Sham Shui Po is an area of Kowloon, Hong Kong, situated in the northwestern part of the Kowloon Peninsula, north of Tai Kok Tsui, east of Cheung Sha Wan and south of Shek Kip Mei (石硤尾). It is located in and is the namesake of the Sham Shui Po District.
The Battle of Hong Kong, also known as the Defence of Hong Kong and the Fall of Hong Kong, was one of the first battles of the Pacific War in World War II. On the same morning as the attack on Pearl Harbor, forces of the Empire of Japan attacked the British Crown colony of Hong Kong. The attack was in violation of international law as Japan had not declared war against the British Empire. The Hong Kong garrison consisted of British, Indian and Canadian units, also the Auxiliary Defence Units and Hong Kong Voluntary Defence Corps.
The British Army Aid Group (B.A.A.G.) was a para-military organisation for British and Allied forces in southern China during the Second World War. The B.A.A.G. was officially classified in the British Army's order of battle as an MI9 unit that was responsible for assisting prisoners of war and internees to escape from the Imperial Japanese Army's camps.
The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. The surrender occurred after 18 days of fierce fighting against the overwhelming Japanese forces that had invaded the territory. The occupation lasted for three years and eight months until Japan surrendered at the end of Second World War. The length of this period (三年零八個月) later became a metonym of the occupation.
Lai Chi Kok Road is a road in western New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It links Lai Chi Kok to Mong Kok, via Tai Kok Tsui, Sham Shui Po and Cheung Sha Wan. It starts from a junction with Nathan Road near Pioneer Centre in the south and ends near Mei Foo Sun Chuen. The road is bidirectional except the section at Lai Chi Kok, between the junction with Butterfly Valley Road and Mei Foo Sun Chuen, where it serves New Territories-bound traffic. The Kowloon-bound is left to Cheung Sha Wan Road, separated by the flyover of Kwai Chung Road.
Sham Shui Po Park is a park in Sham Shui Po, New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It comprises two physically discontiguous sites on either side of Lai Chi Kok Road. The larger site is more well-known as Sham Shui Po Park. The smaller, located within Lai Kok Estate and originally managed by the Housing Authority, became part of Sham Shui Po Park when it was transferred to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.
Stanley Military Cemetery is a cemetery located near St. Stephen's Beach in Stanley, Hong Kong. Along with the larger Hong Kong Cemetery, it is one of two military cemeteries of the early colonial era, used for the burials of the members of the garrison and their families between 1841 and 1866. There were no further burials here until World War II (1939–1945).
Dragon Centre is a nine-storey shopping centre in the Sham Shui Po area of Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was the largest in West Kowloon until the Elements opened above the Kowloon MTR station.
A civilian internee is a civilian detained by a party to a war for security reasons. Internees are usually forced to reside in internment camps. Historical examples include Japanese American internment and internment of German Americans in the United States during World War II. Japan interned 130,000 Dutch, British, and American civilians in Asia during World War II.
Stanley Internment Camp was a civilian internment camp in Hong Kong during the Second World War. Located in Stanley, on the southern end of Hong Kong Island, it was used by the Japanese imperial forces to hold non-Chinese enemy nationals after their victory in the Battle of Hong Kong, a battle in the Pacific campaign of the Second World War. About 2,800 men, women, and children were held at the non-segregated camp for 44 months from early January 1942 to August 1945 when Japanese forces surrendered. The camp area consisted of St Stephen's College and the grounds of Stanley Prison, excluding the prison itself.
Sir Lindsay Tasman Ride was an Australian physiologist, soldier, and vice chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.
Captain Douglas Ford (1918–1943) was a Royal Scots officer and British prisoner of war in the Second World War, who was posthumously awarded the George Cross for conspicuous gallantry. His citation was published in the London Gazette on 18 March 1946.
Kanao Inouye was a Canadian citizen convicted of high treason and war crimes for his actions during World War II. Known as the "Kamloops Kid", he served as an interpreter and prison camp guard for the Imperial Japanese Army and the Kenpeitai political police.
Thomas David Frank Evans (1917–1996) was a British soldier during World War II, during which he was also a prisoner of war of the Japanese Army. He published his memoirs in Welsh and English in the 1980s.
Sham Shui Po Barracks was a British Army facility built in the 1920s in the Sham Shui Po area of Kowloon, Hong Kong. The base was bounded by Fuk Wa Street to the east by Yen Chow Street and to the west by Tonkin Street and Camp Street.
The following is an overview of public housing estates in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong, including Home Ownership Scheme (HOS), Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS), and Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) estates.
Argyle Street Camp was a Japanese World War II prisoner-of-war camp in Kowloon, Hong Kong, which primarily held officer prisoners. Built by the Hong Kong government as a refugee camp before the war as North Point POW Camp, it began life as a POW camp soon after Kowlon and the New Territories were abandoned to the Japanese.
The Hay Internment and POW camps at Hay, New South Wales, Australia were established during World War II as prisoner-of-war and internment centres, due in no small measure to the isolated location of the town. Three high-security camps were constructed in 1940. The first arrivals were over two thousand refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria, most of whom were Jewish; they had been interned in the United Kingdom when fears of an armed invasion of Britain were at their peak. The British government then made the decision to forcibly transport these refugees to Australia on the HMT Dunera. The internees were kept in conditions on board the Dunera that were cruel and inhumane, and after the war the Dunera story became quite infamous, leading the British government to apologise for their egregious mistreatment of innocent civilian refugees. The internees arrived at Hay on 7 September 1940 by four trains from Sydney. They were interned in Camps 7 and 8 under the guard of the 16th Garrison Battalion of the Australian Army. In November 1940 the other compound at Hay, Camp 6, was occupied by Italian civilian internees. Camps 7 and 8 were vacated in May 1941 when the Dunera internees left Hay; some were sent to Orange (NSW), others to Tatura in Victoria, and others to join the Pioneer Corps of the Australian Army. Upon their departure Italian prisoners-of-war were placed in Camps 7 and 8. In December 1941 Japanese internees were conveyed to Hay and placed in Camp 6. In April 1942 the River Farm began operating on the eastern edge of the township, enabling market-gardening and other farm activities to be carried out by the Italian internees and POWs. In February 1945, in the wake of the Cowra POW break-out, a large number of Japanese POWs were transferred to Hay and placed in the three high-security compounds. On 1 March 1946 the Japanese POWs departed from Hay in five trains, transferred to Tatura. During 1946 the Italians who remained at Hay were progressively released or transferred to other camps, and the Hay camps were dismantled and building materials and fittings sold off by June the following year.
