Former United States president George W. Bush's flaccid defence of torture - in particular waterboarding - has been back in the news following the recent publication of his memoirs.
Waterboarding is a foul interrogation technique, which Japanese troops used in 1943 to torment to death Sir Vandeleur Molyneux Grayburn - popularly known as 'Tubby' - the chief manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (now HSBC) at the outbreak of the Pacific war. His body lies buried in Stanley Military Cemetery.
During the first year or so of the Japanese occupation, European staff from Hong Kong's three note-issuing banks (HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and the Mercantile Bank) were kept out of internment to liquidate bank assets and, under duress, sign banknotes. At the time, all banknotes had to be personally signed by a bank official before they were considered legal tender.
The bankers were confined in squalid hotels - most had been brothels before the war - along the Western waterfront and were taken under guard to their places of work each day.
They had relative freedom of movement - escape was considered impossible because Europeans in China were immediately conspicuous. Nevertheless, two bankers with note-signing authority were spirited away from Hong Kong by British Army Aid Group agents.
Grayburn should have gone, too, but, concerned about possible repercussions for his wife, he refused to leave.