Hong Kong IIs

[Airtoday]

Anyone out there still remember?

[Big Green Arrow]

Illegal Immigrants?

Sad day..end of Jun 1997.

[solotk]

Was in Cyprus, listening to BFBS covered the handover. Was weird really, listening to us giving up one foreign possession, whilst standing in another......

[ShyTorque]

If IIs does mean what is supposed by BGA, the Eagle patrols were stopped some time before the handover. The number of IIs seemed to increase after that and it became rather unsafe to walk in some parts of the hills due to the possibility of crime against the person.

Watched the Royal Yacht sail away into the night, leaving us behind. Sad sight indeed, especially knowing that she was on her last journey of such importance.

It rained torrentially for over a week following the handover. A symbol of regret for the territory perhaps?

[motionlotion]

God, that brings back a shed load of memories.

4 very early Cabs each morning - 1 to the marshes, one to Stanley, one to Mirs Bay and the other to Tai Po. Had eleven, yes (11), in the back of a WLSC one morning after a sinking off Sha Tin (just before the sharks got'm).

I remember having to put down under the TWR by the Fire Section at Shek Kong so that they could hose out the back after a Mai Po.

We were pretty "Up for it" at the beginning of the tour but after a fews days of this total waste of human life (those that didn't make it - and there were hundreds in the Mai Po alone), one lost the enthusiasm of the "hunt" and ended up just saving lives. I remember it seemed to just go on and on day and night. Continually on call for months at a time with no end in sight. I also recall the GR not fairing too well out there and a whole Company having to be marched into the marshes on a matter of discipline - some didn't do what they were told to do!

All in all a sad time out there - somehow feel that we didn't quite get it right

ML :confused:

[Airtoday]

Right or wrong. I don't think it was up to us to decide really was it?
Just get out there and do the job.
You take the Queen's shilling.

[motionlotion]

Disagree, we weren't in the game of unquestioning obedience. Yes one did what one was told and complained afterwards - that was the accepted way. However, there were times when one had to question a staff decision while preparing to act - that too was acceptable.

These people were desparate to reach HK and the continued transmisson of "American" style TV piped across the border was very much to blame for this mass exodus each night. Yes of course there were other factors that also contributed to this dreadful human trafficking but the sheer desparation in these people's faces as they were dragged into the aircraft, made you ask why?

Why would a mother of three, wife and daughter having seen all her family in the back of the cab, hand her three year old child to the crewman and leg it across a stinking swamp in the futile attempt to evade repatriation. (She was found several hours later, clinging to a mangrove bush too weak even to help herself and save her own life. Crewman had to drag her half on to the skid and we pulled / lifted her across the filthy mud to awaiting party of GR's).

Why would the traffickers murder and leave a naked twenty year old female staked out in the Mai Po adjacent to a known crossing point - these people gave their all which sometimes meant losing their lives to be part of something we take for granted.

Why shouldn't we ask , Why?

ML

[Airtoday]

To me the answer is that we were, without a single doubt, there to do what we were told to do and get on with it.

Of course we had our own feelings and certainly felt for the illegal immigrants we grabbed from the Mai Po or the open ocean.

But we also knew that Hong Kong at that time could not accept an unlimited number of people from the Mainland.

Our job was to stop as many as we could. We did it.

[motionlotion]

I don't wish to appear negative or get too heavy with this one however, I do feel that your ridged, unbending attitude although highly commendable, is somewhat dated. We have moved on since we last did what we were told without question. I draw your attention to more recent times and the War Crimes Tribunals - when was the last time we went out and shot the women and kids just because we were told to?

Extreme I know but it amounts to the same thing and those that did are having to answer for what they did - without question! Just "Doing what I was told" does not absolve the individual from responsibility for that action.

But hey, the original thread of this II topic was to do a memory troll. I think I still have some photographs kicking around somewhere - most of them were from the Evening Post who always seemed to get to the action before we did - (where did we have that happen before - ramifications of NI here and another story closer to home). Grisly black and white heavy grain photographs with the offending WLSC in the foreground. Did you ever get involved with the AT exercises on KT airfield? Now that was a hoot - I nearly put my skids through the port wing of a 747, (too much enthusiasm and a cab full of very heavy SAS types me thinks).

Ho Hum, (interspersed) happy days.

ML

[blind pue]

Motionlotion

I think you are getting a bit heavy with this subject, and should just agree with Airtoday, We all accepted that the II's were trying to better themselves, but as pointed out HK was already over populated and there wasn't enough room for them.

I can always remember the Sqn treating all those that were picked up as well as possible before handing them over,

I assume as you landed on the Wings in Kai Tak, you must have been there when I was there and none of the pilots I flew with would have treated II's badly, so accept the fact that we knew it was wrong but did it anyway.

By the way I still have the pictures of us landing on the Wings. :cool:

[motionlotion]

bp

'79 - '80. LLD was the 2i/c (now that should bring back memories - or should that be mamaries 'cos he didn't half drop some big ones but that too, is another story).

ML

PS I don't remember asking anyone to IDENT and I'm also pretty sure Air2 would wish to fight his own battles - ("in the best possible taste", so pse don't take offense).