Everything tagged: HKVDC

Briony Widdis (nee Crozier) writes:

I am in the process of researching the background to and typing up letters relating to my grandfather Douglas Crozier (he is one of the teachers on the photograph of the Central British School on the home page of your website at present).

He was a Captain in the 2nd Battery of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps and was a Japanese Prisoner of War, I am not sure where yet. His wife and children were evacuated to Sydney and after the war he was became Director of Education.

Cuthbert James Norman was apointed Assistant Superintendent of Prisons with effect from January 10, 1941. During the December 1941 hostilities he commanded the Stanley Platoon (prison officers) which saw some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict.

He was interned in Stanley and after liberation wrote 'A Farewell to Stanley', perhaps the best-known poem of the Hong Kong war.

He became Commissioner of Prisons on February 26, 1953.

He was awarded the CBE.

Poem:

Ernest Tuck was in the ASC division of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. During the December 1941 hostilities he was assigned to the Army Field Bakery at Deepwater Bay, where he worked with Staff-Sergeant Patrick Sheridan, who paid tribute to the value of his contribution.

After the surrender he was held at the camp in North Point, and then sent to Shamshuipo.

Sources:

http://gwulo.com/node/17612

Husband of Irene Braudé & father of Patricia and Peter

OC Corps Signals (Captain) HKVDC

Interned Argyle Street and Sham Shui Po camps

Philip Cracknell writes that Koodiaroff fought with the HKVDC, but was lucky to be interned in the civilian camp at Stanley:

A number of civilians were unlucky enough to end up in military POW camps and several volunteers and regular soldiers  were lucky enough to end up in Stanley Civilian Internment Camp. One of these was Michael Alex Koodiaroff who had just turned forty and worked as a Hotel Assistant at the Peninsula Hotel. He  was married to  Elizabeth and they had one child, a boy of  seven years.

I'm looking for photos / sketches / portraits of him for the CPS project's history book.

There a couple of mentions in HKGRO that give dates of relevant appointments: