CLS International Newsletter

The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945 Oliver Lindsay with memories of John R Harris ISBN 978-1-86227-429-7 Spellmount Ltd 2005 & 2007

With a Foreword by Field Marshal Lord Bramall, this provides a most thorough and searching enquiry into the ‘débâcle’ which led to over 12,000 British, Canadian, Chinese and Indian defenders surrendering to the Japanese invaders on Christmas Day 1941. It makes extensive use of a mass of unpublished official material, partly drawn from original war diaries never before in the public domain.

It is far from merely a factual account of events leading up to that surrender, dealing in unsparing detail with the privations suffered under Japanese occupation in Shamshuipo and Argyle Street camps, and the heroism of those who attempted to escape. Running to 262 pages with maps, and well illustrated in monochrome, the work includes a comprehensive Bibliography and Index.

Chapter 18 includes an account of the sinking of the Lisbon Maru in October 1942. Newsletter readers will be aware of the way Brian Finch is planning to pay tribute to Chinese fisherfolk who rescued POWs, including some from his own former regiment, confined under dreadful conditions on board when the ship was torpeodeod by the American submarine USS Grouper. Its sinking took place not long after the freighter had left Hong Kong laden with prisoners destined for forced labour in Japan.

Oliver Lindsay is a former officer of the Grenadier Guards, and is a well-known military historian and lecturer on the war against Japan, with five other books to his name. John R Harris arrived in Hong Kong as a young officer in the Royal Engineers in September 1940, only to spend the occupation years in Shamshuipo and Argyle Street camps. Some of his skilful sketches are included in the book. After the war he resumed his architectural studies and established an international practice, designing the 1,600-bed Tuen Mun Hospital in the 1980s.

Hong Kong, A Cultural History Michael Ingham

ISBN 978-0-19-431497-7 (pbk) Oxford University Press 2007

At the start of his Preface, Michael Ingham admits that it always seems a touch presumptuous for a non-indigenous writer to hold forth on the cultural heritage of a city without really belonging there. He quickly qualifies that: having lived in Hong Kong since 1989 and considering it his home, he points out that for many of those actually born in Hong Kong, their parents and their grandparents were not ‘authentic’ Hong Kongers.

The flavour of the book may best be gleaned from a few of its seven chapter headings: “The Pearl River and the Barren Island”; “Centres of Power and Imagination” (Central & Admiralty); “Suzie’s World” (Wanchai to Happy Valley); “The Great Learning” (Pokfulam, Hong Kong University and Western District; “Somewhere between Heaven and Earth” (from the New Territories to the Outlying Islands)

This is no ordinary visitor’s guidebook. The writer Xu Xi declares this much in the Foreword: ‘not merely detailing places to stay, eat, shop, sightsee, but rather, one that takes the reader inside the city’s soul’. Lord Patten, the last Governor, writes in another brief Foreword that ‘no-one who ever visits Hong Kong could ever be bored by the experience’. Michael Ingham gives ample reason why this should always have been so.

An Oxford graduate, teaching at Lingnan, one of the newer universities, certainly not a venerable institution like the University of Hong Kong, Michael Ingham’s students are not the privileged elite of the older-established tertiary institutes. All the indications are that they are fortunate to learn under his guidance, alive to the arts and culture. His own stated intention is ‘to convey Hong Kong’s genuine claim to be “a city of the imagination“ and to correct its clichéd image as purely a temple of mammon’.

The 254 pages of the book are copiously illustrated and include two indices (Literary & Historical Names and Places and Landmarks) and two lists Further Reading and Further Viewing). The latter reflects the author’s keen interest in films and TV touching on aspects of Hong Kong’s life. He is a founder member of the local Theatre Action drama group.