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ISSUE #227 - Quarter 3, 2015 |
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Liberation of Hong Kong on 30 August 1945 - 70th Anniversary -
30th August 2015 In December 1941, Japanese imperialist forces invaded
the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland and on
Christmas Day it fell.
 
Thus began a vicious, brutal occupation that was to last over three and a
half miserable years.
But joy came on 30th August 1945 when a handful of sailors from the Royal
Navy sailed into Hong Kong harbour and liberated it.
  This
is the account of the event as recorded by my centenarian father, Walter the
Dentist (no, not
Walter the Lion-Killer Dentist!).
He learnt about the story and researched it, when having spent all of the
war years with the RAF in the Europe theatre, he arrived in Hong Kong in
1947 to take up a new job, which was to keep him there for nearly two
decades.
It's all recorded in his
memoirs.
I have added a few extra illustrations to this post that were not
available when the book was published.
Liberation of Hong Kong
from Japanese Occupation
by Dr Walter C Allwright
On my arrival in Hong Kong, I was fascinated to learn about what exactly
happened in Hong Kong when the Japanese gave up the fight. The war finally
came to an abrupt end on 15th August 1945 after the Americans dropped two
atomic bombs in sharp succession on the Japanese mainland.
These made it clear that neither Japan – nor, more significantly, its
leaders and emperor – were safe from annihilation. Emperor Hirohito and his
cosseted war planners, so brave in sending young kamikaze pilots out to die,
did not want to find themselves fried at the receiving end of a third atomic
bomb, this time dropped on Tokyo (they didn’t know the Americans had no more
bombs in stock). So six short days later, fearful of their mortality, they
surrendered unconditionally.
Peace introduced many strange tensions between the Allies. One of them
concerned Hong Kong. During the war, the Americans had indicated their
desire to put an end to old style Western Imperialism, of which Hong Kong
was a pre-eminent example; they wanted to hand it back to China . Needless
to say Britain had no intention of surrendering its Far Eastern jewel, so as
soon as the Japanese capitulated there was a race against the Americans to
seize it back from the Japanese occupiers. The only mobile British asset
within easy reach was a small Light Cruiser called HMS Swiftsure. The Royal
Navy sent it at high speed to reclaim Hong Kong, where it arrived on 30th
August 1945. To this day, the last Monday in August is a holiday in
celebration of Hong Kong’s liberation.
This small warŽship had a complement of only around 150 officers and men.
Nevertheless, it was assigned the duty of taking the local surrender of the
Japanese occupiers and then of administering the entire colony of Hong Kong,
Kowloon and the New Territories on behalf of the Crown until reinforcements
could arrive.
 |
 |
The gallant HMS Swiftsure sails into Hong
Kong ... and anchors in the middle of the harbour
It was humiliating for the Japanese soldiers to surrender to such a tiny
military force (and indeed the British sailors themselves must have been
nervous about this), but the Japs were schooled in taking orders and so
obeyed without question the demands of their commanders in Tokyo.
 It
was, of course, impracticable for such a small group of Royal Navy personnel
to cover the entire colony. So with a great leap of imagination they
recruited the Japanese soldiers, now technically prisoners of war, to assist
them in tasks ranging from reconstruction (photo shows Jap POWs being
marched to work at the airport), to helping keep order, in the latter case
even allowing them to retain their arms. This solved a number of immediate
problems. It removed the threat of a Japanese insurgency by giving them work
to do, food to eat, and a sense of self-worth. They also knew their way
around Hong Kong which the sailors did not. As soldiers they were in a
position to help maintain law and order, and the Chinese were anyway used to
accepting their authority. They were even recruited for traffic duties,
though there were few vehicles.
I have always wondered what went through the minds of those British
sailors. For six long years they would have heard nothing but hair-raising
stories about the fearsome fighting ability and sadistic brutality of the
Jap soldiery, only to encounter them meekly accepting orders from a handful
of barely armed gaijin, heretofore objects only of Japanese contempt.
The sailors must have been secretly shivering in their boots when they first
came ashore, before it became clear they had nothing further to fear.
Meanwhile, liberated British prisoners of war were put to work helping
with more administrative tasks. Undernourished for several years, they were
in no fit state to undertake any strenuous duties but there was nothing
wrong with their brains. They were able to work with civilians to start
restoring urban services (water, electricity, sewage etc), and to seek out
and catalogue armaments and food stocks.
Across the fallen Japanese empire, ex-POWs and sometimes Japanese
soldiers were being pressed into emergency service in similar ways by the
victors. In some cases, inevitably, the ex-POWs first took time out to beat
up, imprison or kill some of their erstwhile tormentors, though I did not
hear of that happening in Hong Kong.
 The
Swiftsure arrangements continued successfully for quite a while until the
rest of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force managed to catch up with the
intrepid little Light Cruiser. Many Swiftsure officers remained for several
months afterwards as their continued contribution was considered invaluable.
In due course the Japanese soldiers were repatriated other than a few
suspected of war crimes. The latter (pictured) were locked up in the same
Stanley Prison where they had so recently themselves incarcerated their
European POWs.
I once had to give one of them some dental treatment. Soon after I
arrived in Hong Kong in 1947 I was called to Stanley Prison to provide
emergency dental care for a Japanese prisoner, whose alleged crimes I knew
not. To my surprise I discovered that my toothache-sufferer, whose tooth I
extracted, was the only Japanese prisoner still in custody as a guest of His
Majesty. All the other Japanese prisoners had already been “rendered”
(to use an emotive modern term!) to Japan.
The Americans never showed up and quickly lost interest in freeing Hong
Kong from the clutches of the British Empire. They anyway had plenty of
other fish to fry – in particular China, which was now engulfed in civil war
pitting their ally Chiang Kai Shek and his nationalists against Mao Tse
Tung’s communists. In 1949 Mao, of course, prevailed and Chiang fled to
Taiwan. As a direct result, Taiwan and China remain divided, to this day.
Liberation of Hong Kong
The Cenotaph is in the foreground, Blake Pier and the harbour in the back
Back to List of Contents
|
|
|
ESM Raises its Ugly Head for Greece - 8th July 2015 If Greece
manages to squeeze another €100 billion out of the EU - with no (austerity)
strings attached of course - it is the ESM that will disburse the loot. It's
worth thinking about the ESM, a huge €urozone bailout fund.
The EU's “Treaty Establishing the the European Stability Mechanism”,
signed in February 2012, created the ESM as an undemocratic, totalitarian
abomination and an irresistible invitation to rampant, institutionalised
corruption.
The ESM, which started off with €700 bn, can demand any amount of
additional money from all €urozone states at any time for any reason and
they all have just seven days to pay up. Ireland's share is 1.6%.
The ESM is beyond the reach of any law anywhere, and beyond any external
scrutiny or audit of any of its activities, as are its functionaries. Its
staff pay no taxes anywhere except for a nominal amount back to the ESM
itself.
The ESM suffers no restrictions or prohibitions on anything it wants to
import and pays no taxes or duties on its imports.
The
ESM Board of Directors is made up of civil servants from the €urozone
finance ministries. They are appointed by their respective ministers, not
voted in, and they cannot be voted out. The
Managing Director (Klaus Regling) is also an appointed position.
These are absolutely fabulous jobs if you can get them. Imagine! In
addition to wonderful pay and perks,
 | you can steal all you want and you are untouchable in any
jurisdiction anywhere in the world. | |
| And no authority anywhere in the world is allowed to inspect any
aspect of the ESM's activities ever, other than an internal audit by the
ESM itself. |
This is the outfit that will forcibly extract money from 21 €urozone
countries to hand over to Greece, never to be repaid.
If you want to be further shocked, here's my
easy-to-read summary from way back in 2012. The Greece situation
has hardly changed since then.
Or access it using this easy to remember URL:
http://tiny.cc/esm.
Back to List of Contents
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| Why not tell
your friends and colleagues to click on
www.tallrite.com/blog.htm |
| See the
Archive and Blogroll at top left and right, for your convenience
Back to Top of Page |
Now, for a little [Light Relief]
“”
|
|
won by New Zealand |
|
Gift Idea
Cuddly Teddy Bears
looking for a home
Click for details
“” |
|
Neda Agha Soltan;
shot dead in Teheran
by Basij militia |
Good to report that as at
14th September 2009
he is at least
alive.
FREED AT LAST,
ON 18th OCTOBER 2011,
GAUNT BUT OTHERWISE REASONABLY HEALTHY |
|
 |
|
 |
|
BLOGROLL
Adam Smith
Alt
Tag
Andrew
Sullivan
Atlantic Blog (defunct)
Back Seat
Drivers
Belfast
Gonzo
Black Line
Blog-Irish (defunct)
Broom of Anger
Charles Krauthammer
Cox and Forkum
Defiant
Irishwoman
Disillusioned Lefty
Douglas Murray
Freedom
Institute
Gavin's Blog
Guido Fawkes
Instapundit
Internet Commentator
Irish
Blogs
Irish Eagle
Irish
Elk
Jawa
Report
Kevin
Myers
Mark
Humphrys
Mark Steyn
Melanie
Phillips
Not
a Fish
Parnell's
Ireland
Rolfe's
Random Review
Samizdata
Sarah
Carey / GUBU
Sicilian
Notes
Slugger O'Toole
Thinking Man's Guide
Turbulence
Ahead
Victor Davis Hanson
Watching Israel
Wulfbeorn, Watching
Jihad
Terrorism
Awareness Project
Religion
Iona Institute
Skeptical Bible
Skeptical Quran
Leisure
Razzamatazz
Blog
Sawyer
the Lawyer
Tales from Warri
Twenty
Major
Graham's Sporting Wk
Blog Directory
Eatonweb
Discover the
World
My Columns in the
|
|
What I've recently
been reading
“The Lemon Tree”, by Sandy
Tol (2006),
is a delightful novel-style history of modern Israel and Palestine told
through the eyes of a thoughtful protagonist from either side, with a
household lemon tree as their unifying theme.
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as
See
detailed review
+++++
This examines events which led to BP's 2010 Macondo blowout in
the Gulf of Mexico.
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous
acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless
cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term
technical sustainability.
Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in
refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in
Russia.
The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that
had become poisonous and incompetent.
However the book is gravely compromised by a
litany of over 40 technical and stupid
errors that display the author's ignorance and
carelessness.
It would be better
to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying.
As for BP, only a
wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will
prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once
mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history.
Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo
in
May,
June, and
July 2010
+++++
A horrific account
of:
|
how the death
penalty is administered and, er, executed in Singapore,
|
|
the corruption of
Singapore's legal system, and |
|
Singapore's
enthusiastic embrace of Burma's drug-fuelled military dictatorship |
More details on my
blog
here.
+++++
This is
nonagenarian Alistair Urquhart’s
incredible story of survival in the Far
East during World War II.
After recounting a
childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen,
Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on
Germany in 1939.
From then until the
Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr
Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall
of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror.
After a wretched
journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless
garrison.
Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in
1941, he is, successively,
|
part of a death march to Thailand,
|
|
a slave labourer on the Siam/Burma
railway (one man died for every sleeper laid), |
|
regularly beaten and tortured,
|
|
racked by starvation, gaping ulcers
and disease including cholera, |
|
a slave labourer stevedoring at
Singapore’s docks, |
|
shipped to Japan in a stinking,
closed, airless hold with 900 other sick and dying men,
|
|
torpedoed by the Americans and left
drifting alone for five days before being picked up, |
|
a slave-labourer in Nagasaki until
blessed liberation thanks to the Americans’ “Fat Boy” atomic
bomb. |
Chronically ill,
distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the
British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s
is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this
unputdownable book.
There are very few
first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese
brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical
document.
+++++
“Culture of Corruption:
Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies”
This is a rattling good tale of the web
of corruption within which the American president and his cronies
operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both
a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and
sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP.
With 75 page of notes to back up - in
best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing
allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with
the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife.
Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett,
Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris
Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book.
ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community
organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine
it is.
+++++
This much trumpeted sequel to
Freakonomics is a bit of disappointment.
It is really just
a collation of amusing
little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour
and situations. For example:
|
Drunk walking kills more people per
kilometer than drunk driving. |
|
People aren't really altruistic -
they always expect a return of some sort for good deeds. |
|
Child seats are a waste of money as
they are no safer for children than adult seatbelts. |
|
Though doctors have known for
centuries they must wash their hands to avoid spreading infection,
they still often fail to do so. |
|
Monkeys can be taught to use washers
as cash to buy tit-bits - and even sex. |
The book has no real
message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and
try to look for simple rather than complex solutions.
And with a final
anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in
its tracks. Weird.
++++++
A remarkable, coherent attempt by Financial Times economist Alan Beattie
to understand and explain world history through the prism of economics.
It's chapters are
organised around provocative questions such as
|
Why does asparagus come from Peru? |
|
Why are pandas so useless? |
|
Why are oil and diamonds more trouble
than they are worth? |
|
Why doesn't Africa grow cocaine? |
It's central thesis
is that economic development continues to be impeded in different
countries for different historical reasons, even when the original
rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
|
Argentina protects its now largely
foreign landowners (eg George Soros) |
|
Russia its military-owned
businesses, such as counterfeit DVDs |
|
The US its cotton industry
comprising only 1% of GDP and 2% of its workforce |
The author writes
in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to
digest.
However it would
benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative
points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide
natural break-points for the reader.
+++++
This is a thrilling book of derring-do behind enemy lines in the jungles
of north-east Burma in 1942-44 during the Japanese occupation.
The author was
a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to
harass Japanese lines of
command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide
intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of
India.
Irwin
is admirably yet brutally frank, in his
descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a
prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing
in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness.
He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of
Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved
authority of the British.
The book amounts to
a very human and exhilarating tale.
Oh, and Irwin
describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF
Brennan.
+++++
Other books
here |
|
Won by New Zealand |
|
Won by New Zealand |
|
Click for an account of this momentous,
high-speed event
of March 2009
Won by Wales |
|
Click on the logo
to get a table with
the Rugby World Cup
scores, points and rankings.
After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
SOUTH AFRICA
England get the Silver,
Argentina the Bronze. Fourth is host nation France.
No-one can argue with
the justice of the outcomes
Over the competition,
the average
points per game = 52,
tries per game = 6.2,
minutes per try =
13 |
|
Click on the logo
to get a table with
the final World Cup
scores, points, rankings and goal-statistics |
|
 |
| |
|
won by New Zealand |
|
Gift Idea
Cuddly Teddy Bears
looking for a home
Click for details
“” |
|
Neda Agha Soltan;
shot dead in Teheran
by Basij militia |
|
Good to report that as at
14th September 2009
he is at least
alive.
FREED AT LAST,
ON 18th OCTOBER 2011,
GAUNT BUT OTHERWISE REASONABLY HEALTHY |
|
|
|
|
|
BLOGROLL
Adam Smith
Alt
Tag
Andrew
Sullivan
Atlantic Blog (defunct)
Back Seat
Drivers
Belfast
Gonzo
Black Line
Blog-Irish (defunct)
Broom of Anger
Charles Krauthammer
Cox and Forkum
Defiant
Irishwoman
Disillusioned Lefty
Douglas Murray
Freedom
Institute
Gavin's Blog
Guido Fawkes
Instapundit
Internet Commentator
Irish
Blogs
Irish Eagle
Irish
Elk
Jawa
Report
Kevin
Myers
Mark
Humphrys
Mark Steyn
Melanie
Phillips
Not
a Fish
Parnell's
Ireland
Rolfe's
Random Review
Samizdata
Sarah
Carey / GUBU
Sicilian
Notes
Slugger O'Toole
Thinking Man's Guide
Turbulence
Ahead
Victor Davis Hanson
Watching Israel
Wulfbeorn, Watching
Jihad
Terrorism
Awareness Project
Religion
Iona Institute
Skeptical Bible
Skeptical Quran
Leisure
Razzamatazz
Blog
Sawyer
the Lawyer
Tales from Warri
Twenty
Major
Graham's Sporting Wk
Blog Directory
Eatonweb
Discover the
World
My Columns in the
|
|
What I've recently
been reading
“The Lemon Tree”, by Sandy
Tol (2006),
is a delightful novel-style history of modern Israel and Palestine told
through the eyes of a thoughtful protagonist from either side, with a
household lemon tree as their unifying theme.
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as
See
detailed review
+++++
This examines events which led to BP's 2010 Macondo blowout in
the Gulf of Mexico.
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded BP through adventurous
acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless
cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term
technical sustainability.
Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in
refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in
Russia.
The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that
had become poisonous and incompetent.
However the book is gravely compromised by a
litany of over 40 technical and stupid
errors that display the author's ignorance and
carelessness.
It would be better
to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying.
As for BP, only a
wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will
prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once
mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history.
Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo
in
May,
June, and
July 2010
+++++
A horrific account
of:
|
how the death
penalty is administered and, er, executed in Singapore,
|
|
the corruption of
Singapore's legal system, and |
|
Singapore's
enthusiastic embrace of Burma's drug-fuelled military dictatorship |
More details on my
blog
here.
+++++
This is
nonagenarian Alistair Urquhart’s
incredible story of survival in the Far
East during World War II.
After recounting a
childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen,
Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on
Germany in 1939.
From then until the
Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr
Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall
of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror.
After a wretched
journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless
garrison.
Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in
1941, he is, successively,
|
part of a death march to Thailand,
|
|
a slave labourer on the Siam/Burma
railway (one man died for every sleeper laid), |
|
regularly beaten and tortured,
|
|
racked by starvation, gaping ulcers
and disease including cholera, |
|
a slave labourer stevedoring at
Singapore’s docks, |
|
shipped to Japan in a stinking,
closed, airless hold with 900 other sick and dying men,
|
|
torpedoed by the Americans and left
drifting alone for five days before being picked up, |
|
a slave-labourer in Nagasaki until
blessed liberation thanks to the Americans’ “Fat Boy” atomic
bomb. |
Chronically ill,
distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the
British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s
is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this
unputdownable book.
There are very few
first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese
brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical
document.
+++++
“Culture of Corruption:
Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies”
This is a rattling good tale of the web
of corruption within which the American president and his cronies
operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both
a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and
sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP.
With 75 page of notes to back up - in
best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing
allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with
the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife.
Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett,
Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris
Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book.
ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community
organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine
it is.
+++++
This much trumpeted sequel to
Freakonomics is a bit of disappointment.
It is really just
a collation of amusing
little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour
and situations. For example:
|
Drunk walking kills more people per
kilometer than drunk driving. |
|
People aren't really altruistic -
they always expect a return of some sort for good deeds. |
|
Child seats are a waste of money as
they are no safer for children than adult seatbelts. |
|
Though doctors have known for
centuries they must wash their hands to avoid spreading infection,
they still often fail to do so. |
|
Monkeys can be taught to use washers
as cash to buy tit-bits - and even sex. |
The book has no real
message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and
try to look for simple rather than complex solutions.
And with a final
anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in
its tracks. Weird.
++++++
A remarkable, coherent attempt by Financial Times economist Alan Beattie
to understand and explain world history through the prism of economics.
It's chapters are
organised around provocative questions such as
|
Why does asparagus come from Peru? |
|
Why are pandas so useless? |
|
Why are oil and diamonds more trouble
than they are worth? |
|
Why doesn't Africa grow cocaine? |
It's central thesis
is that economic development continues to be impeded in different
countries for different historical reasons, even when the original
rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
|
Argentina protects its now largely
foreign landowners (eg George Soros) |
|
Russia its military-owned
businesses, such as counterfeit DVDs |
|
The US its cotton industry
comprising only 1% of GDP and 2% of its workforce |
The author writes
in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to
digest.
However it would
benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative
points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide
natural break-points for the reader.
+++++
This is a thrilling book of derring-do behind enemy lines in the jungles
of north-east Burma in 1942-44 during the Japanese occupation.
The author was
a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to
harass Japanese lines of
command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide
intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of
India.
Irwin
is admirably yet brutally frank, in his
descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a
prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing
in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness.
He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of
Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved
authority of the British.
The book amounts to
a very human and exhilarating tale.
Oh, and Irwin
describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF
Brennan.
+++++
Other books
here |
|
Won by New Zealand |
|
Won by New Zealand |
|
Click for an account of this momentous,
high-speed event
of March 2009
Won by Wales |
|
Click on the logo
to get a table with
the Rugby World Cup
scores, points and rankings.
After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
SOUTH AFRICA
England get the Silver,
Argentina the Bronze. Fourth is host nation France.
No-one can argue with
the justice of the outcomes
Over the competition,
the average
points per game = 52,
tries per game = 6.2,
minutes per try =
13 |
|
Click on the logo
to get a table with
the final World Cup
scores, points, rankings and goal-statistics |
|
|
|
