However, up the trail we went and, having parked our loads, returned to the Bungalow with thoughts of food and bed – just on dusk. on our backs, our going down was painful. ![]() Our own guns were ranging and there was nothing for it but to retrace our steps, sweating and swearing since, unused as we were to shell fire so near us, on the whistle of a shell, down we went and, having loads of some 50 lbs. ![]() On the way up, just as we started on the slope to Half Hour Pass the crump of shell fire sounded ahead of us. Tiffin over, we started in on the removal of stores – already packed – to No.2. Parsons, Gardner, Day, Corneck, Teesdale, Holmes( later Sir Ronald, Secretary for Chinese Affairs Post-War), myself, and Thompson (later Sir Robert, formerly HK Police, later a Counter-guerrilla Experts in Malaya during the Communist Insurgency Post-war) who had just left Macao in time and arrived in HK along with the first bombing raid. On arrival back at the bungalow we found the complete unit there (with the exception of Mike Kendall, head of SOE then). nests and tunnels which only 36 hours later was to prove not a warren but a snare for the company occupying it including our host Jones. To collect this ammunition I had to climb up and have my first, and providentially my last, visit to the ill fated Shing Mun (Reservoir)redoubt – that warren of M.G. Jones, sitting by the roadside with all of us trying to realise that we really were at war and not engaged in some large scale exercise – a feeling which persisted with me up to the time Kowloon was evacuated. 45 ammunition, and, since this entailed some cooperation with the Quartermaster, we passed the time having a pleasant beer with Capt. (It is possible that this introduction to the only extant version was compiled from the missing pages by Pop, but I doubt it, as he talks of “during the morning” when all the other events are headed up with a date – I assume it is December 8 th, Monday, when the Japanese invaded HK from across the New Territories)ĭuring the morning, while awaiting the arrival of the rest of our group, Teesdale (Eddie Teesdale, later Colonial Secretary of HK Post-War, conducted training of Chinese troops at Ki Yang during the early parts of the War after retreat to Free China as SOE/British Military Mission not BAAG)and I went over the Reservoir to the Royal Scots position to borrow. ….Emotions varied from a certain not unpleasant excitement to a sober realisation that HK was now being invested (invaded?)and, looking back now, I personally, am thankful that I did not then realise how futile were our expectations of weeks and months of warfare. ![]() (There appear to be 10 pages missing from the original) (Captain Colin McEwan was SOE & later BAAG Field Operations Group (FOGS) with Ronald Holmes, Maxwell Holroyd, Francis Lee, Vincent Yeung, Al Wong & Osler Thomas)
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