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A piece of America in Hong Kong, too

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Why you can trust SCMP
Steven Knipp

Few people are aware of it, but there is a small piece of Hong Kong that will likely remain American for many years to come.

On a hill above Stanley, just a few minutes' walk from the market, there's a carefully preserved cemetery that holds scores of graves from the second world war.

Most markers are dated December 1941 and belong to the British and Canadian soldiers who defended Hong Kong against the Japanese invasion.

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But there are also graves belonging to civilian prisoners of war from the Stanley POW camp set up by the Japanese imperial army in 1942. Most of the plain stone markers belong to Australian, British, and New Zealand dead; those who died from diseases brought on by the camp's pitiable conditions, and meagre prison diet.

But there are three large stones marking the graves of 14 Americans. According to eyewitness reports, these expatriate Americans were killed on January 16, 1945, by American bombers targeting Japanese installations around the POW camp.

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Excerpts from a camp diary kept by John Barton and published on the internet (www.abcifer. com/mar2002/) relate the events of that fateful morning.
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