Bridge With Three Men

[Dave Homewood]

I have just finished reading an excellent book called "Bridge With Three Men: Across China To The Western Heaven In 1942" by Anthony Hewitt.

Tony Hewitt was a Captain in the Middlesex Regiment with the Garrison in Hong Kong in 1941 when the Japanese forces invaded. After a gallant defensive battle there, the Allied forces in Hong Kong were forced to surrender and Tony was captured.

He was one of hundreds in a POW camp on mainland Hong Kong, when he and his friend Douglas Scriven, a military doctor in Tony's unit, decided they had no option but to attempt an escape. Both men knew the area well, Douglas knew many languages and having a doctor on the escape would prove very worthwhile.

They teamed up with Eddy Crossley, a young RNZAF pilot who had been stationed in Hong Kong with a unit flying three Vickers Vildebeests. The Vildes had been destroyed on the ground in the first bombings and now he too was a POW.

The escape took them through some very dangerous country across Hong Kong and mainland China, with the threat of Japanese all around them plus Chinese bandits, pirates and cut-throats.

I won't give too much more away but will say the story is a thrilling one indeed, and a true account of a very rare escape from a Japanese POW camp to freedom. The story has a strong New Zealand and RNZAF connection with one of the three men being an RNZAF pilot.

I highly recommend this book. It is a great true wartime adventure story.

I am very curious to learn more about Eddy Crossley when he finally reached freedom. I see in By Such Deeds by Colin Hason that Edmund Douglas Crossley NZ402465 was awarded the Military Cross for his deeds in the defence of Hong Kong and for his escape; and later he was Mentioned in Dispatches for service in North Africa, Sicily and Italy ferrying aircraft with the Meditteranean Air Transport Service. Did he ever see any operational flying? He passed away in 1958.

By the way, the book was published in 1986, but a Google seems to imply it has also been released again under the title 'To Freedom Through China'.

Tony Hewitt's Obituary can be found here:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1469554/Colonel-Tony-Hewitt.html

[chinapilot]

The Jamaican-Chinese mentioned in Hewitt's obit was a well known leader of guerrillas in the New Territories [Hong Kong]

Many of the POWs in the camp they were in later perished when the 'Lisbon Maru' which was shipping them to Japan was torpedoed off the China coast by a sub which is another story.

[Dave Homewood]

Yes that happened a lot where the Allies sunk Japanese ships without realising they were full of prisoners.

You would love the book if you get a chance to read it.

[chinapilot]

Yes - it is a good book. Several have been written about escapes from HK but this is one of the better ones.

The 'Lisbon Maru' was sunk near the China coast....many of the POWs were picked up by other Japanese ships, not as an act of humanity, but because they were valuable slave labour in Japan. Chinese villages who helped the ones that made it to shore were literally wiped off the map...

There is an excellent exhibition at the HK Museum of Coastal Defence on the escape of Admiral Chan Chak who with others got away in the last stages of the battle for HK...

www.hongkongescape.org/

[Dave Homewood]

Did any other kiwis escape from Hong Kong, I wonder?