In the epic footsteps of their fathers

Englishman Richard Hide and Nanjing-born Hongkonger Donald Chan On-kwok had never heard of each other until nine years ago. One afternoon in 1999, the two met for the first time in London. They sat around a table and chatted for four to five hours, without noticing how quickly the time had gone by.

After that, the two men - more than 10 years apart in age - became great friends, almost brothers, because of a unique bonding that outsiders could never comprehend; a bond that will never be broken.

This special connection came from their fathers, the one-legged Chinese admiral Chan Chak and acting stoker petty officer Stephen 'Buddy' Hide. They were among the 72 soldiers who refused to surrender when the Japanese army poured into Hong Kong on Christmas Day in 1941, preferring to risk their lives than endure the brutal, slow death of a prison camp.

Their epic trek to freedom took 68 of them as far as Rangoon, Burma (today's Yangon, Myanmar), where they arrived on February 14, 1942. Four of them did not make it out of Hong Kong.

The meeting in London gave birth to the idea of a re-enactment, which has grown into a grand plan nearly 10 years down the road. From around the world, descendants of the escape party will gather in Hong Kong next Christmas to re-enact the first stage of the daring ordeal, from Hong Kong to Nanao and then Huizhou - retracing the steps of their ancestors who fled Hong Kong under the noses of the Japanese army.

'My father told me the story when I was a kid, but I did not take it in because everybody's dad has a war story. This episode affected the remainder of his life. He did tell me the story about the one-legged Chinese admiral. Then, about 12 years ago, I began getting interested,' said Richard Hide, 60, chairman of the re-enactment organising committee.

With his father's belongings, handwritten notes, photographs and newspaper cuttings, he began to put the bits and pieces together. In 1996, with the help of his son-in-law, he set up a one-page website telling his father's story.