Video | A hope for refuge turns to starvation and stealing: my grandparents' life under Japanese rule in WW2 in Hong Kong
On December 8, 1941, Hong Kong became one of the first battlegrounds in the Pacific campaign of the invading Japanese. On the same morning as the attack on Pearl Harbour, Japanese forces attacked British Hong Kong without any prior declaration of war. Japan's act of aggression was met with fierce resistance but the colony fell after 18 days of intense fighting. For three years and eight months, the people of Hong Kong lived under Japanese Occupation. This is one of a series of stories in remembrance of the Battle of Hong Kong and the dark days that followed.
My grandfather and his parents left the mainland when he was just 10 years old in an effort to escape the Japanese. Little did they realise the Japanese would be in hot pursuit two years later.
"They came in the morning. Their planes started to drop bombs. Boom boom boom …" said my grandfather as I broached the subject with him tentatively, unsure if I would be wise to ask about their suffering.
"We had to hide in the mountains near Heep Yunn School. At night, we slept in the mountains because we were scared of the bombs. We didn't sleep at home because the bombing was indiscriminate and everywhere."
All my grandfather could remember from that night of madness was the sound of bombs, the aching fear in his stomach and running to the hills.