JOHN LESTER and CANICE LENG, Associated Press
HOUISTREHAM, France (AP) — The captain of a giant Royal Navy battleship summoned his officers to give them the first piece of one of World War II's best-kept secrets: “Get ready,” he said, for “a mission of the utmost importance.”
“Speculation abounds,” one officer wrote in his diary that day, June 2, 1944. “Some say it's a second front, some say we should escort the Soviets or do something else around Iceland. No one is allowed to go ashore.”
The secret was D-Day – June 6, 1944, invasion. Nazi-occupied France with the world's largest sea, land and fleet of water. He broke through Adolf Hitler's formidable “Atlantic Wall” defense and accelerated. fall of the dictator 11 months later.
The author of the diary was Lam Ping-yu, a Chinese officer who crossed the world with two dozen fellow Chinese to train and serve with the Allied forces in Europe.
Lam, 32, looks on landing in NormandyFrance, the events on board the battleship HMS Ramillies turned out to be very important.
His meticulously detailed but long-forgotten diary was rescued by urban explorers from Hong Kong an apartment building that was about to be demolished. It brings his story back to life and sheds light on the involvement of Chinese officers in the multinational invasion.
How survivors of the Battle of Normandy disappear, Lam's compelling first-hand account adds another vibrant voice to the vast library of memories that World War II generation leaves behind, ensuring that its sacrifices in the name of freedom and international cooperation that defeated Nazism are not forgotten.
“Saw army landing craft, as numerous as ants, scattered and wriggling all over the sea, heading south,” Lam wrote on the evening of June 5, as the invasion fleet crossed the English Channel.
“Everyone is at combat posts. Tomorrow around 4-5 in the morning we will be able to reach the designated location and begin bombarding the French coast,” he wrote.
Breakthroughs
Investigations by history enthusiasts Angus Hui and John Mak in Hong Kong pieced together the story of how Lam came to be aboard HMS Ramillies and proved vital in authenticating his 80-page diary, written in 13,000 fine, elegant Chinese characters.
Hui and Mak curated and are visiting an exhibition about Lam, his diary and other Chinese officers, which is currently on display in the Norman city of Ouistreham.
One of the breakthroughs was the discovery, confirmed by Hong Kong land records, that the abandoned apartment on the 9th floor where the diary was found belonged to one of Lam's brothers.
Another example was Hui's discovery of the HMS Ramillies logbook from 1944 in the British archives. A recording dated May 29 records that two Chinese officers boarded the plane. Lam's surname is misspelled: “Second Lieutenant Le Ping Yu of the Chinese Navy joined the ship.”
Lost, found and lost again
Lam's black leather-bound notebook also had a dramatic life.
Lost and then found, he disappeared again. Hui and Mak say it appears to have been hidden somewhere – possibly taken to the US or UK by people emigrating from Hong Kong – after investigators searched the apartment, finding the diary, other papers, a suitcase and other curiosities, before the building was demolished.
But Hui, who lived nearby, managed to photograph the pages of the diary before it disappeared, preserving Lam's report.
“I knew, 'OK, this is a fascinating story that we need to learn more about,'” he says.
“Such a wonderful piece of history … could have remained buried forever,” Mack says.
They shared Lam's account with his daughter Sau Ying Lam, who lives in Pittsburgh. Previously, she knew very little about her father's war experiences. He died in 2000.
“I was stunned,” she says. “It's a gift for me to know who he was when he was young and to understand him better now because I didn't have that opportunity when he was still alive.”
A successful escape
Lam was among a group of more than 20 Chinese naval officers sent to Britain for training during World War II. Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang led the Nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949, fighting invasion by Japan and then Mao Zedong's Communists before fleeing to Taiwan with the remnants of his forces when Mao's rebels took power.
During their long journey from China, the officers passed through Egypt (pictured as they pose in front of the pyramids in white uniforms) before joining British forces.
In his diary, Lam wrote of how on D-Day aboard HMS Ramillies the battleship's powerful guns bombarded German fortifications with massive 880-kilogram (1,938-pound) shells, and when Allied forces hit five invasion beaches, he came within a hair's breadth of death.
“Three torpedoes were fired at us,” Lam wrote. “We managed to dodge them.”
His daughter admires the successful escape.
“If that torpedo had hit the ship, I wouldn’t be alive,” she says.
Through ship's logs, Hui and Mak say they have confirmed that at least 14 Chinese officers participated in Operation Neptune—the naval component of the 7,000-ship invasion that was codenamed Operation Overlord—and other Allied naval operations such as Battle of Normandy raged after D-day.
Operation Dragoon
Some officers, including Lam, also saw action. Allied invasion of southern France this followed in August 1944.
“Battle action at 4am, traces of the moon are still visible although the horizon is unusually dark,” Lam wrote on August 15. “The shelling of the French coast began at 6 o’clock, Ramillies opened fire only at 7 o’clock in the morning.
“The Germans offered such weak resistance that it could be called non-existent.”
France awarded its highest honor, the Legion of Honor, to the last surviving Chinese contingent in 2006. Huang Tingxin, then 88, dedicated the award to all those who traveled with him from China to Europe, saying that “it was a great honor for me to join the anti-Nazi war,” China's official Xinhua news agency reported at the time.
Lam's daughter says their story continues to inspire.
“It speaks of unity, of hard work, of doing good,” she says. “World War II, I think, shows us that we can work together for the common good.”
Leung reported from Hong Kong.
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