Description: Hong Kong War Diary. Hong Kongs second world war experience, as it is researched and documented today.
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My timing was good. This website was registered in either 1999 or 2000, and the first ten years of its existence truly were the golden age. Firstly, I benefitted hugely from the fact that there were no other websites at that time focusing on the broad experience of Hong Kong in WWII.* That meant that anyone typing “Hong Kong in World War Two” into the search engines of the time (Altavista was the main one then) would be taken to my site. They would contact me and ask for help, I would provide it but ask for
* Though Richard Hide’s site about the MTB escape of 1941, and the HKVCA’s site focusing on C Force, were already online at the time.
When I first moved to Hong Kong in the late 1980s, war detritus could be found on the surface all over the place. I have often told the story of reading Oliver Lindsay’s book ‘The Lasting Honour’ and next day visiting Wong Nai Chung Gap – which he correctly described as an area of severe fighting – to see if I could find anything. Within minutes I found an expended Japanese 6.5mm rifle cartridge hanging out of an earthen bank. And that’s how it started. Later, the metal detector boys moved in. I did not enc