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On Christmas afternoon, 1941, as the exhausted defenders of Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese, an unlikely group including China's top representative in the colony (a diminutive one-legged admiral), his aide-de-camp (a towering international athlete), a senior colonial civil servant and several British staff and intelligence officers made a last-minute dash to Aberdeen harbour.
They found an old launch, but came under heavy Japanese fire and threw themselves into the water. Two were killed, several were wounded—among them the admiral. But he and eleven others swam to a nearby island, hiding behind rocks as the shots rained down. On the other side of a hill they linked up with some fifty British sailors manning five small motor torpedo boats—all that remained of the Royal Navy in Hong Kong after eighteen days of fierce battle that had begun within hours of the raid on Pearl Harbor.
They sailed swiftly into the night, heading for the Chinese mainland and landing at dawn at Nanao in Mirs Bay. Guided by Chinese guerrillas, they made their way through Japanese lines. Walking for four days and nights across rough country frequented by bandits and enemy patrols, they arrived to a heroes' welcome in Waichow, held by the Chinese army.
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