Friends honour those who died in the Pearl River Incident
Fifty years ago this week, seven people were killed and five wounded when a British naval launch was shelled by a mainland landing craft in international waters off Lantau.
Yesterday, a survivor of the incident and 30 other people - members of the Hong Kong Flotilla Association, their wives and other relatives - remembered the clash which came to be known as the Pearl River Incident in a ceremony at the Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley.
Reverend Peter Ellis, of the Mission to Seafarers, led a religious service. Brian Skilton, of the Royal Navy Sailing Association, read a letter from Queen Elizabeth. Wreaths were laid for the young men who died. Most were only 20 when they were killed. The boat's commanding officer, Lieutenant Merriman, was only 23.
Six of the crew who died were Royal Navy seamen; the seventh, Captain Frank Gower, lived in Hong Kong and was a member of the Hong Kong Defence Force. He had gone along for the ride.
Gordon Cleaver, 70, travelled from Staines in England with his wife, Jean, to attend the ceremony. The only member of the crew present, he was a 20-year-old Leading Seaman on September 9, 1953, when the crew of Her Majesty's Motor Launch 1323 set out for three days of work monitoring and photographing vessels coming into Hong Kong waters.