[History] Chinese naval offices at the WW2 D-Day Normandy landing?

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Is this diary the only Chinese eyewitness account of the D-day landings at Normandy? Insights and humour revealed in surprise find
Discovery may be only first-hand account of Chinese participation in Normandy invasion
Samuel Chan[email protected]
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 06 December, 2015, 3:00am
UPDATED : Sunday, 06 December, 2015, 12:43pm


Kelvin Hang was involved in the discovery of the diary of a Chinese naval officer who participated in the D-day landings. Photo: Felix Wong

A journal that could be the only surviving first-hand account of Chinese involvement in the Normandy landings in 1944 has been discovered in a rundown flat in Sai Ying Pun.

One of the biggest seaborne invasions in history, the D-day landings heralded the end of the second world war in Europe.

The diary is that of Lam Ping-yu, a naval commander and one of 21 officers sent to Britain by China's then-Nationalist government in 1943 as they tried to rebuild China's naval forces annihilated during the Japanese invasion of the mainland, said history enthusiast Kelvin Hang Yun-kuen, 33, who was involved in the discovery of the diary in an undisclosed location in Sai Ying Pun.

"They found a huge hand-made flag of the Republic of China inside the flat, and that aroused our interest in finding out more about who used to live there," Hang said.

The black notebook, believed to be only one of the many volumes of a diary Lam kept throughout his life, detailed his days at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, England, as well as his observations on board HMS Ramillies when the Allies landed at Normandy to open the second front against Nazi Germany in June 1944.

In his entry on June 5, the day before the Normandy landing, Lam wrote: "In the morning, [we all] gathered at the hall of officers, and were briefed the details of the mission … The objective is to cover the landing of ground forces and open the second front.
"At around 9pm, everyone was at their position, and was expected to arrive at the spot where we would bombard the shore. The minesweepers would clear the way for the fleet."



On June 6 - D-day - Lam wrote that the day started with HMSRamillies almost got sunk after a narrow escape from three torpedoes. "At noon, our vessel sailed closer to … the shore and bombarded the enemies, everything was just the same as what we learnt at the college.

"Meals were served as usual even when the fighting was ongoing, bread, sausage and canned beef were available, and [they] didn't forget about afternoon tea," he wrote.

Lam and his 20 compatriots were all on board British military vessels and were not involved in the actual landing.

After finishing his studies in 1945, Lam the following year was sent to Japan on a study trip, which he also documented on papers found with the diary.

"The Jap girls walk in groups of three to five in city centre, and would gave us a charming smile. But their beauty is certainly no match to ours. Chinese students studying here often marry Jap girls. This is unfathomable," Lam wrote of his observation in post-war Tokyo.
There were also lighter moments during his military career, such as when he poked fun at a fellow who later became the captain of the battleship Lam served on before defecting to the Communist forces.



Describing his new friendships with Australian officers on the same vessel en route to Sydney, Lam wrote: "There are also quite a number of woman [Australian] officers I know, among them, I am closest to Eileen, who sometimes would mend clothes for me.

"Lu [later Captain Lu Tung-kuo] was rather jealous of my large circle of friends, because he has never been a popular fellow no matter where he was!"

After the Communist takeover of China, Lam decided not to go to Taiwan like many of his colleagues, probably out of fear of political persecution as a commander of a battleship of which the captain had defected, Hang said.

While most of Lam's post-war life remains unknown, Hang deduced from the documents that Lam sailed around the world soon after arriving in Hong Kong, and lived in Brazil since the 1980s until his death there, believed to be in the late 2000s.

Hang is now trying to establish contact with Lam's son, believed to be in Brazil. Anyone who might be able to help should search for "glimpses of modern China" on Facebook.

The missing link between Hong Kong and the mainland

The Normandy landings diary of colonel Lam Ping-yu is a tiny piece in a historical jigsaw and should be studied - along with other artefacts - to help foster an understanding of the Chinese nation, says history enthusiast Kelvin Hang Yun-kuen.

Until recently a factory manager based in Guangzhou, Hang, whose family does not belong to the Kuomintang camp, founded and single-handedly manages a Facebook page which has won a following of over 23,000 and offers rare photos and video clips of the mainland and Hong Kong mostly from the Republican era (1912-1949).

"The Communist Party has always tried to paint a picture of the so-called 'old society' as the origin of all evils. What I try to do is to restore the facts," said Hang.

"While many of the materials are available publicly in online archives, few would actually visit those sites, and even if they did, laymen might not understand the significance of a particular clip or photo without the aid of the relevant context, and this is where we come in."

"It should be more than just showing people pictures of the changing coastline or old pictures of the city," he said.

"You can't see the whole picture if you leave out Hong Kong's links with mainland China over all these years," he said, explaining why he sought to restore the link between Hong Kong and the mainland which is often missing when locals reminisce about the past.

His interest in modern Chinese history was ignited when he took an elective course as a chemistry undergraduate at the Polytechnic University.

The vision for his Facebook page, he said, was to raise awareness among ethnic Chinese communities outside the mainland - Hong Kong and Taiwan in particular - that they could and should inherit the vision of the pioneers of the Republican era and strive to achieve a Chinese cultural renaissance.



This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Diary chronicles D-day landings




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