Stephen Davies: The rectangle marked ‘floating dock’ in the chart below, moored with six anchors (important to keep the beast firmly in position when moving ships in and out with the dock flooded down) is Admiralty Floating Dock (AFD) No.18. The chart was issued by the UK Hydrographic Office in their emergency issue of updated charts in September 1949. AFD No.18 was […]
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Patrícia Alves is writing a book about Stanley Ho for a Portuguese publishing house. Her research has led her to the company Agência Comercial “Progresso” Ltd which she says was managed, at least until 1957, by Stanley Ho. Patricia adds: Regarding Agência Comercial Progresso, I don’t know exactly when it was created, but the reference to Stanley Ho appears in several books […]
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Elizabeth Ride has sent this single report about the Rikukawa Sono Engineering Works which was part of a 1944 BAAG report on Commerce and Trade in Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation, World War Two. KWIZ #76, 24.11.44.
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Stephen Davies: The water colour posted in the article, Leung Man Kwong (梁文廣) – clearance of HK harbour post WW2 and founder of Universal Dockyards, is fascinating. Given the angle of the photo, with what looks like the naval dockyard on the left and the HK Club area on the right, I think it is the unnamed freighter, sunk on naval anchorage […]
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Stephen Davies: The founder of Universal Dockyards (now within the UDL Group) was Mr Leung Man Kwong (梁文廣, b. unknown-d.1966), who I’ve been trying to track down for ages and have at last managed to via this website. Mr Leung was the boss of 80 divers, shipwrights, blacksmiths and other salvage workers, who were on hand in late 1945/early 1946 (they’d […]
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Judy Chan, Harry (Kin Hong) Long’s daughter has kindly sent a number of documents, work testimonials and photographs about her father’s life in Hong Kong. He was born New Zealand in 1900 and died there in 1984. However he worked for two Hong Kong companies, Kung Lee Steam Ship and HK and Yaumati Ferry which is of great interest to us. […]
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Elizabeth Ride has kindly sent the sketch map and key from a February 1945 BAAG report shown below. Stephen Davies: This was also known at the Boat Pool. gwulo has a map shown in the its link below which shows the Camber as the small basin to the right, ie east, of the main basin. Hugh Farmer: Some mystery surrounds […]
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HF: The article, Waglan Island lighthouse – a brief history, contains a brief mention of the Frosty Moller: Stephen Davies: Come the Japanese invasion in 1941, as far as I know, the original lens was broken up and thrown down the cliff into the water and the lighthouse machinery put out of commission. In Tony Banham’s exhaustive campaign narration (linked below), […]
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Elizabeth Ride: Now, here’s a mystery. After reading the latest BAAG article, Bosco Radio Corp, the Gardner brothers and Kyoei Corp, I followed the link to the Shirogane Maru, and found that it differs in one important point – the fate of the ship. Wrecksites has it remaining in Buin for the duration of the war, while BAAG has it entering Kowloon […]
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HF: Barbier, Benard and Turenne (BBT) was a French company founded in 1862. It specialized in the manufacture of lights, optical devices and lighting systems. And complete lighthouses including the one on Hong Kong’s Waglan Island. The lighthouse incorporated Fresnel lenses. The Swedish Company AGA was later involved as was its UK subsidiary Pharos Marine. I didn’t know the name […]
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