Colonel Tony Hewitt was awarded an MC for a daring escape from a Japanese PoW camp after the fall of Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941. In December that year Japan launched a massive offensive against the Crown Colony with infantry, artillery and supporting air cover. British, Canadian and Indian forces put up a gallant defence, but they were overwhelmed and the garrison was forced to surrender. Hewitt, then a captain and the adjutant of the 1st Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, was imprisoned in Sham Shui Po PoW camp on the Kowloon peninsula. The camp was only lightly guarded because the Japanese believed that escape was impossible; but Hewitt had a detailed knowledge of the New Territories beyond the mountains with their terraced valleys, walled villages, bays and inlets and he was determined to make a break for it. Hewitt's CO gave permission for the attempt, while warning him that he had no more than one chance in a hundred of succeeding. General C M Maltby, GOC China Command, listened to Hewitt's plans, then authorised the paymaster to provide the escape party with $800. On a cold, moonlit night, in the early hours of February 2 1942, Hewitt and two comrades - Eddy Crossley, a pilot officer with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and Douglas Scriven of the Indian Medical Service - concealed themselves in a dank, smelly slipway waiting for a sampan to deliver food to the camp. As soon as this had been unloaded, the three men rushed the sampan, thrust $300 into the boatman's hand and paddled into the darkness, pursued by machinegun and rifle bullets from the Japanese sentries. When the boat reached the mainland, they crossed the Shing Mun River and began a 200-mile journey to reach the Chinese Regular Forces. While sheltering in a gully, they were attacked by seven robbers armed with axes, and a terrific fight ensued. Hewitt killed one of them, but sustained serious head wounds and had the tendons in his right hand severed. Crossley and Scriven set about the others with heavy sticks and put them to flight. From some villagers, they learned that the gang which had attacked them had captured some foreigners the previous day and handed them over to the Japanese, who had beheaded them in the market square. Two days later, they were attacked by a party of 60 armed robbers. They fought back with clasp knives but were badly beaten, and robbed of most of their possessions. Near Shunchun, they learned that the Japanese occupied all the surrounding towns and that some patrols were only a few hundred yards away. The three men spent the night hidden in a tomb, and then crossed the Sham Chun River into China. Any euphoria was quickly dispelled when four Chinese brigands armed with knives and bayonets jumped on them and pushed them into a creek. They were rescued by a large Jamaican-Chinese who ran a radio shop in Kowloon and who recognised Hewitt. He arranged for an escort of friendly bandits to guide them to the summit of the Wung Tu mountains. In a hamlet that they passed through, a wedding ceremony was taking place under an old lychee tree, filling the air with sounds of merriment, gongs beating, crackers exploding and the fragrant smell of incense. The village patriarch appeared and praised them for their escape from captivity, predicting that it was their destiny to reach freedom safely. The Japanese had built a line of block houses interspersed with picquets, and the only way through them was by a steep ravine. The enemy were reported to be on the crest but, after climbing an almost perpendicular incline and scaling a cliff at the top, they discovered that the Japanese had moved on a few hours earlier. Negotiating slit trenches and barbed wire entanglements, they passed through the enemy lines.
The next day, they were spotted by soldiers of the Communist Red Army who opened fire with Mauser pistols and rifles. After their companions had run off into the cane fields, Hewitt and his comrades were arrested. They agreed to help train the soldiers while they waited for the local commander to return from skirmishes with the Japanese. The commander held a banquet in their honour and provided them with an escort of guerrillas. After four days marching, they were in contact with the Chinese National Army and their escort slipped away. At the badly damaged city of Waichow, they were received like conquering heroes and entertained by the military governor. Hewitt and his two comrades travelled up the East River by motor launch, but when this broke down they had to switch to a barge crowded with refugees. Pirates attacked the boat during the night, but were driven off. They reached Long Chun on March 3, and for the next three days they travelled with 32 Chinese refugees clinging to salt sacks in a three-ton Chevrolet. At Kukong, the capital of the province, Hewitt contacted the British Military Mission. His hand had swollen to the size of a football and he was sent to the Methodist Hospital. He learned that he was to be awarded the MC.