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WWII sacrifice of Free French defending Hong Kong

2018-07-01T08:21:08Z

ErickVachon2182:

Seventy-five years ago, a handful of idealistic "Free French" took up arms to defend the British colony of Hong Kong in a futile battle against Japanese invaders. But their sacrifice, though largely unknown in their homeland, is not forgotten in Asia. There are six names on the worn stele that pays tribute to them in a corner of the British military cemetery in Stanley, on a hill in the south of Hong Kong island. A French flag is draped over a memorial at the Stanley Military Cemetery, dedicated to French civilians who died fighting with the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps against the 1941 Japanese invasion of the territory �Isaac LAWRENCE (AFP) "I do not see why these people should be forgotten," says [http://search.Ft.com/search?queryText=Francois Francois] Dremeaux, chairman of the Hong Kong committee of French Remembrances of China. "My job is to make their memory live by giving it meaning," adds the history teacher, who helped oversee a ceremony dedicated to them last week. Dremeaux, who has written a thesis on the French presence in Hong Kong in the interwar period, feels there is much to learn from these men, who in 1941 chose to fight in a battle some 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) from their homeland. Hong Kong was a British enclave, and there was nothing forcing them to defend it, he adds. "We cannot even say they were defending their colony," Dremeaux said. "They defended an idea, freedom, and did it of their own free will, which makes their sacrifice even more noble." Apart from representatives from the French consulate and army, those attending the modest commemoration were largely students from the French international school where Dremeaux teaches. The group sang 'Le Chant Des Partisans', the anthem of the French Resistance -- a tune rarely heard on the shores of the South China Sea. - Dissident consul - By June 1940, many in the [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] French community -- which numbered around 400 in the late 1930s, had already fled to Indochina. Those [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] who remained largely rallied to the Gaullist Resistance cause. While the French embassy in Beijing was loyal to the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, in diplomatic correspondence Hong Kong consul general Louis Reynaud railed against the "treason" of the armistice Germany demanded and stamped his official telegrams with "V" for victory. A "Free France" committee was set up in Hong Kong with about 20 active members to recruit volunteers, turn merchant sailors on stopover in port or prepare propaganda broadcasts. Then on December 8, 1941, hours after their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, which had been living under the threat of the imperial forces since they seized the nearby Chinese city of Canton -- modern day Guangzhou -- three years earlier. Some of the Frenchmen joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps established by Britain to support regular forces vastly outnumbered by the Japanese. - Bayonet wounds - Dremeaux picks up the trail of the Free French at several key moments in the 17-day "Battle of Hong Kong", including the fight for the island's sole power plant. While only six names are on the stele, Dremeaux believes around ten took a stand against the Japanese. Among them was Armand Delcourt, a 42-year-old merchant who came to Hong Kong in 1926 and married a Eurasian woman of Japanese and Scottish origins, Captain Roderic Egal, who was in transit from Shanghai when the invasion began, Henri Belle, a sailor passing through Hong Kong who took up arms, and Paul de Roux a director of the Banque d'Indochine. Egal and Belle were both captured and sent to prison camps, the latter dying in captivity. Roux did not fight but set up a resistance network. He was arrested and tortured, before committing suicide to prevent the enemy forcing him to talk. Delcourt was wounded by two bayonet blows on December 21 while defending a strategic hill pass and executed two days later, shortly before the governor surrendered on Christmas Day. On January 5, 1942, brutalised by the Japanese, his pregnant wife gave birth prematurely in a Hong Kong church to a girl who for decades would not know the circumstances of her father's death. "I did not know the full circumstances of my father's death until much later when I was in Australia and received the letter from my father's close friend Carlos Arnulphy who had managed to trace me," Monique Westmore, who now lives in Melbourne, told AFP by email. "I would have loved to have known my father but when I read the documents that are attached (to the letter) I understand that he was a man of great principle -- I do sometimes ask myself 'why did you go knowing that your wife was hugely pregnant and also you weren't exactly a young man?'," Westmore wrote. "The battle of Hong Kong was a total disaster and many people lost their lives." His military death notification praised him as "a continuous example of courage and enthusiasm" in an unequal battle who "cheerfully made the supreme sacrifice, confident in the final victory of France." For Dremeaux, the path chosen by Armand Delcourt resonates strongly today, "a time of withdrawal" when countries are increasingly looking inward. "He was married to a Japanese woman, lived abroad and gave his life for Free France," he said. "To be patriotic is not a contradiction with being open to the world". [https://Www.Change.org/search?q=Graphic Graphic] on Japan's invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941 �-, - (AFP Graphic) French historian and teacher Francois Dremeaux poses for a photo after a memorial service at the Stanley Military Cemetery in Hong Kong �Isaac LAWRENCE (AFP) The French Consul General of Hong Kong Eric Berti (3rd R), along with military personnel and members of the public, attends a memorial service at the Stanley Military Cemetery �Isaac LAWRENCE (AFP) Advertisement

Richard Blystone correspondent at AP later CNN dies at 81

2018-06-19T07:34:42Z

ErickVachon2182:

Richard M. Blystone, a [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] longtime Associated Press correspondent who covered the Vietnam War and went on to become one of the first journalists at the CNN network even before it went on air, died Tuesday in London. He was 81. His sister, Louise Reilly, said her brother died in a hospital of cardiac failure, following a stroke. Blystone began his career with AP in Atlanta in 1965, covering the civil rights struggle, and later worked at the news cooperative's New York headquarters before moving to the AP's Saigon bureau in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War. He covered major combat action and, in 1973, became AP's Chief of Bureau in Bangkok, Thailand. In this Feb. 5, 1979, photo, Associated Press foreign correspondent Richard Blystone poses for a photo in the AP's London bureau. Blystone, a veteran AP correspondent who reported from Vietnam and was one of the first journalists at CNN, has died in London at [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] 81. His sister, Louise Reilly, said her brother died Tuesday, April 17, 2018, of cardiac failure after a stroke. (AP Photo/Peter Kemp) Michael Putzel, a former Saigon colleague of Blystone, recalls that "his dry humor and running cartoon strip about AP life kept the Saigon bureau entertained." While in Bangkok, Blystone uncovered and reported the story of 54 barefoot, ragged children held as slave laborers in a garment factory. A police raid followed, freeing the children. Blystone remained involved in coverage of strife in Indochina, and in a story from Phnom Penh before the takeover by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, he described how the wives and children of Cambodian soldiers missing in action "live in squalor and desperation . high in Phnom Penh's sports stadium." After the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, he flew in a small chartered plane to the bomb-cratered Phnom Penh airport to pluck a Cambodian AP newsman - Chaay-Born Lay - and his wife and two children to safety. They were pulled into the aircraft as it rolled along the runway for takeoff. AP's Chief U.N. Correspondent Edith M. Lederer called him "one of the smartest, sharpest war correspondents I met and worked with at AP in Vietnam - a veteran who knew the U.S. military." "He had a wonderful irreverent streak and didn't suffer fools, but he cared deeply about the victims of war and telling their stories to the world. He was a stickler for accuracy, a master wordsmith, a wonderful friend and an original member of the Chinese Eating Club I started when we both lived in London," Lederer added. In 1977 and 1978, he was an Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and then moved to the AP's London bureau until he joined CNN in June 1980, three weeks before the then-fledgling news network went on the air. He went on to cover many wars and conflicts for CNN from its earliest day and became a senior correspondent for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. At CNN, Blystone covered some of the world's biggest hotspots. He reported on the Iran-Iraq war, civil war in Lebanon, the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and its satellite nations, famine in Africa, U.S. interventions in Somalia and Haiti, the Gulf conflict, Northern Ireland and NATO's bombing of Kosovo. But as a change of pace from politics, war, violence and famine, Blystone also [http://Www.wordreference.com/definition/produced%20wry produced wry] and droll reports on quirky events such as the traditional gathering of the Royal Swans near London. His 1999 CNN series "An Iron Curtain Odyssey", chronicling a 3,000-mile (4,800-kilometer) trip down the political fault line that once divided the world, followed a decade after his first report of the same title was filmed as the Iron Curtain was coming down. Journalist Steve Hurst, who worked with Blystone at both AP and CNN, said "Blystone was the best writer I ever worked with. He was an even better man, and I and all who knew him have suffered a great loss." Blystone retired from CNN in 2001, returning briefly for assignments in Kuwait and Iraq in 2003. In retirement he freelanced, produced documentaries and taught journalism for a semester in Botswana. He lived part of the year in London and part in Maine. A native of Elmira, New York, Blystone was a graduate of Amherst College who served a stint in the U.S. Navy as an officer assigned to an anti-submarine patrol squadron flying out of Brunswick, Maine. He began his journalism career with brief stints at the Elmira Star-Gazette and the Scandinavian Times, in Copenhagen. He was the son of the late Eugene Blystone and the former Bernice Mary Robinson. Besides his sister, he [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] is survived by his wife of 54 years, the former Helle Pechter, three children and one grandchild. ___ Claude Erbsen, a former AP vice president and director of world services, reported from New York. In this undated photo, Richard Blystone, Associated Press foreign correspondent in Vietnam and later Bangkok, talks on the phone in AP's Saigon bureau in Saigon, later renamed to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Blystone, a veteran AP correspondent who reported from Vietnam and was one of the first journalists at CNN, has died in London at 81. His sister, Louise Reilly, said her brother died Tuesday, April 17, 2018, of cardiac failure after a stroke. (AP Photo/Neal Ulevich) Advertisement

User:ErickVachon2182

2018-06-19T07:34:35Z

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