The night before June 6, 1944, fleets of warships moved in darkness towards the beaches of Normandy, France, for a massive strike, with Chinese naval officer Lam Ping-yu on one of the vessels.
The ships were as “numerous as ants, scattered and wriggling all across the sea,” Lam wrote in his diary. “Around 5am: HMS Warspite was the first to open fire.”
Lam’s 80-page journal is the centerpiece of a Hong Kong exhibition launching this month, which for the first time chronicles the stories of 24 Chinese officers who helped Allied forces in their landmark D-Day operation.
Photo: AFP
Historians, documentaries and pop culture have often focused on the British involvement in the largest amphibious military operation, which led to the end of Nazi occupation of Western Europe in World War II.
However, little is known about the Chinese naval officers sent to Europe for training. Lam, then 33, was serving on the British warship HMS Ramillies which, according to his diary, opened fire about an hour after HMS Warspite.
“Throughout the day, Ramillies fired over 200 15-inch rounds, but the (Nazi) fort’s cover and positioning kept it from annihilation,” he wrote.
Photo: AFP
Digital copies of Lam’s previously unseen diary will be displayed at the Fringe Club and the Chinese University of Hong Kong this month.
“We believe this historical episode belongs to everyone in both the East and the West,” said John Mok, 32, a public policy advocate and one of the organizers of the exhibition. “Sometimes we would ponder whether it was the Chinese helped liberate the West, or the West helped train the Chinese navy? It was actually ‘you are among us and we are among you’,” he said. “I believe such inherent friendship is very precious these days as it’s beyond politics — the human solidarity in times of war.”
‘FIRST PERSON RECORD’
The Chinese government selected 100 officers between 1943 and 1944 to receive training in the US and Britain to rebuild China’s naval force after it was destroyed by Japan, one of the Axis powers aligned with Nazi Germany.
The first batch of 24 officers sent to Britain included Lam and his comrade Huang Tingxin, whose son Huang Shansong will attend the Hong Kong exhibition.
“The strategic consideration at that time was to connect China’s fight with the world’s anti-fascist war... so that with the support from the US and Britain, China could better defend Japan’s invasion,” said Huang, who is a Chinese history professor based in Hangzhou.
Huang published a book of his father’s oral history in 2013 but said he found Lam’s diary more valuable for its accuracy, compared to his father’s decades-old memories.
“Lam’s diary is by far the only first-person, on-the-spot record about the 24 men’s internship in Britain that is known to us today,” he said.
He will bring his father’s Legion d’Honneur — awarded in 2006 for the elder Huang’s contribution to France’s liberation — to lend to the exhibition.
“He always told me wars, in particular modern wars, were shockingly destructive,” Huang said. “The importance of peace cannot be emphasized more.”
‘A WIDER AUDIENCE’
Lam’s diary almost ended up in landfills.
After the war, the naval commander lived in Hong Kong until the late 1960s and left the bulk of his personal items — including the diary — in his brother’s apartment.
Rescued by a photographer and an amateur historian before the building was demolished, the diary caught the interest of Angus Hui, a former journalist who obtained a photocopy for his postgraduate study in Chinese naval history. Hui met Mok last year, who suggested the stories “deserve a wider audience.” While conducting research trips to China, Taiwan, Singapore and Europe, where the veterans had settled after the war, they found that Hong Kong was the most suitable place for the exhibition.
Hui said he hopes the exhibition can address Hong Kong’s place in today’s world. The former British colony — once branded “Asia’s World City” — has fallen out of favor in recent years with Western governments, which have condemned Hong Kong over a rights crackdown following democracy protests in 2019. But Lam’s decision to come to Hong Kong “reflected the uniqueness of this place,” Hui said.
“People may say Hong Kong is no longer relevant... But from history and from our own experience, we find Hong Kong still relevant,” he said.
Last month historian Stephen Wertheim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published an opinion piece in the New York Times with suggestions for an “America First” foreign policy for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Of course China and Taiwan received a mention. “Under presidents Trump and Biden,” Wertheim contends, “the world’s top two powers have descended into open rivalry, with tensions over Taiwan coming to the fore.” After complaining that Washington is militarizing the Taiwan issue, he argues that “In truth, Beijing has long proved willing to tolerate the island’s self-rule so long as Taiwan does not declare independence
Big changes are afoot in global politics, which that are having a big impact on the global order, look set to continue and have the potential to completely reshape it. In my previous column we examined the three macro megatrends impacting the entire planet: Technology, demographics and climate. Below are international trends that are social, political, geopolitical and economic. While there will be some impact on Taiwan from all four, it is likely the first two will be minor, but the second two will likely change the course of Taiwan’s history. The re-election of Donald Trump as president of the US
Nov. 25 to Dec. 1 The Dutch had a choice: join the indigenous Siraya of Sinkan Village (in today’s Tainan) on a headhunting mission or risk losing them as believers. Missionaries George Candidus and Robert Junius relayed their request to the Dutch governor, emphasizing that if they aided the Sinkan, the news would spread and more local inhabitants would be willing to embrace Christianity. Led by Nicolaes Couckebacker, chief factor of the trading post in Formosa, the party set out in December 1630 south toward the Makatao village of Tampsui (by today’s Gaoping River in Pingtung County), whose warriors had taken the
Gunshots, screams, eerie laughter: South Korea’s border island Ganghwa is being bombarded nightly with blood-curdling sounds, part of a new campaign by the nuclear-armed North that is driving residents to despair. Before it started, 56-year-old Kim Yun-suk fell asleep to the hum of insects and woke to the chirping of birds. Now, she is kept awake every night by what sounds like the soundtrack of a low-budget horror movie at top volume. “The peaceful sounds of nature... have now been drowned out,” Kim said. “All we hear is this noise.” The campaign is the latest manifestation of steadily declining ties between the two Koreas
RSS