Everything tagged: POW

Lived in Taipo 1941 to 1942 . Hong Kong Uni student. Son of Stanley and Vera Kerr. Japanese speaker

Lived in Taipo. Japanese speaker. Described as Major Kerr in some accounts. HELD in Argyll Street Camp from 1942

John and Yoshino Maycock had seven sons: Arthur, Ernie, Tommy, Willie, John,  Robert and Henry.  Before the war John and two of his sons, Willie and John worked for Hong Kong Electrics. 

John snr, John jnr and Willie were in the HKVDC and fought in the hills during the Battle for Hong Kong. They were captured and sent to Japan where they were badly beaten up in the POW camp. 

John snr was repatriated to England but had no news of his wife, Yoshino, who had gone back to Japan to be with her family. They were eventually reunited in England two years after the war ended.

He's listed on page J129 of the 1939 Blue Book, working as a Sanitary Inspector, having first joined the Hong Kong civil service on 6th Feb, 1931.

There's a Robert Arthur Simpson listed as a Private in the HKVDC on Tony Banham's website. I assume he is the same man.

During the War my father Leo was a volunteer , and captured and was in camp..he was in the kitchens so survived ....helped build the airport…

After the war, Leo went to China Building and found where Jimmy’s Kitchen had been..and then stumbled into some of his faithful staff (there were some extraordinary people there, brave Chinese..Sammy the manager etc) and they put together chairs etc they found around..and the restaurant came back to life..only with their help.

Anatole was born with the family name Zavadsky, but his father, Nicholas Alexander Zavadsky (violinist and photographer), changed the family name to Tonoff after arriving in Harbin China in 1921. Within a year or two, Anatole's parents divorced. His mother, Nina Engelgardt (mezzo soprano) married Vladimir Trachtenberg (violinist), and they remained in Harbin and Shenyang until 1959. By about 1930, Anatole had arrived in Hong Kong with his father, and his father's mother Claudia Gruzin.

“My activities commenced in Argyle Street Camp towards the end of Summer of 1942 when I began to speak to one of the Chinese drivers of the ration lorries, which used to make daily visits into the Camp.  I got some items of local news from him and then started the system of bringing in Chinese newspapers through him.  This went on for many months.