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Then & NowFrom Hong Kong to Nepal, Bailey bridges have helped build communities

Quick and easy to erect, the bridges are credited with helping the Allied forces win World War II

Hong Kong’s Bailey bridges were mainly built by Gurkhas, often with funding from the Kadoorie family

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A Bailey bridge in Kam Tsin Wai, in Hong Kong’s New Territories. Photo: Jason Wordie

Published: 3:15pm, 5 Jun 2020Updated: 3:57pm, 5 Jun 2020

Dotted around the New Territories, metal girder Bailey bridges provide lingering reminders of the vanished British garrison. Most were assembled as part of peacetime military assistance to rural improvement projects, back when the military presence in Hong Kong was popularly regarded as a positive addition to local life.

Like many “hearts and minds” projects, Bailey bridges are now largely forgotten. They recall the decades-long Gurkha presence in the New Territories, and the generous contributions to village livelihood and welfare provision, in both Hong Kong and Nepal, that the Kadoorie family have provided for so long, with little fanfare.

The Queen’s Gurkha Engineers (QGE) regularly carried out training exercises around the New Territories, which involved the construction – often with additional funding from the Kadoorie AgriculturalAid Association (KAAA) – of Bailey bridges. The military typically provided the bridge as part of a training exercise, while the KAAA supplied cement, sand and gravel for constructing solid approaches over watercourses and paths between villages.

As well as being a useful skill for a military career, knowing how to build and maintain Bailey bridges had substantial crossover benefits for ex-Gurkhas on their eventual retirement to Nepal.

British engineer Donald Bailey (left), circa 1945. Photo: Getty Images

Gurkha servicemen, typically, were recruited from remote areas in the foothills of the Himalayas, with limited or non-existent road access. Until the 1980s, when retired Gurkhas started to settle in Kathmandu, or towns close to the Indian border, former servicemen tended to return permanently to the isolated hill villages they had left a few decades earlier.

Once back in Nepal, with financial aid from the KAAA and other Gurkha welfare organisations, some ex-servicemen became involved in rural improvement schemes. These ranged from better water supplies, medical facilities and schoolhouses to enhanced animal husbandry techniques.