Paul Tsui's Memoirs - Chapter XIII

When I was sent to Waichow in June 1942, I brought with me, not only a team of agents and runners of my own, but also a trusted personal knowledge of the respective assignments of a number of agents, whom I helped to recruit. My main task was to oversee the effective functioning of the organization we have devised for the several groups of agents, and to ensure the smooth flowing of information in and out of the enemy occupied Hongkong, as well as the onward transmission of reports gathered, to the higher authorities through HQ,BAAG in Kukong to Military Attache' in the British Embassy in Chungking. It was made amply clear to all the agents and runners, who all fully understood and agreed, that it was essential in their own interest and for their own safety, that the operators should not know each other. For any of them might be picked up by the Japanese at any time and would inevitably be tortured before being killed, in order to persuade them to give away their colleagues. To make it doubly sure , one of my own orders from Clague and Ride was that I must not openly associate myself with Europeans, while stationed in Waichow. Whether it was deliberate or not, I was never sure. On the day when I arrived at Waichow, by one of the motorized river boats, I was waived by a European on another motorized river boat, across the water on the same river. He was Captain Scriven, RAMC, who was earlier on (prior to the formation of BAAG), sent to wait in Waichow, (along with Dick Lee), just in case any escapees from Hongkong, might be in need of medical attention. I was embarrassed in not knowing whether to acknowledge or to ignore his friendly greetings. On arrival of Clague and party in June 1942, I was assigned the additional duties as the Official Interpreter fir the Advanced Headquarters. The order that " ( ) " was abandoned. From thence onwards, I was re- designated the Secretary to the Advanced Headquarters of the British Army Aid Group. I had to accompany Clague and other European Officers every time they had any dealings with the Chinese Officials and laymen in and around the twin township of Waichow. But I continued to take charge of the operations of most of the Field Intelligence Group - F.I.G.

Acting in accordance with the plan which Duggie Clague and myself had "in vacuous" agreed, I dumped one runner at Tang Tap ( ), another at Ho Yuen ( ) on the way. The theory we worked on was that 4 runners should operate on Relay, so that in case when a message was received in Waichow, one of the two runners from Waichow, would courier the message, without loss of time (on foot if necessary), to Ho Yuen, where he would hand the "bag" over to the runner waiting there. On delivering the "bag", the courier who had waited at Ho Yuen, would take over, carry the "bag" (on foot) over land, and deliver it to the other courier awaiting him at Tang Tap. The Courier at Tang Tap would take over the bag from Tang Tap and negotiate a ride on the first Truck, which would bring him and the "bag" to Kukong. By rotation, the runners would wait where he was, the 4th runner, who had stayed behind with me at Waichow, would carry the 2nd "bag" as and when reports were received, thus to ensure no time would be lost waiting for the return of the despatched courier. In due course, the runner who had reached Kukong, would soon be sent back, with orders or instructions from HQ, and would courier them down to Waichow in a similar way. Before long, we had to change our plan, and abandon our pet scheme, as the system did not work. The lone runners, stationed at Ho Yuen or Tang Tap, found life too boring to have to wait seemingly endlessly for uncertainties, besides their idle waiting at the odd places, like Tang Tap, in particular, in war time China, raised questions and even suspicion from the local military as well as civil police.

As for the agents we sent into enemy occupied Hongkong, our working principle was, no new agent would ever be given anything of importance to do. He was told what was wanted, given a small sum of money and advised that he would be paid by results. Not until he had been back in and out of Hongkong several times and brought back informations which could be checked for accuracy would he be entrusted with any mission of real importance. The most difficult part of the task was to make sure that your agent knew precisely what you really want. When you want to have a clear picture of Troop distributions, you had to know your own geography well yourself. You had to ask specific questions such as, "When I left Fanling in March 42, there was a detachment of Japanese soldiers, numbering approximately 60, occupying a rectangular house, reputedly owned by a Mr.Tang, located on the north edge of On Lok Tsuen, fronting a water way, a sort of a mote to protect the village from bandits. Please go there, and check if that house still existed, if so, was it still occupied by Japanese soldiers? If so, try and find out if there were any sign or notice, which might indicate the name or identity of the particular unit. Talk to the locals, if you could, and see if they could tell you approximately how many soldiers there were? How many officers, if any, were with them ? Did they bother with the local people living near by? or did they left the local populace alone? If the latter, what sort of activities did they have to keep themselves busy? Was the "Check point" at the cross road, about 70 yards away to its the west, still there? If so, how many soldiers were manning the check point ? Were they armed? What sorts of weapons? Did they search the passers-by ? Did they search every single passer by, or did they only search one in every 4 or 5, or one in every 10 or 12 ?. Were there military vehicles parked at the station? If so, how many, what types were they? Any artillery pieces ?

At the beginning, our main concern was the safety of the routes for possible escapees. After a few months of systematically sending our reports through Chungking to India and elsewhere, we then began to receive more specific requests for our questions. We were asked to direct our agents to find out if there were any Radar or similar equipments used by the Japanese Forces in Hongkong. We were asked to find out more clearly, to the exact dispositions of Japanese Anti Aircraft guns, and certain details as to the type of A/A guns used. After each Air raid, (usually mounted by the American Air Force in China) we were asked to report how many bombs dropped actually exploded, how many did not explode? Where exactly did the bombs drop? What did they hit ? What damage they did, etc. Yet a few months later, when our reports on ship movements, shipping and ship yards activities had been systematically despatched, we received specific requests from the Naval Intelligence Agencies, that we should asked our agents to draw the silhouettes of the ships they reported; paying particular attention, to the shapes of the "bow", the "stern", the "deck", the "superstructure", the "masts", the "derricks", the position of the funnel,etc. Through these, we ourselves soon learnt the naval technical names; such as "Straight Bow", "Rake Bow", "Cruiser Stern", "Counter Stern", "Flush Deck", "Well Deck", "Single Post", "Goal Post", "Twin screws", "Single screw", "Mid-funnel", "Aft funnel", "Raised Forecastle", "Raised Poop",etc.

Believe you or not, we did not, in our Headquarters or in our Advanced Headquarters, invent the formula for the invisible ink we used. It was Au Fai Leader of Group J, who impressed us, - Captain H.B. Williamson, the I.O., my brother Mark, the translator, Mr. Pang Kwok Yee, the confidential Typist, and myself, the "Secretary", - when one evening, he came into my room, the "Out of Bound" part of AHQ, BAAG., Waichow, and simply dumped a pile of "bump papers" on my bed, which was used as my working desk during office hours, daily from 4.00 pm to 8.00 pm in the evening to avoid disturbances of Enemy Air Raids. The papers were ordinary local grass papers, generally used as toilet papers, and especially more widely used as "sanitary papers" for women in their "periods". The pile that was dumped on my bed were all blank. Feeling indignant, I ask Au Fai, what does that mean ? Where are your reports ? He smiled, and pointed to the pile of grass paper, "Well, these are my reports?" I asked, are you joking ? Arn't all these blank bump papers ?" He laughed. Then he asked, "My reports had been written with invisible ink ! Don't you have a medical team working here as part of the AHQ ? Ask one of them for a bottle of Iodine solution, I'll show you". We then sent for a bottle of Iodine dissolved in alcohol. When delivered, he used a piece of cotton wool soaked with Iodine, and started rubbing the Iodine on the blank grass paper. As the Iodine reached a part of the blank grass paper, the drawn silhouettes of ships began to appear, along with Chinese characters, commenting on the particular ship. Hurrah! Hurray! I shouted, so did Hugh Williamson, Mark and Pang Kwok Yee. We were so excited, we immediately went next door to ask Duggie Clague, our O.C., to come over and see it. Soon practically the entire AHQ jammed into the room to witness the miracle. Au Fai was unanimously congratulated and commended ! Thereafter, the "invisible ink" was adopted for much wider use ! By Gosh, I was proud of the ingenuity of Au Fai and his Team, Group J. However, systematic reporting of Troop disposition, ship movements and ship yard activities could quite boring. It meant tediously watching the same things every day, and day after days, carefully noting what little changes, if any, and reporting it. It certainly was not every man's cup of tea. Group J was particularly good at this, but not the other many groups of agents.

As we worked along, we were getting more and more specific requests from New Delhi and elsewhere, through Chungking and our Headquarters in Kweilin. The Senior Command in the Intelligence Field, demanded more and more. They asked if we could get copies of Maps used by the enemy. They appreciated the few copies of Technical and Semi technical magazines which one of our agents, on his own initiative, bought from a book stores in Hongkong, which we forwarded. They also asked if our agents could get hold of copies of enemy's secret "telegraphic codes", they were particularly keen to lay their hands on copies of Enemy's "Movement Orders". When we received such requests, we thought they were asking for the Moon ! Then came an unforgettable incident. One morning, quite unexpectedly, one of our Group Leaders, Cheng Wai Lim ( ) (nicknamed Khan) sent his brother, Percy Cheng, to Waichow, to report that a Japanese Aircraft had crashed landed at his station in the village of Lung Kong ( ). He asked for instructions as to what he should do. On hearing the news, I was sent, immediately, to report the matter the Garrison Headquarters, and sought their consent for me to proceed to the scene of the Air Crash to see what, if anything, I might do, in terms of collecting materials of Intelligence value. This they gladly gave me their consent, and in fact the General gave me a letter of introduction to the commanding officer of the Guerrillas unit concerned. They were glad that I volunteered, because the location happened to be right at the "Front Line" - the "No Man's Land" region, too risky for a small detachment of the Regular Army, because of its closeness to the Enemy occupied territory, and also because of the reputed presence of some Communist Guerillas. So, riding on the pillion of a hired taxi bicycle, I was soon on my way to Lung Kong, accompanied by Percy Cheng. We arrived there early in the afternoon. I first registered my courtesy call on the commander of the local guerrilla Unit. He happened to be SIU Tin Loy ( ) formerly of the New Territories, whom I had met, earlier on, when I accompanied Dick Hooper, in a goodwill tour round all over the border region. After exchanging good wills between the two of us, I next took Cheng's men to inspect the wreckage. To my delight, the greatest in my life time, I saw, what I could not believe my eyes. The crash-landed aircraft was broken into two, the fore part at one spot, the rear part some fifty yards away. The broken aircraft did not seem to have caught fire; or if it did, the fire did not do much damage to the content of the aircraft. All over the floor, were plenty and plenty of papers. On examining the papers more carefully, I first noticed that at least two or three hundred sheets were maps. On further examination, I noticed that they were maps of airfields - some were in existence, some were tentatively proposed apparently only on paper. These maps were maps, not only of the various parts of China, but some were of parts of Burma, India, Malaysia, and some were of places as far away as the Pacific Islands. "By Gosh" I exclaimed, "Was n't this the Moon", which some one far away in New Delhi or elsewhere had been asking for ? I then explored further, and found a set of several volumes of "Code", which I swore that they must be a form of "telegraphic Code" of some sort. Then I explored even further, and I found piles of documents, though written in Japanese, which had impressed me to be a form of "movement orders" for the some one, be it the Japanese Air Force or Japanese Army. "By Gosh" I repeated once again to myself, "These are indeed, the Moons they had asked for!". I then asked myself, how could I get all these removed away, without causing suspicious on the part of, or arousing obstruction from the local Guerrilla Commander. I looked round and found three rolls of unused machine gun bullets for the crashed aircraft, I also found an automatic hand-gun of the German Lucre type, with rounds of unused ammunitions. I discussed with Percy, who agreed with me that we should hand the guns and ammunitions over to the Guerrillas Commander, and told him frankly, the papers were of some military values, but only if and after they could be despatched to Chungking or to New Delhi, first to be analysed. They are useless, as far as guerrillas wars were concerned. We would therefore appreciate if he would grant us safe conduct to bring them back to Waichow. I spoke to him in Hakka, which was also his mother tongue; and I spoke fondly of my house in Fanling, which was not very far from his native village of Wong Pui Leng. It was a success. I was asked to stay and had dinner with him at his headquarters that evening, and afterwards, I spent the night in Cheng's place. I kept my fingers cross that night. Early the following morning, I requested Khan (Cheng Wai Lim) to mobilize all his bicycles and all his men, armed to the teeth, to escort me and what I have "bagged" in three gunny sacks, back to Waichow. In Waichow, we were all excited. I advised that we should first make a courtesy call on the Garrison Commander, bringing along with us, a bundle of what we could positively identified as spare duplicate copies of maps, and a few spare duplicate copies of documents in Japanese, reporting to the General, what I had recovered, showing them the specimens of my spoils, making it quite clear that the stuff were quite useless for his use, as the local Garrison Commander, but would be invaluable, if they could be submitted to the experts at the Allied High Command, for detailed analysis and digestion. We asked his expressed leave and blessings to have the entire lot despatched by safe hands, and immediately to our Headquarters in Kweilin for onwards transmission. After having a look at the specimens of maps and documents in Japanese, the Commander passed it over to his Chief of Staff, who also took a look at them just as the G.O.C. did. They decided that they themselves had nor use of these documents, and readily granted us the permission to despatch them, by safe hands, to Kweilin. That evening, Colin McEwan, was assigned the task to personally take the bags full of "documents" to Kweilin, he was given two of my runners to assist him on the way. In a personal reminiscence of Colin McEwan, which he dictated to a dicta-phone for Elizabeth Ride (daughter of Sir Lindsay Ride),amongst other things Colin said:- " By the winter of 1942 we had settled into a well organized unit and from our beginnings as an Escape and Evasion outfit, had developed into a fairly fully fledged intelligence unit....... "A Japanese H.Q. plane crashed in our area and, among the various papers salvaged from the wreck was a set of all the Japanese proposed secret airfields in China, even including Tibet. This obviously had to go to our H.Q. in Kweilin by safe hand, and since I had been having odd recurrent bouts of malaria although mild at that, Duggie decided it would be my job to take them up to Kweilin. Once in Kweilin, Force 136 claimed me and I found myself in India."

In the personal archives of the late Sir Lindsay Ride, there were many papers recording a good variety of activities of many individuals who were members of the B.A.A.G. I knew as a matter of fact that Doc Ride had long cherished the hope of writing his own "memoirs", but some how, he never seemed to have been able to get round to doing it. His eminent son, Edwin Ride has, since his death, written a book on his behalf, which I am glad to say, bears the title BAAG. His daughter Elizabeth Ride has separately collected and collated other very interesting papers relating to the BAAG, some of which I have had the privilege of looking through. Amongst them, I had come across a letter, written by a Norwegian shipping executive of the Thoresen Co. in Hongkong, who escaped from Hongkong with the assistance of BAAG agents. By courtesy of Ms.Elizabeth Ride, I reproduce hereunder, a verbatim extracts from Mr.Ragnar Rrodersen's letter, which speaks for itself:- ".....The Norwegians were then officially neutral as far as the Japs were concerned, so we were allowed to "go home". ......The building I had been staying in had several direct artillery hits, and I lost everything....I teamed up with some other Norwegians ....Things got worse and worse, and there was every indication that sooner or later we would be interned. Captain Halfdan Kvamso and I knew Mr. Monaghan, a Canadian of Irish descent, who claimed Irish neutrality so that he could accomplish the work as a go-between for people who wanted to escape, and he certainly did a magnificent job. " He told us that he could not at that stage give exact details, as it was all hush-hush, but he arranged for a Russian, William Vallesuk, Chief Radio Engineer of China Electric Co.Ltd. (whom the Japanese would have liked to get their hands on because of an important invention he had made), and Kvamso and myself to be met by two Chinese in Kowloon on a certain afternoon in February 1943. We were not to speak to our guides, but to follow them " We were directed to a small flat in Nathan Road, where four other Chinese were seated round a small table,. We were told that arrangements had been made for us to be taken across the Kowloon Peninsula to the border between the New Territories and China proper, at a place in the bush where earlier escapees had been conducted. We had to wait for the dark, and the tension was high. At that stage we had no idea of the existence of the B.A A.G.,so we had to trust our unknown and rather scruffy-looking Chinese friends. Then it happened. A Chinese, who had been sent out to see that everything would be clear, rushed in to tell us that the Japs had posted double guards at the point in question, as they had probably got wise to the escape route previously used. Well, the three of us now thought that the whole thing would be cancelled, but the Chinese had other ideas. Obviously they had been trained to think for themselves in an emergency situation like this, , so, after a long discussion in Chinese, they told us that a completely new plan had been made, and all we had to do was to follow a Chinese guide and go where he went. We still did not know exactly where and how we were going to be led. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound , so we gladly did as we were told. Thinking back on the events of the evening, I remember feeling impressed with the on the-spot decisions taken by these young men, and it showed us that the B.A.A.G. had trained these men well, although we did not know the background at that time. " We went by bus to the Star Ferry on the Kowloon side, then by Star Ferry across to Hongkong, and finally by tram down to Shaukiwan beyond the Yacht Club. We walked in pitch darkness through this district to which we were strangers, and all we could see of our Chinese guide was the glow of the cigarette in his mouth. He led us down the water's edge where we could just glimpse two sampans. We were ordered to lie flat in the bottom of one of the boats, our two guides got in to the other, and Chinese coolie women paddled us across the harbour. The journey took 29 minutes but seemed to last a lifetime. Searchlights from Japanese warships in the harbour picked up the sampans as we glided by, sometimes dangerously close, but we had black rags pulled over us and were not detected. " On the Kowloon side we were met by Chinese soldier, who led us through dense bush country, across small rivers where boats were waiting for us, to a village where we were to spend the night. I shall never forget the night that met us when we were led into a small room where the leader of the local guerillas received us. The room was dimly lit by a candle, and on a table in the middle lay a pile of revolvers on one side, while the other the most sumptuous Chinese meal we had seen for a long time was laid out for three hungry refugees. " We could obviously only travel in the dark. On the next night we were led to another village and hidden in a small house built on piles. While we were there our luggage arrived three suitcases which we had not been able to take with us in the sampans and had been carried across the country on a bamboo pole right through the Japanese lines. I remember how impressed we were with the arrangements and the perfect timing of everything. " The final part was the crossing of Bias Bay in a big sailing junk. The march to Bias Bay was the hardest of the whole journey - in pitch darkness along very rough pathways. Our guides were now dressed in English battledress, and they handled their tommy guns with admirable precision. " In the cove on Mirs Bay we boarded a large junk manned, we were told, by former pirates, now on our side fortunately. The pirate ship were fitted with 12 machine guns, and the pirates were obviously prepared for all eventualities. We were stowed away in the stern for most of the journey, and after a bout five hours of sailing through the night we reached the coast of Free china, " The B.A.A.G. had sent a positive caravan to receive us. We were taken by sedan chair, bicycles and rickshaws to the B.A.A.G. forward post. It was here that I met Major Clague and his team. I gave him a secret letter which Monaghan had asked me to hand over on arrival......" Full credits for the above should I think be posthumously accorded to the Tsang Brothers of Group B; namely, No.48, the late Tsang Tak ( ) previously, L/Bdr.,5th AA Regiment, and his brother, No.19, Joseph Tsang Yiu Sang ( ), previously Gunner, 5th AA Regiment, both of Shaukiwan, and both were hand picked by Duggie Clague, when recruited in Kukong. That was no the only successful escape they had organized. Earlier on in October, 1942, in co-operation with and giving full support to No.64, Sergeant Lo ( ), they successfully organized the safe escape of two senior Hongkong Bank executives in the persons of TJJ Fenwick and JAD Morrison. Neither Duggie Clague nor myself, would claim any credit in their training for their "highly specialized duties". The careful planning, good sense, good judgement, resourcefullness, adaptability to changing situations and ability to get along with won co- operation of other people etc., so graphically characteristic in the operation as described by the beneficiary, were entirely of their own initiatives. The only possible imperfection that might be pointed out in this particular exercise, might perhaps be an error not of his own choosing; namely, that they were apparently unable to differentiate a Norwegian from an Englishman. After all, didn't they all have "red whiskers" and "green eyes" as all "Gwai Lo" or Europeans do ? Be that as it might, a few months there after, an old man with his younger son, Tsang On ( ), came up to Waichow and asked to see me. On seeing me, the old man was in tears. He told me then: "My name is Tsang Chun Fook ( ). I am the father of Tsang Tak and Tsang Yiu Sang. I was told that if ever anything untowards happened to them, I should come up to Waichow to see you. Mr. Tsui, both my sons had been arrested and eliminated by the enemy. As I had been advised I have now brought along my younger son to come up and see you. Kindly tell me what can be done". Clague and I agreed and decided, as a temporary measure, to arrange to have both of them placed our pay roll in AHQ, BAAG for odd jobs as might suit them. Old man Tsang was a Foreman in Harbour Works in the P.W.D., he was made assistant to our Sergeant Major Shum Loy Hing ( ) as our handi-man; Tsang O**n was retained as a confidential messenger. In both capacities, they remained right up to the end of the War. I also recalled then, that way back in late June or early July, 1942, when the Tsang brothers returned to Waichow for the first time, reporting to me their initial assessment of the prevailing conditions in Hongkong, after they had had their preliminary reconnaissance. Tsang Tak, the soft spoken elder brother of the two said frankly to me in Hakka: "I have been round, surveying the North Point Camp, which Captain Clague specifically asked me to do. I am afraid conditions were now entirely different from what Capt. Clague described, which was based on what his friends had experiences when they escaped months ago.. The camp was now heavily guarded. One could hardly get near the camp these days. We might at best wait for any of the inmates coming out on their own initiatives, and then render them such assistance as best we could. I do not suppose, our aims should be confined to assist the escapes of only those who were locked up in the North point camp. Other Europeans, I suppose, should be equally assisted, shouldn't they ? To organize a successful escape for European(s) would involve a lot of careful preparations, liaison, planning and co ordination etc. Because of the risky nature of the operations, we had to be doubly careful in the picking of people we had to work with. All these would take time and need exercise of extreme care. One had to be patient and to be extremely careful. However, since both Captain Clague and your goodself had shown confidence in the two of us, I would, in return, like to say to you: " It may take time, but be assured, we shall not disappoint you". We also had Cheng Wai Lim, ( ) nicknamed KHAN, a Jamaican born, half negro and half Hakka, who organized his team of "Rescuers and Intelligence collectors" as if it were an independent guerrilla unit, which based his operations at his native village of Lung Kong ( ), right at the border between Japanese occupied Po On County ( ) and Wai Yeung County ( ). A place normally regarded as "No Man's Land". His men were all armed, and he himself sometimes carried a sten gun, in addition to a revolver. His bodyguards sometimes carried two hand grenades. He had worked out a mutually agreed and mutually respected truce of "River Water would not mix with Well Water" ( ), with the Guerrilla Unit chief, Siu Tin Loy, who operated side by side with him in the same village - the very village, where I salvaged a plane load of Japanese Maps, Codes and other Documents, from a crashed landed Japanese aircraft, as had been described in passages above. Not all the king's men were same. We had No.34 , Yip Foo ( ), who claimed to have worked for Sam Gittins (? M.I.6), but had lost contact, thus switching over to work through us. He behaved, socially as an equal to the 2nd term Garrison Commander, Gen. Yip Man Yue ( ). they came from the same village, and shared the same surname. He was a frequent visitor to the Garrison Headquarters as a personal friend of the General. He never took our instructions seriously, in so far as collecting "Intelligence Reports" were concerned. Averagely, twice in every three months, he would produce an "Essay Like" Assessment of the General Situation, mentioning meetings of Marshals and Generals in the Japanese High Command, discussing efforts and strategies of the Japanese Imperial Army, Navy and Air Force, sometime and somewhere in North China, or in Japan itself. As far as we were concerned , we had never asked for such kind of reports, and we did not quite know what to do with them. I for one, suspected that Yip might have "bought" such reports from one of his fellow villagers, who might be working in an Intelligence unit, either in the Chinese Nationalist Army somewhere, or in the Wang Ching Wei's Puppet Government in Japanese occupied China. We had another agent, by the name Ki Che Kong ( ), who claimed to operate somewhere along the Canton Kowloon Railway near Shek Lung, who regularly produced reports not even worth the papers on which they were written. It was this Ki Che Kong, who, after the war, was quite determined to hold the British Government at ransom. He sent repeated petitions to the Queen, to Lord Mountbatten, the Prime Minister, the Chief of Imperial General Staff, etc, claiming that he had rendered loyal service to the British Crown during the war, for which should be assisted in certain investment projects of his own. Most of his projects were phoney but his petitions, inevitably found their ways back, through the Governor of Hongkong, eventually to me, "for attention, etc !" We also had three lone wolf type of solo agents. Amongst them was first, ( )( ), ex-Sergeant of HKVDC, who, with the full cooperation and support of the Tsang Brothers, (Nos 48 and 19), successfully arranged for the safe escape in October, 1942, of two Hongkong Bank senior executives, Messrs TJJ Fenwich and JAD Morrison. We also had Michael T.O.Wong ( ), whom we sent to Macao, to contact our trusty agent Phoenix (Y.C. Liang), who was a solicitors clerk, and an ex Police Reserve; and Simon Lau Ming Sai ( ) who was a construction foreman, and an ex Corporal in the machine Gun Unit of the HKVDC. He operated single handedly, along the Canton Kowloon Railway areas,. near the border. By virtue of their respective peacetime professional trainings before they joined the BAAG. each time when these lone wolf were given an assignment, invariably they asked many penetrating questions making sure they knew what exactly were expected of them. They never made mistakes. There were yet another category of underground agents, who were young and in experienced, but very energetic. They include persons such as Lau Chaan ( ), Wong Fai ( ), Chau For ( ), Ma Chun Kwai( ), Wan Cheung( ), Wan Gap ( ). Wan Tong ( ). They assisted 68 Li Fong, who for a short while, succeeded in establishing an effective line of communication with the inmates at Shamshuipo Camp. Unfortunately, Li Fong seemingly successfully project went burst. A few of his young assistants (Chau For, and ) were arrested, jailed and subsequently executed. There were yet others, who were ex Police Reserves, who on their own initiatives, organized themselves as underground groups operating before B.A.A.G. came into being. On hearing the establishment of the B.A.A.G.,they sent representatives to contact us up in Waichow. Probably their operations were too open, their recruitment had not been too cautious, before long, the whole group disintegrated - many of its members were arrested, tortured and eventually executed. Last, but by no means the least, we had a woman agent, by the name Tang Wing Wan ( ), whom we preferred to call her Madam X. He carried secret messages vy means of condoms, in and out through the Japanese lines many times, without ever being detected. The F.I.G. of AHQ, BAAG, Waichow, was concerned not solely in collecting information about enemy activities and consitions in the occupied territories, we also provide informations relating to Allied successes etc in other War Tnheatres, such as Europe, South Pacific, and other parts of the world. By means of Daily New Bulletins, we supplied hundreds of copies of daily news summaries to local military, and civil inits, as well as other civilian organizations, including the local Daily News Paper. The latter, in particular, was dependent on our supply for the international news which they printed on their daily publications. My account would not be complete without mentioning Tsang Ting Hoi ( ), formerly a Police Inspector and Li Heep ( ) formerly a Police Constable both of the Hongkong Police Force. For our own protection, they were specially recruited to ensure no Japanese spy would take advantage of our weaknesses and worked their ways into our organization, to sabotage.

y armed? What sorts of weapons? Did they search the passers-by ? Did they search every single passer by, or did they only search one in every 4 or 5, or one in every 10 or 12 ?. Were there military vehicles parked at the station? If so, how many, what types were they? Any artillery pieces ? At the beginning, our main concern was the safety of the routes for possible escapees. After a few months of systematically sending our reports through