Tel Tony McQueen P/SSX30501 [MTB 27] (New Romney, Kent)
Photo from Buddy Hide's collection
©
30th December 1941
Click here to return to the Waichow Photo
After 3000 miles traveling overland through China and Burma he arrived in a deserted Rangoon.
Tony returned to Akyab in Burma on the Heinrich Jessen along with the other Telegraphists with Collingwood and Kennedy.
Anthony along with the eight other remaining ratings in Akyab eventually left Bombay on 14th April and arrived back in the UK 1st June 1942.[82]
Lt Collingwood stayed onboard the Danish ship "Heinrich Jessen" and proceeded to Akyab, eventually flying out from Chittagong to Calcutta on the 18th April. From there he went on to Ceylon before returning to the UK.
The remaining nine ratings in Akyab eventually left Bombay on 14th April and arrived back in the UK 1st June1942.
Lieutenant Commander Gandy R. N. (Rtrd) had prevailed against all the odds, and triumphed over adversity to deliver his people back to the UK without loss of life or serious injury after evading capture and escaping from Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941.
PO Prest: "We travelled by cycles, lorries, junks, and donkeys, but mostly we walked. It was a case of march or die"
Buddy Hide: "On the whole, the moral, spirits, and courage of the party was magnificent. I think it was the shear thoughts of beating the Jap's, and the prospects of getting home after three years, some of us four years from home, that made us carry on."
It is unprecedented in the annuls of Royal Navy history, that an entire Flotilla company evaded capture to escape across an entire continent to fight another day.
MTB 27, ex Kuamintong CMB Kuai 20 leaving harbour for exercises in March 1940 with Lt Kilbee as her CO.
MTB 27, Thornycroft 55 foot ex Kuamintong CMB Kuai 20 completed 10th September 1938 loaded with depth charges and torpedo's getting an XDO inspection in February 1940 with Lt Kilbee as her C/O.
Photo from Lt C. J. Collingwood's collection ©
MTB 27 underway with Lt Kilbee in command in March 1940
An MTB similar to MTB's 26 &27 on the River Thames in London 1939
MTB 27 alongside
Photo from Lt C. J. Collingwood's collection ©
MTB 27 loaded with depth charges in lieu of torpedo's alongside HMS Robin.
Photo from Lt C. J. Collingwood's collection ©
MTB 27 launching a torpedo
Photo from the Hide collection ©
Research and web publication by Buddy Hide Jnr ©
The contents of this web site led to a considerable number of escapee families contacting me and now each other, and remains the principle source of contact and private information for the spin off projects that have followed. The personal accounts enabled me to record the complete and true account of this remarkable episode of Sino-British war time co-operation. The information compiled here has directly resulted in a museum exhibition in Hong Kong, a re-enactment of the escape in Hong Kong and China, a book published, with a movie drama and a documentary in the making.
