ST STEPHEN'S Beach in Stanley is tranquil now, a place to watch the sun set in a red ball of fire, then have a barbecue in the twilight.
But 51 years ago, on October 29, 1943, it was on the edge of hell about to witness the worst mass execution in Hong Kong's history, detailed in a new book Prisoner of the Turnip Heads by a Stanley intern, George Wright-Nooth.
The guards took them out of the prison van at gunpoint, forcing them to kneel on the hot sand in front of two long deep ditches. There they blindfolded them, 33 condemned to die, 32 men and one woman.
Their heads were forced forward and a sword rose and fell. The bloodletting took an hour, and at the end the blades were so blunt they cut barely half way through.
When it was over, the Japanese had crushed widespread resistance to their rule, and the British had suffered an intelligence disaster of the first magnitude.
It is a story that has relevance today. The widow of one victim, Doris Kotwall, is still awaiting a British passport, 51 years later.