Homeward bound.

Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser in 1943.

Admiral Fraser joined the Royal Navy in 1902 and was at Galipolli. After the war he volunteered to assist the White Russian Fleet in the Caspian but was arrested in Baku and imprisoned for several months. We had several appointments as gunnery officer so will have been well pleased with the accuracy of the shooting during the battle with the Sharnhorst when he was Commander of the Duke of York when his unit intercepted the German vessel as it tried to destroy an Arctic convoy. Around 75 salvos were fired and around 30 were said to be straddles of hits.

The Duke of York arrived in Hong Kong on June 7^th 1946 and Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser boarded the vessel. I have no proof that Dad joined the vessel at this, or any time, but the subsequent dates fit in so well that bit is hard not to draw that conclusion. Mum also recognises the name so maybe it is the route he came home. If this is the case there is another mystery as there are two reports on Dad that were written for the termination of his appointment in Hong Kong and they are dated 6^th and 8^th March 1946. One was the confidential report that Dad would not see and a short one that was given to the seaman to take to his next posting.

The first, and confidential report, is written by Lieutenant Commander Wilfred John Parker. At this time he had been with Rear Admiral Harcourt as his Signal Officer and went ashore when Harcourt became the military Governor of Hong to ‘free prisoners, keep law and order, re-open hospitals and organise children's parties, dances and cricket matches’, as one of his obituaries puts it. Parker must have been a bit of a ‘go getter’ as he was aboard HMS Edinburgh when she was torpedoed carrying Russian gold to the UK from Murmansk. They fought bravely to return to Murmansk but were torpedoed a second time and the ship sank. After a couple of weeks waiting in port he was posted to HMS Trinidad. They sailed for the UK and straight away suffered a severe air attack. Fires were started by near misses and the strong wind fanned the flames so much that the ship was abandoned and later sunk by their own ships. Latter in the war he was mined on HMS Sheffield and torpedoed on HMS Newfoundland, each time managing to return to port for repairs. He had served with Admiral Cunningham and helped to organise the landings on Sicily and now was the personal assistant to Harcourt in Hong Kong.

Dads report states ‘ Has worked well both on A.C. 11’s staff and on the staff of the Commander in Chief, Hong Kong, particularly in the latter appointment, where he was working much more on his own. Has plenty of initiative which at times was misdirected, but which was normally used with common sense. He has a lazy manner and appearance, which is against him and which he should correct. Of good physique and health’. I wish I had seen this when he was at us when we were a lot younger! I sense that there must have been at least one incident that caused some of these comments, and would love to know what they were. The report is counter signed by Vice Admiral Cecil Harcourt, Commander in Chief, Hong Kong. Wilfred Parker went on to be a Vice Admiral in 1967 and Knighted in 1969 on his retirement.

The other short report, seen by Dad, states the Dad ‘had conducted himself to my entire satisfaction. A good officer who has worked hard and well’. This one has been signed by Air Commodore Brian V. Reynolds who was actually appointed the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, Hong Kong

10-Oct-45. We was promoted to Air Commodore on the job, 1-Jan-46. Reynolds went on to be Knighted on 1-Jan-55 and promoted to Air Marshall 1-Jan-56. Maybe the report was better as Dad had to see it (it was in Granny P’s records) or maybe as Reynolds had less direct contact with Dad than the Signals Officer Parker.

The mystery is what did Dad do between the end of this appointment in March 1946 and my idea that he got home via the Duke of York in June? Mum seems to think that Dad had been to Singapore for a while but there is no evidence of this so far. Did he commence his journey home some other way? Actually the Duke of York called at Singapore so he could have completed his repatriation on her anyway. For the purposes of the story I will believe that he did sail on the Duke of York as there is no way I will be able to track his route any other way.

Admiral Fraser, The Commander in Chief of the British Pacific Fleet (just in case you had lost track of all the Admirals) hoisted his flag on the Duke of York again and they sailed for Singapore. I believe that Dad was onboard too. They arrived in Singapore on 11^th June. Here Admiral Fraser was relieved of Command of the British Pacific Fleet by Admiral Sir Dennis Boyd. 

This is the only time I can find that Dad was in Singapore and I expect that he was there a few days. Mum says that he saw POW’s from Changi camp and was there at the relief of the prison. I suspect that there has been confusion of the story somewhere down the line as he could well have been at the opening up of the Hong Kong prison camps as the inmates stayed where they were until the Navy arrived. When Dad was in Singapore on the Duke of York it was ten months after the surrender. There could have been some severe cases that had been recuperating before transport home that joined the vessel, but I somehow doubt it. The story must have been regarding Hong Kong.

Admiral Fraser remained aboard Duke of York when they sailed for Colombo. They then passed through the Suez Canal and left Port Said 28^th June and stopped off in Malta and Gibraltar. They left Gib. On 8^th July and arrived in Plymouth 11^th July. Dad has in the Portsmouth Division so if my guess is correct he would have travelled to Portsmouth the following day as he received Order For Release From Naval Service (Class A) (Officers) on 12-July-1946. It states that he has been granted leave, none for foreign service leave as this had been completed, (so that accounts for some of the missing time between March and June), 56 days resettlement leave (that everybody had) and 9 days for special overseas service leave. Dad would be free to take civilian employment at any time, may wear civilian clothes but keep his uniform intact in case of recall and that following his release he would remain in the reserve.

Waiting for De-Mob.

Prior to the Japanese Occupation Hong Kong was governed on the usual Empire lines with the expatriate British ruling and using certain ‘classes’ of locals to support them, but a strict segregation was maintained. There were separate clubs, strict segregation of living areas and similar governance as India and Africa. David McDougal as Chief of Civilian Affairs was very forward thinking and he and his team were determined to rebuild the administration on new lines where the local Chinese were given much more say in their own governance and day to day life. The fact that this started under a Military Administration may well have helped enormously as the Foreign and Colonial Office in London, who may well have tried to prevent changes along these lines, were side lined. As it was Admiral Harcourt was also keen to ensure that a new system was introduced and as he and McDougal had the high regard for each other Harcourt was able to rubber stamp many new measures that may not have so easily passed the scrutiny of the Government in London.

Duncan Macintosh and his civilian team had done such a good job of setting Hong Kong on its new road that on 1^st May 1946 the Military governance of Hong Kong was ceased and control handed to a civilian governor. The new man was Sir Mark Young. He had been the governor at the fall of Hong Kong and had been detained in the prison camps on the island. After the Japanese surrender he had returned to the UK to recuperate, and then eventually come back to take over from Admiral Sir Harcourt. Young was also in the mould of Macintosh and wanted reform. He had tried to have the Territory ruled by a 30 man council with no Governor veto. This was finally quashed when there was fear of Communist insurrection after he had left the post in 1947.

Hong Kong Waterfront 1945.(From photos Dad brought back with him).

Hong Kong street scene 1945/46. (From photos brought back by Dad).

Demobilisation of the British Armed Services actually started 18^th June 1945. The first men to return to civilian life where those with talents that were required quickly at home to help win the new peace. These men were designated as Class B. The vast majority of men, 90%, were Class A and to make things as fair and visible and open to all the plan had been published well before it had commenced. The criteria were basically your age and the length of your service. You entered a table with these values and you could read off where you were in the pecking order. Dad would have been in group 37 which is just about half way as the groups went from 1 to 75. Mind you there was no dates attached to this and the plan ran as and when it was possible. In the Far East the priority for transportation had been to return prisoners of war and other displaced people. Obviously there was a shortage of ships to move large numbers of personnel about and actually the aircraft carriers that had fought the Kamikazes were pressed into acting as troop ships. I can find no indication of how Dad got from Hong Kong to home as there are no troop ships listed as sailing at the appropriate time with a credible arrival in the UK. However it turns out that Dad may well have travelled home in a war ship, HMS Duke of York.

HMS Duke of York was the flag ship of Admiral Sir Bruce Austin Fraser who was the Commander in Chief of the British Pacific Fleet from December 1944. This was a shore based job from Australia but in August 1945, the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, he joined the Duke of York that had just joined the fleet. Admiral was no stranger to the Duke of York as he had carried his flag on her when the Scharnhorst was sunk on Boxing Day 1943 off the North Cape of Norway. This duel between the Battleships Duke of York and Scharnhorst was the last ever between capital ships. For this action Admiral Fraser was honoured and was honoured with the Order of the Bath.

HMS Duke of York at anchor in Tokyo Bay 2^nd September 1945 for the signing of the official Japanese Surrender.

The Duke of York was built at Clydebank launched in February 1940 and commissioned in November 1941. She was 745’ long, 103’ beam and depth of 29’. She was driven by 4 steam turbines driving 4 shafts and with 8 3 drum oil fired admiralty boilers. This gave her a top speed of 28 kts. In wartime her crew was 1511. She could steam for 2540’ at 27 kts. She had 10 x 14” guns that had a range of almost 22 miles, 16 x 5.25” guns (13.2’ range), 32 x 1.5” guns (2.8’), 16 x 0.5” machine guns (800 yds) and three aircraft.