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Acknowledgements
- Hong Kong University Press, HKU
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Acknowledgements With the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; And my ending is despair The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1 In 1990, when I first started gathering material that eventually resulted in this book, there were perhaps one hundred survivors of the Lisbon Maru still with us. When I began the serious work of putting the book together, in January 2003, I only knew of nine. In March, that number had dropped to eight. In July, seven; October, six. Although I eventually found a handful of others, I had tackled the subject just in time. The veterans and, more recently, their descendants, have been without exception extraordinarily helpful and willing to share information. In particular, I would like to thank: Veterans of the Battle of Hong Kong and the Lisbon Maru: Frank Bennett, Hong Kong Signals Company (second hold). Frank was the penultimate survivor of the Lisbon Maru who made contact with me, and was able to confirm many important details from other sources.2 Jack Etiemble, Royal Artillery (third hold). Jack and his wife Ruth were kind enough to work with me for several months to put Jack's wartime xvi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 'biography' together. As one of the few survivors from the third hold, his story was particularly valuable. Tom Taffy' Evans, Middlesex Regiment (second hold). Tom - based in Manila, Philippines today -lived in Hong Kong until his retirement. My wife is also from the Philippines; we have many mutual acquaintances. Bert Garradley, Royal Artillery (third hold). Although I never had the opportunity to talk to Ben directly, Jack Etiemble contacted him on several occasions to review questions I had sent. Wallace Hastings, Royal Navy (first hold). Just when I thought I had tracked down every survivor, Wallace got in touch. His recollections, especially of the Osaka Stadium hospital, were unique. Alf 'Nobby' Hunt, Royal Navy (second hold). Nobby, still around at a ripe old age despite severe wounds sustained during the fighting for Hong Kong, was a fount of information, and supplied many photos and documents. My only complaint was that as a Royal Navy man, he should have been in the first hold! Garfield Kvalheim, US Navy (USS Grouper). Gar (or Val, to his Navy friends), and his wife Fran were enormously helpful during my research. We corresponded for months, until I had built up a complete biography of Gar and his experiences aboard the Grouper, and could use it as a counterpoint to Jack's story. Having lived all over the world, today Gar and Fran have settled by the sea in Washington State. Ross Lynneberg, New Zealand Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (first hold). Ross is another naval man, who was kind enough to share his detailed biography with me. This really brought the events in the first hold to life. Ross still lives in New Zealand today. James McHarg Miller, Royal Scots (second hold). Miller, now living in Australia, provided useful and evocative testimony to the events, kindly conveyed by his daughter. Dennis Morley, Royal Scots (second hold). Dennis, like Nobby, an email fiend, was helpful from beginning to end, and was kind enough to send [3.90.187.11] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:25 GMT) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii me a number of emotive photographs and souvenirs he had kept from the POW camps. William Grant Shepherd, Royal Navy (first hold). William's daughter kindly contacted me at a time when I desperately needed to speak to someone who was in the first hold. William then responded with wonderfully coherent memories that - added to those of Ross - brought the Navy experience into sharp focus. Today, Shepherd lives in Canada. Reg Shore, Middlesex Regiment (second hold). Reg was one of my earliest correspondents. Alas, he passed away in 2002 before I was able to complete the bulk of this research. Bill Spooner, Royal Scots (second hold). As one of the very last survivors who Chinese fishermen pulled from the sea, days after most of his colleagues, Bill published his memoirs on the Internet some time back. When I wrote to his daughter asking for permission to quote from them, I was delighted to receive an answer from Bill in person. Reg Westwood, Royal Engineers (second hold). Reg Westwood also passed away before this book was finished, but corresponding with him was a delight. I always liked Nobby's comment about...