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Evacuee in the Far East

My father, an employee with the Royal Dockyard in Portsmouth, had been posted to the dockyard in Hong Kong in 1938. I, nine at the time, my mother and brother who was 11, joined him in early 1939. In the summer of 1940, worried about Japanese intentions in the area, the government ordered the evacuation of western women and children, and so my mother, brother and I sailed to Manila in the Philippine Islands.

We sailed through a typhoon and arrived in heavy rain to find the floods had washed out the accommodation arranged for us by the American Army. They broadcast over the radio for anyone that could help and we were offered a room in a hotel — which half way through the night my mother realised was a brothel. Next day we were sent to a sugar plantation in the country for several weeks.

The government decided to make us safer still, and we were sent to Sydney, Australia, where we stayed until the beginning of 1945. My brother and I went to schools there and I learnt to speak ‘Australian’. Government allowances were not good and my mother taught music at a convent to make ends meet. While there, we heard that Hong Kong had surrendered (Christmas Day 1941) and later that my father had been captured by the Japanese and had died in prisoner of war camp in Japan.

Early in 1945 we were allowed to return to England, sailing to New Zealand and then across the Pacific unescorted, through the Panama Canal and on to Bermuda. There we were kept aboard to wait for a convoy. When fireworks and flares started to climb above the island we discovered it was VE Day and were allowed ashore the next day. We then sailed on unescorted to Liverpool, and then went on to Southampton, and home, by train.

Edward Bearman

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