Stephen Davies provides further information about the history of Waglan Island lighthouse, its link to another in NE China and to two European companies. And a Swede who was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics for his invention regarding the illumination of lighthouses. SD: The light was built by Paris lighthouse makers Barbier, Bénard & Turenne as one of two identical lights for the […]
» Read more
HF: In my article, Universal Dockyard Ltd, Yau Tong I suggested that a fenced area to the immediate East of Universal was Yau Wing Shipyard whose main building had been demolished but which ran along Ko Fai Road. A map also indicated that there were slipways running from this building north into the sea. I have revisited the area and […]
» Read more
List of Japanese ships arriving and departing Hong Kong during the Japanese Occupation WWII Introduction Peter Cundall: Immediately prior to the outbreak of the Pacific War Hong Kong was a major commercial port, with Allied and neutral shipping using the port as a trading location free of Japanese control and a safe-haven for Chinese ships that would otherwise be seized. […]
» Read more
Cosmopolitan Dock was completed on 23rd October and demolished around 31st December 1972. (1) Stephen Davies sent the following information in July 2015: All I know of the dock’s early years are from newspaper stories in the HK Daily Press, etc. and what’s in Austin Coates’ Ships on the shore. There are lots of stories (more than I have time […]
» Read more
Elizabeth Ride has sent BAAG Report KWIZ #74, dated 10th November 1944, and noted earlier: After KWIZ #4, the Naval section is not included in the AWM papers, and does not appear again until KWIZ #66, and then in a slightly different format. HF: I am afraid because of time constraints I am no longer able to summarize and list […]
» Read more
Stephen Davies: The interesting thing about Cosmopolitan Dock – unique in HK and quite uncommon elsewhere – is that it was designed from the outset as two docks in one; an inner and an outer. The dock had a fat, slightly shorter outer part (212 x 100 feet) and a slightly narrower, slightly longer inner part (234 x 83 feet – […]
» Read more
HF: It was never mined here. So this article is an initial attempt to put together what little we have about importing coal and how it was used in Hong Kong: transport, manufacturing, utilities, shipping, domestically…can you add to this article? I have also included charcoal and for general interest information about and images of China and Taiwan/Formosa on these […]
» Read more
York Lo: Kwong Sang Engineering (廣生機器廠) Left: Kwong Sang Engineering founder Ng Kai-lau (HK Pun U District Association, 1955); Right: Family of Kwong Sang founder Ng Kai-lau welcoming his fifth son Chung-yau (triangle) back from studies in the US in 1961. (KSDN, 1961-7-7) Kwong Sang Engineering was one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of ship machinery in Hong Kong […]
» Read more
On August 4, 1947, the 10,471 ton Tien Loong was the first steamship owned, managed, financed and crewed by Chinese, to sail from Shanghai to France. And was thus the first such vessel to sail in the Atlantic Ocean. She arrived in Le Havre, France on October 28. Chinese Maritime Trust (a sister company of Island Navigation Corp.) had signed […]
» Read more
IDJ remembers seeing log sawing by hand particularly in shipyards building wooden junks and sampans but also on construction sites. Many had two or four men pushing and pulling from above and below. They could tear through a log surprisingly accurately and quickly. The frame’s sidebars were used to guide the saw blade in a straight line and achieve the right […]
» Read more