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Captain of Vishal Royal Navy The battleship called on his officers to give them the first morsel of one of the best-kept secrets of World War II: “Prepare yourselves for an extremely important task,” he said.
“Speculations are increasing,” one officer wrote in his diary that day – June 2, 1944. “Some people say there’s a second front, some say we have to save the Soviets, or do something else around Iceland. No one is allowed to go ashore.”
The secret was D-Day – June 6, 1944, the invasion of Nazi-occupied France with the largest sea, land and air arsenal the world had ever seen. It penetrated the defenses of Adolf Hitler’s formidable “Atlantic Wall” and hastened the dictator’s fall 11 months later.
The diarist was Lam Ping-yu – A Sugar The officer who crossed the world with two dozen companions China Training and serving with Allied forces in Europe.
For Lamm, 32, witnessing the landing aboard the battleship HMS Ramillies in Normandy, France, proved significant.
His meticulously detailed but long-forgotten diary was rescued by urban explorers hong kong Tenement block which was about to be demolished. It is reliving their story and shedding light on the involvement of Chinese officials in the multinational invasion.
As survivors of the Battle of Normandy disappear, Lamm’s compelling first-hand account adds another vivid voice to the vast library of memories that the World War II generation is leaving behind, ensuring that its sacrifice for freedom and the international cooperation that defeated Nazism will not be forgotten.
“The army’s landing craft, as numerous as ants, were scattered and shaken all over the sea, moving south,” Lamm wrote on the evening of 5 June, as the invasion fleet moved across the English Channel.
He wrote, “Everyone is at action stations. We should be able to reach our designated position about 4-5 o’clock tomorrow morning and begin the bombardment of the French coast.”
successes
The investigative team of history enthusiasts Angus Hui and John Mak in Hong Kong pieced together the story of how Lam found herself aboard HMS Ramillies and proved crucial in confirming the authenticity of her 80-page diary, written in 13,000 discreet, delicate Chinese characters.
Hui and Mak have organized and are touring an exhibition about Lam, his diary and other Chinese officials – which is now on display in the Normandy town of Ouestreham.
One breakthrough was their discovery, confirmed in Hong Kong land records, that the abandoned 9th floor flat where the diary was found belonged to one of Lam’s brothers.
The second was Hui’s discovery of a 1944 ship’s log from HMS Ramillies in the British archives. An entry dated 29 May recorded that two Chinese officers had visited the ship. Lam’s surname is misspelled as: “Junior Lieutenant Le Ping Yu joined the Chinese Navy.”
lost, found and lost again
Lam’s black leather-bound notebook has also had a dramatic life.
Lost and then found, now lost again. Hui and Mak say it appears to have been hidden away – possibly taken to the US or Britain by people from Hong Kong – with searchers sifting through the apartment to rescue diaries, other papers, a suitcase and other items before the building was demolished.
But Hui, who lived nearby, photographed the pages of the diary before it disappeared, preserving Lam’s account.
“I knew, ‘Okay, this is an interesting story that we need to know more about,'” he says.
“Such a remarkable piece of history… could have remained buried forever,” Mak says.
He shared Lam’s account with his daughter, Saw Ying Lam, who lives in Pittsburgh. She previously knew little about her father’s wartime experiences. He died in 2000.
“I was stunned,” she says. “It’s a gift to me that I learned as a young person who he was and now I understand him better, because I didn’t have that opportunity when he was alive.”
a lucky escape
Lam was part of a group of more than 20 Chinese naval officers sent by Chiang Kai-shek for training in the UK during World War II. Chiang led the Nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949, fighting off invasions by Japan and then Mao Zedong’s Communists, fleeing to Taiwan with the remnants of his army when Mao’s rebels took power.
On his long journey from China, the officers passed through Egypt – one photo shows him posing in front of the pyramids in his white uniform before joining the British Army.
In his diary, Lamm wrote about the deaths he suffered aboard HMS Ramillies on D-Day, as the battleship’s powerful guns bombarded German fortifications with heavy 880 kg (1,938 lb) shells before Allied forces attacked the five invasion beaches.
“Three torpedoes were fired at us,” Lamm wrote. “We managed to trick them.”
His daughter marvels at his lucky escape.
“If that torpedo had hit the ship, I would not have been alive,” she says.
Looking through ships’ logs, Hui and Mak say they confirmed that at least 14 Chinese officers took part in Operation Neptune, the naval component of the invasion that was code-named Operation Overlord. About 7,000 ships participated. Hui and Mak say that the Chinese were deployed in pairs on seven ships.
operation dragoon
Some officers, including Lamm, also saw action in the Allied invasion of southern France in August 1944.
“At 4 a.m. Action Station, traces of the moon are still visible, although the horizon is unusually dark,” Lamm wrote on August 15. The bombardment of the French coast began at 6 o’clock, with Ramillies not firing until 7 o’clock.
“The Germans put up such weak resistance, one might say it was non-existent.”
France awarded its highest decoration, the Légion d’Honneur, to the last survivor of the Chinese contingent in 2006. Huang Tingxin, 88 at the time, dedicated the award to all those who had traveled with him from China to Europe, saying, “It was a great honor to join the anti-Nazi war,” China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported at the time.
Lam’s daughter says her story remains inspiring.
“It talks about unity, it talks about hard work, about doing good,” she says. “World War II, I think it shows us that we can work together for the common good.”
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Leung reported from Hong Kong.