When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, life in Hong Kong remained little altered. Six thousand miles from Britain – and two years before war would come to the Far East – day-to-day living continued very much the same.
But, whereas work, sport and socialising carried on pretty much as usual, thoughts were very much with those more directly affected by events in Europe.
For the naval dockyard and community, the news of the loss of HMS Royal Oak, torpedoed in Scapa Flow on 14 October 1939, had hit particularly hard. The ship having only recently left port in Hong Kong, many of the more than 1,200 on board were known personally to those in the colony, and 835 lost their lives.
There were the events in France leading up to and the eventual evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force and allied troops from the beaches at Dunkirk 27 May-4 June 1940, while the Battle of Britain took place in the skies July to October 1940.
And the Blitz in Britain began in September 1940, with German bombing raids targeting London at first, before moving on to drop their bombs on other cities across Britain. The naval community in Hong Kong was drawn from dockyards across the home country, and in cities, such as Portsmouth and Plymouth, that would subsequently suffer heavily during the Blitz.
Their Portsmouth home rented out for the duration of George’s three-year posting to Hong Kong, George and Hilda also had friends and family living in the city, while Hilda’s parents were in Southampton.
As with Portsmouth, Southampton was also targeted heavily by the Luftwaffe. A port city as well, and on the south coast and therefore easy to reach from the German airfields based in France as was Portsmouth, Southampton was in addition home to the Supermarine factory, building Spitfires.
Southampton had already suffered a number of raids, the first on 19 June 1940. But 80 years ago today, on 30 November 1940, the city suffered one of the heaviest, with 120 German planes dropping 800 bombs, and killing 137 Southampton citizens. The raid that Saturday, along with the raid that had taken place the previous Saturday, 23 November, and the one that would rain down bombs the following night, Sunday 1 December 1940, became known as ‘The Southampton Blitz’.
The Southern Daily Echo has just produced an 80th anniversary publication, The Blitz of Southampton Remembered’ (£2.95). A testament to the resilience and resolution of the people of wartime Southampton the book gives individual accounts from those living through Southampton’s ‘darkest hours’ and the November and December 1940 raids.
Back in 1940, while newsreel details and media pictures of raids reached Hong Kong reasonably quickly, there was often an agonising wait for the individual, personal messages to arrive by letter, and reports of the safety – or otherwise – of homes, family and friends. And the wait could feel even more tortuous for those separated by the evacuation, and the 4,500 miles between Hong Kong and Australia.
A Weekend to Pack 