Meet the British historian who puts together stories of Hong Kong’s wartime past
His 30-year archive documents the experiences of the city’s ordinary civilians and soldiers during an extraordinary time
What started as a personal curiosity in Hong Kong history transformed into a passion to share inspiring stories, a desire to preserve the memory of wartime experiences and “put it together before it all disappears”.
This is how historian Tony Banham describes his motivation for putting together a painstaking 30-year research archive documenting the experiences of ordinary civilians and soldiers during the 1941 Battle of Hong Kong and its aftermath.
It’s an unlikely story originating with a British IT professional who came to the city on holiday in 1987 and liked it so much he decided to find a job here and stay – three decades and counting, it turns out.
Live the history of Hong Kong, how it grew from colonial opium trading outpost to global finance mecca
His Hong Kong War Diary is both a labour of love and a vital resource for those wishing to find out what really happened during the 18-day battle resulting in the deaths of over 2,000 Allied troops and about 7,000 civilians. The fall of Hong Kong also led to three years and eight months of Japanese occupation – something many city residents and visitors know little about, Banham says.
Although the battle was not strategically important in the grand scale of the second world war, Hong Kong was not spared its share of horrors. Many Allied soldiers were trapped in inhuman conditions in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps that dotted the city during the occupation, while civilians were regularly rounded up and executed.