Escape from Hong Kong - The Final Hours

Sub-Lt J J Forster born in Derryhowlaght, Lisneskea, Co.Fermanagh with Irish/Dutch parents came from a family with a history of seafarers.

On 21st December JJ along with Lt T J Price accompanied  Hong Kong’s chief intelligence officer Charles Boxer across open ground after they found their road blocked below Shouson Hill when Boxer took a bullet in his chest. They carried Boxer to the Industrial School in Aberdeen (Naval HQ) from where he was taken to the Queen Mary Hospital. Boxer died aged 96 on 27/04/2000. Sq-Ldr Max Oxford RAF took over as chief intelligence officer untill his escape.

 

Thirty nine year old Sub-Lt John Forster, 2nd Engineer Harley, & Captain Damsgard were hit by machine-gun fire from the pillbox (12) on the south-west base of Brick Hill while crewing the launch of HMS Cornflower taking Admiral Chan Chak and his party down Aberdeen Channel out of Hong Kong as the Colony succumbed to the overwhelming forces of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).

Sub-Lt Forster was hit by machine-gun fire and the rest of the crew abandoned the launch under a hail of bullets

The boat finally drifted ashore on Ap-Lei-Chau (Aberdeen Island where S K Yee took refuge in a church after arranging with a fisherman to take the wounded Damsgaard and Forster to hospital over on Hong Kong Island where JJ succumbed to his wounds.

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