Singapore pilot, 99, remembers wartime Hong Kong and being a Flying Tiger
- Ho Weng Toh, one of the last surviving members of the First American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force, has published a memoir
- He got to know tycoon Robert Kuok at Malaysia-Singapore Airlines in the 1960s and the latter remembers the ex-pilot as ‘Uncle Ho’
It has been almost eight decades since Hong Kong fell into the hands of Japanese forces during World War II, but war veteran Ho Weng Toh can still remember the fear that plagued the city.
One particular memory that stands out for the 99-year-old was seeing Kai Tak Airport – Hong Kong’s international gateway from 1925 to 1998 – go up in flames in front of him.
“From the balcony, I had a clear view of the Kai Tak Airport … The airport had always been a pleasant sight for me. That day, it was not,” said Ho, who was born in Ipoh, Malaysia, but was studying at the University of Hong Kong at the start of the war.
“Above the airport were plumes of black smoke rising up to the sky.”
Japanese aircraft bombed the airport and other areas in Kowloon in December 1941, when Ho was living in HKU’s May Hall hostel, with – as he recounts – a valet who would make his bed and polish his shoes.
In a newly released 312-page book titled Memoirs of a Flying Tiger: The Story of a WWII Veteran and SIA Pioneer Pilot, Ho describes the Japanese occupation as a “very fearful period” and tells of how he went on to sneak supplies to prisoners of war. Eventually, he fled Hong Kong for mainland China, managing to evade capture by Japanese troops hot on his heels.
