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Hong Kong commemorates

liberation from Japan

HONG KONG: Hong Kong remembered its war dead on Monday and gave thanks for its liberation from Japanese military occupation in the most elaborate ceremony for 50 years.

Under the watchful eyes of 400 veterans and former prisoners of war, Governor Chris Patten laid a wreath of poppies in memory of the fallen at the Cenotaph in central Hong Kong.

The veterans, many of them visiting Hong Kong for the first, and probably last, time since the liberation half a century ago, marched proudly past the review stand to the sound of drums and bagpipes.

Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule in less than two years time at midnight on June 30, 1997.

Crew of the nuclear submarine HMS Trenchant, diverted to Hong Kong for the ceremony, provided a ceremonial guard.

Royal Air Force helicopters flew past in formation.

At ground level, a detachment from the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers), which will be disbanded on Saturday, ahead of the 1997 handover, paraded along with members of the Brigade of Gurkhas and soldiers from the local garrison.

Afterwards, former prisoner of war Jack Edwards staged a protest against the British government, lambasting Prime Minister John Major and his cabinet for refusing to grant British passports to non-British widows of Hong Kong veterans and former prisoners of war.

"I feel quite ashamed that I still have to be pleading with John Major to do it," he said.

The Japanese invaded Hong Kong from China, crossing the border on December 8, 1941, at about the same time as the attack on Pearl Harbour on the other side of the date line.

The colony held out for over two weeks despite overwhelming odds, defended by a tiny, lightly armed garrison aided by volunteers. It fell 17 days later on Christmas Day.

Brian Harper, born in Hong Kong and the youngest member of his unit, just 16, when he was captured, said he was very moved by the ceremony.

"I was taken prisoner of war and spent three and a half years in Shamshuipo camp (in Kowloon)," said the retired civil-engineering draftsman. "I was in a unit called the Hong Kong Dockyard Defence Corps, a voluntary unit."

Life in the camps was hard. Harper, who now lives in Australia, said he suffered malaria six times and survived a bout of diptheria only after ingenious doctors managed to extract some serum from a Japanese army horse.

"I can't remember exactly what I was doing today (50 years ago) but there was a couple of times I came over from the camp to where we used to live and of course it was all looted," he said.

"I didn't go back to camp because I went to the naval dockyard and got stricken down with malaria. Fortunately, I recovered and left Hong Kong in the ship Empress of Australia on September 3 (1945)," Harper said.

Thousands of prisoners of war were transported to Japan to become virtual slave labourers. Others were interned in camps on Hong Kong island and in Kowloon.

Chinese residents suffered harsh rule, economic collapse and shortages of food and resources. The population fell from a 1.6 million before the invasion to just 600,000 at liberation.

Hong Kong's liberation officially falls on August 30, when the British Navy under Rear-Admiral Cecil Harcourt sailed into Victoria Harbour to take the Japanese surrender.

But the Union Jack was raised nearly two weeks earlier, just days after Tokyo's capitulation, when the internees left the camps and set up a provisional government.-Reuter