out. The food was frightful. I tried some of that Stanley stew when I was, by my own standards, hungry. One spoonful was enough. The staple diet was rice and some sort of spinach, which was cooked up in a communal kitchen and dished out evenly by the kitchen staff. There was not nearly enough of this to satisfy, especially where the men were concerned, and the lack of vitamins had visible effects on them all. Sometimes the Red Cross parcels did get through, but a great deal of the contents was put into a reserve or handed over to the camp doctors. There were ways of getting food from the guards. A super Black Market was run by some of the Chinese internees and one or two of the white men. Watches and clocks, even wedding rings and gold fillings from teeth, were sold for a trifling amount of food. The guards played up, but they were, rather naturally, out to make what they could. None of them was particularly pro-Japanese ; they were conscripted from their farms and fishing-boats, poorly paid, almost forgotten ; so it is not surprising that they made capital out of their duty.

By the time that we arrived many of the men had gone into town to help the military authorities, and a few were part of the new-fangled civil administration. The rooms that we visited were, therefore, not as crowded as they had been. One married couple shared a room twelve by seven feet with another man, their privacy relying on a partition of two dangling sheets.

The horrors that branded the Japanese during the first few days of their occupation were true enough. We heard, in simple, unemotional sentences, so much that we, like the internees, became a little hardened. From the most southerly rooms it was possible to see into the prison courtyard. Torturing and executions were frequent. As we walked round the prison walls one of the girls told us that the Japanese had closed this path because they carried out their executions at some point along it. During the first few weeks bodies of British and Canadian soldiers lay on the rocks below the camp. Permission to bury them was refused, and the corpses gradually whitened to skeletons before the eyes of the whole camp. Just before we left we saw the graves of three nurses who had died in the hospital after being raped and bayoneted. It was said that the blood of the patients who died at the same time still stained the stone steps. We knew this to be true, and thought of the Japanese sick and wounded in the hospitals in Kowloon. These men had been sent down from the China front and were now being allowed to stay in their beds until a ship arrived to take them home.

Depressing as it was, the camp had made us feel better. To help in securing the freedom of British, Dutch, Norwegian, and Chinese subjects from such a place was surely sufficient reason for any struggles. It was certainly a fine ending to our war effort.

Driving back over the sun-drenched slopes we pass Chinese families wheeling their possessions back to the town —happy peasants, smiling at us from under their wide hats. The girls walk easily, undulating their hips under tight black trousers. We take a look at the Lido in Repulse Bay. Here, it seems, the Japanese officers are still quartered. Dark shadows of armed Japanese sentries lie across the road, but they let us pass, and in some cases salute sloppily. The water is very inviting, so we leave the jeep by the roadside and walk down to the beach. A Japanese officer comes from the house behind us and shouts. We turn and briefly give him some unprintable instructions. His Chinese girl friend watches the scene from the doorway. Leaving our clothes on the rotting woodwork of a small Japanese suicide boat, we swim slowly in the cool water. Towels are not necessary, because the sun is hot and the wind comes softly round the bay. On our way once more, we pass through the fishing village of Aberdeen. In the narrow creek the junks lie tightly packed, bows to the stone wharf. Drying fish lie around in flat heaps. The smell is that of any fishing village magnified many times and less pleasant. For all that, the place has its charms. Every junk and nearly every house flies the flag of China. It certainly looks as though there is unity among this people, whatever our political economists might say or wish. If the Chinese do not achieve complete unity it will not be their own fault.

Back in the town all is quiet. The crowds cheer and clap as we pass by. They smile broadly, but I have a feeling that they are laughing at our little jeep.

Some Japanese are pushing huge barrows full of their private gear; they are watched by the Chinese, who remain impassive, but give the impression of great restraint. The crowd is like a giant volcano that will erupt in due course into a stream of joyous firecrackers. This, in fact, did happen later, but not until the last Japanese rifle was put away in the British armoury. Discretion was still the order of the day.

The Japanese did not leave the island until 2nd September, and they spent their last few unhappy days trudging here and there trying to sort themselves out. A good many army men came down the river in junks, hoping to escape from the wrath of the Chinese irregulars. They found that nobody wanted them. We sent some of these boat-loads over to Kowloon, where they were interned in one of their own prison camps. Nearly three thousand prisoners were shipped over on the last day, watched by about two dozen British sailors.

At 1100 hours on the 2nd the Rising Sun set over the stone roof of Admiralty House. This was not exactly according to plan, since the Admiral had made a signal suggesting that it would be wiser to leave the flag flying until the actual evacuation was completed at 1600 hours. The handing-over of the building was scheduled to take place at noon. By ten-thirty a landing-party of three sections, under the command of the gunnery officer from H.M.S. Maidstone, posted themselves discreetly round the place. From their hides they watched the last disorderly convulsions of the Japanese Staff H.Q. They looked at their watches. There was still a good long wait before them. It was therefore with considerable surprise that they watched the jeep containing one of the submarine spare crew officers and two armed seamen drive past imperturbably and pull up at the main door between the indignant yellow sentries. The officer and his men passed inside, completely ignoring the guard, and were seen, a few minutes later, standing on the flat roof. Shortly afterwards they moved easily over to the flagstaff, and the Rising Sun came down with a rush, followed quickly by the flag of the Officer Commanding, which flew from the other end of the building. British and Japanese watched this in stunned silence. They looked away to smile nervously at each other, and, houp la ! when they looked up again the White Ensign was being hoisted.

This little scoop passed without incident, and the Japanese flags were carried back to the Maidstone in triumph.

So the Japanese passed from Hong Kong ; and as the last of them stepped down into his boat the town awoke. In the streets and on the wharfs, from balconies and windows, came the crack of Chinese firecrackers. They hissed and rattled as if a major battle were being fought. Heaven help any evil spirits in the town that night! They must have spent some uncomfortable moments in their eternity. The power station puffed out little clouds of smoke and sparks. There were lights on the hill—lights that went up to mingle and become confused with the stars. Long, amber reflections ran out across the harbour to meet those coming from Kowloon. In the centre of the glow lay the fleet ; dark shadows on the still water.

Admiral Fraser arrived from Tokio in the battleship Duke of York.

The surrender ceremony was delayed from day to day; but on the 16th everything was ready and Admiral Harcourt officially booted the Japanese out of the Colony. As soon as the various signatures were penned the warships fired a twenty-one gun salute. So Hong Kong returned to normal.

There was nothing new about the administration. The ideas were those of 1939; they had been eclipsed for a time, but, when the shadow passed on, they resumed their place in men’s minds. The picture was not one of imperialist opportunism. It seemed that the Navy had returned to the harbour, driven by sentiment, and that a fairy godmother had usurped an ugly sister in a very Chinese house.

At 2100 hours on the 16th there was a searchlight and firework display by the fleet. The blue beams of the searchlights passed each other in slow weaving. The waters were sparkling with the green and red of the rockets that were bursting softly in the still air. Fiesta! Fiesta! From the town the Chinese replied with their own little bangs. It was a happy night for everyone.

This is the end of the article "Sweet Waters".