Kai Tak Airport

Oh yes, those barriers at the top of Run 13! When the bells broke the morning silence my 7 a.m. bus would stop allowing me to watch the airplane taxi across the road in front, make a U-turn and next take off. At other times, my bus would stop when a plane came in to land, or land from the southeast. Yes, no planes took off from the southeast on Runway 31. I can notice the spot being today's Choi Hung Road next to the nullah. Planes were using Runway 13 in 1957-58 when I frequently travelled that area. Around 1958-59, I started to see planes using the new runway built on reclaimed land.
There was a nullah just northwest of where Clear Water Bay Road meets Kwun Tong Road at the foothill. My soccer ball fell into it and I watched it helplessly the next several days while it was rolling in the under-toe of a mini-cascade. They told me I had to get permission from the airport security before I could climb down to retrieve the ball. I didn't pursue it further - I had no long ladder. Wonder if that pigskin is still somewhere under some highrise condos.

In the early 1950s Runway 13 was extended in a northwest direction across Choi Hung Road and the Kai Tak Nullah to provide a longer take-off run for larger aircraft using the Airport. The extension across the nullah (the U-turn as oldtimer describes)and the beginning of the old runway in San Po Kong are marked by today's Tseuk Luk and Tai Shing Streets.

Thank Moddsey for pointing out the coordinates of the northwestern tip of Runway 13.
Regarding MrB's comments about the location of the former airport hangar, I might have seen it with small planes inside to my left side after my bus had crossed Runway 13 and swung towards the southeast onto Kwun Tong Road. This would put it on the east side of Kwun Tong Road, northwest of Clear Water Bay Road, and northeast of the RAF Nissen huts which sat on the west side of Kwun Tong Road.
It has been 50 years ago I travelled that way so my memory is a bit cloudy.

I've received some further clarifications:

Civilian / RAF airfields:

Prior to the closure of RAF Kai Tak in the 1970s, Kai Tak Airport and the airfield prior to it was divided into civilian and military use. The RAF had always occupied the eastern end of Kai Tak (next to today's Richland and Telford Gardens) whilst the civilian side was located at the western end. From the 1930s till 1941, the RAF and the Harbour Department (which controlled civiilan airport operations) both operated their own separate hangars.In 1941 prior to the Japanese occupation, there were plans afoot by the authorities to expand Kai Tak Airfield and build paved runways. For such purpose, the RAF hangar located at the eastern end of the airfiled was dismantled in June 1941. During the war years the Japanese followed up with the British plans for expansion of Kai Tak and built the two paved crossing runways.

We've been sent a photo from the 1930s that shows the airfield at that time.On Tony Banham's website I also saw these links to photos of several RAF buildings around Kowloon. Here's the entry for 17 Mar 2008 on Tony's site:

Local researcher Stephen Sin sent me this message and links. Although the majority of the architecture here is post war, there are some interesting pre-war details. Nice to see the RAF remembered! “My name is Stephen Sin living in Kowloon City. Recently I've been visiting Kwun Tong area & discovered some of the old RAF sites which are still here today at 2008.  I hope the pictures taken can be added to your website & tell people of these great history of RAF at Hong Kong:

• RAF HQ at Kwun Tong
• RAF HQ at Kai Tak
• RAF airfield at Shek Kong”

Extension of runway 13

Moddsey, you mentioned that the runway was extended in the early 1950s, but the 1944 photo already seems to show a bridge over the nullah at that point, and the 1948 map also seems to have the runway bulging out over the road and nullah. Could it have been extended earlier than the 1950s, or was there a second round of extension in the 50s?

Oldtimer, it's a nice thought to think your football might still be there somewhere. We've received photos of the two landmarks Moddsey mentioned, but I guess they look a bit different from how you'd remember them!

• Choi Hung Rd and Nullah
• Tai Shing Street & Tseuk Luk Street, Looking Northwest

Thanks to you both for your comments,

MrB

The aviation record indicates that the northwestern extension to Runway 13 in San Po Kong was completed in October 1950.

The 1944 USAF aerial reconnaisance photo shows a worn track leading from the Kowloon Hills towards Choi Hung Rd and across the nullah. It is believed that the track was used by British POW labour to transport rubble for the building of the paved runways. The Hedda Morrison 1946 archive photo of Kai Tak taken from Kowloon Peak clearly shows the eroded track and the beginning of the paved runway that was confined within the Airport perimeter road.

Thank you MrB for the reply. I might have misled you. I was thinking of the other nullah, the one right across from the bus stop (see this photo).

This was the same city bus-stop where I spent my time waiting for the Good Hope school bus. Some mornings, us classmates would walk across the road to the east side to play soccer. The nullah there has a east-west orientation and thus ran towards the airport's Nissen huts in this photo; hence security clearance was needed to climb down to the nullah. One day while standing on the east side of the road I had sunny weather above me, but on the west side of the road it was pouring rain for a good half-minute. Another unforgetable moment.

[UPDATE: Giving links directly to the photos doesn't seem to work, so here's the longer way to get to them]

Here are the photos Moddsey refers to. It's worth zooming in on these - the amount of detail is quite something. To see them:

• Visit the VIA website
• In the "Search for: " box, type
      hedda kai tak
• Click the 'Search' button
• You should get 5 results
• Click a photo to see its 'Full record'
• On the Full record page, double click the image to open the viewer, which lets you zoom and pan around the image.

Two to note: 

• Kai Tak seen from a distance, Kowloon Peninsula, Hong Kong
  This is the photo Moddsey was referring to. The bay at the end of the runway is clearly within the boundary of the road / nullah, so it seems the landing chart I've dated to 1948 was either inaccurate, or it was printed after the extension in 1950. On this photo we can also see the road from the runway to the hangar that started this conversation - but unfortunately the hangar itself is hidden from view by the hill in the foreground.
• Kai Tak airfield, looking across eastern Kowloon to Lion Rock.
  Oldtimer, you should take a look at this one, as I think it's the same road you've described as your bus route. Also in the bottom left corner of this photo, the fence is broken by what looks to be a pillbox. It's not like any of the pillboxes around Hong Kong island, so I wonder if that was built by the Japanese?

MrB

Indeed, MrB, the photo you pointed out shows the same road in my bus route. The bottom right corner shows most likely the start of the Clear Water Bay road - that corner mansion with high stonecut-face wall, and the miscellaneous items on the ground on the south side (bottom edge of photo). The open (soccer) field and nullah must be somewhere to the right and behind the tall vegetations.
The buildings inside the airport fence were quite different the way I remember them. It could be because at ground level I couldn't see them past the Nissen RAF huts. If this photo was taken prior to the 1950s, then the Nissen huts were located where these army trucks were parked.
I don't remember seeing the pillbox in this photo. It was likely demolished by the mid-1950s.
Thank you all, for such resourceful materials.

Hedda's photo of Kwan Tong Road by the airport [titled 'Kai Tak airfield, looking across eastern Kowloon to Lion Rock.', MrB] must have been taken from the hill side to the south of Choi Shek Lane, which now is being flattend. This photo is ringing more and more my memory bell. By 1957, the old pillbox on the foreground has been demolished replaced by a stop used by both the southbound city bus and the Good Hope School bus. This is the very spot I stood many times waiting for one bus or the other. Notice how narrow the start of Clear Water Bay Road was at that time. When they extended Kwan Tong Road, all those dozen boxes were moved to the right (east) side to be with the other metal frames. The reduced storage area remained for quite sometime as a small island. Downbound bus from the hill would circle clockwise around this island to the bus stop on the east side, then used the road by the big mansion (foreground) to travel uphill. Great photo, almost like being there again.

Hats off to Moddsey for finding these two photos, which he sent along with the following notes:

The first photo shows the RAF hangar at Tai Hom with a Spitfire undergoing maintenance in front of it.

The second photo captures the discussion that is taking place. It is an aerial shot of the northwestern end of Kai Tak probably taken after 1954 showing the:

1. RAF aircraft parking apron to the north of the airport
2. Extension to Runway 13 that was completed in 1950
3. RAF hangar at Tai Hom and the access road leading to it
4. Diamond Hill squatter area
5. Choi Hung Rd and the nullah
6. Worn track through Nga Tsin Wai Village that was used by British POW labour to build the paved runways (right of the extended runway)
7. Sha Tin Pass Rd (left of the extension)
8. Clearwater Bay Rd winding up Customs Pass and
9. Good Hope School founded in 1954 (Oldtimer's school)

He also gave some more information about the hangar, which I've posted here.

MrB

We've been sent two more photos from those years:

1. A nice photo of the approach to Runway 13 from over the Kowloon Hills. Note the runway had yet to be extended. The Tai Hom hangar is visible by the side of Clearwater Bay Rd on the top left of picture.
2. In this photo the traffic has been stopped for a landing aircraft on Runway 13. Note the police post in the centre of Clearwater Bay Rd [now named Choi Hung Rd] beside the nullah.

Moddsey has sent in a couple of clippings from the Hong Kong News, the english-language newspaper published by the Japanese during the occupation. We're hoping to put a date to the start of the work to enlarge the airfield and lay the paved runways.

The first two are from 26 June and 19 August 1942, and are titled "Kowloon City removals time limit" and "Compensation to Kai Tak residents" respectively. They relate to the clearance of several built-up areas in the 1930 map, to make way for the enlargement of the airfield.

The third clipping is "Work on Kai Tak Airfield - Breaking the sod ceremony", dated 11 September 1942. This indicates that work on the enlargement would begin on September 15, starting with 800 POWs (Prisoners of War) as labourers. By October 1 they say 4,000 workers would be employed at the site, but they don't make it clear if all would be POWs, or there would also be local residents working as labourers.

Though the official start date was September, Tom Forsyth's diary shows that POWs were already working there in June:

June 15th 42

120 men went on a working party to Kai Tak to enlarge the airport there. It is on the mainland. [At this time, Tom Forsyth was imprisoned in the North Point POW camp. MrB] They carried a bun for mid-day meal.

June 20th 42

I was one of a large party who went out to the Kai Tak airfield on the Kowloon side, worked with pick and shovel and handled crushed stone, and big bags of cement. Just before we left to come back we were served with Zooki, beans cooked up with sugar. They are small and black and taste like a pea. Not accustomed to anything sweet for so long made some of the boys sick. Very tired tonight.

So it looks as though the work began somewhere in the period June - September 1942.

It's not clear when the work was finished, but the 'Ernie's story' website notes that the POWs did their best to limit any benefits the Japanese would receive from the POWs' work:

Even though the Canadians had no choice but to help the Japanese build Kai Tak, they found a way to sabotage it by putting too much sand in the concrete which made it brittle.

The first Japanese aircraft to use the runway, a large fighter filled with dignitaries, crashed on landing. The Japanese engineer in charge of the project was decapitated. It was a sad victory in a long defeat. (The Valour and the Horror, p. 44)

MrB

Work on the enlargement of Kai Tak also involved the dismantling of the walls of Kowloon Walled City and using rubble from the Sacred Hill of Sung Wong Toi. To the west of Kai Tak in a park in Ma Tau Wai stands today part of the original boulder inscribed with the Chinese characters of 'Sung Wong Toi' that used to be located on top of Sacred Hill.

The sabotage efforts of the POWs did cause concerns after the Japanese surrender as no one knew the actual strength capability of the runways and where the concrete was likely to fail. The RAF Airfield Constuction Units that arrived in September 1945 spared no time in making Kai Tak operational again and ready to handle larger aircraft e.g. DC-3s.

A 1945-1946 photo archive of Kai Tak of HMS Nabcatcher that shared the aerodrome with the RAF and the civil authorities is available through this link: http://www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk/MONABS/KT_Album.htm

To add to Moddsey's comments, here are two photos of the original boulder [1, 2], and a Wikipedia article with more information.

There are several POW diaries that mention the work at Kai Tak.

Harry Atkinson:

WHAT TYPE OF WORK WAS IT?

Well by the time I got out to work they had finished building the runway and we were cutting down a hill , they wanted to extend the airport into this hill and the Chinese ceremonial cemetery hill and they couldn’t get the Chinese to work on it because it was full of people’s burial vaults.  And we started with little carts on a narrow gauge railway – a 4 wheel cart, we loaded it up and shoveled dirt into it and pushed it down to the end and dumped it.  As we got the hill cut down and further out the slope got steeper and longer and at the end of it it had blocks to stop the cart and we were supposed to have it go down under control well 4 men pushing the cart and holding it back, sometimes it would slip unnecessarily and we let the cart go and it hit the bottom and dump it.   But our officers didn’t work.   And I’ll always remember Len Corrigan , Lieutenant Corrigan from Swift Current , he removed his officer’s designation and he and Blackwood and a couple of others dressed as privates and always went to work.  I was in his work gang one day and he said “look, you fellas that don’t feel like it, sit and rest, you watch for the guard coming around the curve”, and whenever the guards started, they would call and we would get back to work.   But Corrigan did most of the shoveling in that cart.  He was a damn good officer.  He was a re-enforcement officer – he joined us when we came back from Jamaica.

HOW MANY HOURS WOULD YOU WORK ON THE Kai Tak AIRPORT?

Well recollection wise we would get up at 5-530 and have breakfast – a bowl of rice and a way down to the Ferry and away around the harbor to Kai Tak and work, we would be back at camp at 6:30, 7:00 at night have your supper and go to bed.  And you’re up the next morning.

Thomas Smith Forsyth:

Interviewer: After a number of weeks the Canadians were moved to Sham Shui Po prison camp. Do you remember what the, were the conditions any different there at Sham Shui Po?

Well, that's when the, the work party started. They had to work on the Kai Tak airport and it was miserable work. We were supposed to be mixing concrete and laying it down and doing all with, it was just pick and shovel work.

Interviewer: Were you men still fed the same amount of food?

We were supposed to get a bun, but then again the flour had, had been exposed, there was, had been insects in the flour, and it was a miserable poor diet.

Interviewer: So on that diet of three bowls of rice, you men were expected to do heavy manual labour out in the Kai Tak airport.

Yes we were, we were. Absolutely, we were.

Bernard Castonguay:

Interviewer: During that period of time, the men were expected to work. What do you remember about the work that you prisoners were expected?

Ya we were getting up in the morning at four, four thirty, every morning. And we had to walk through Kowloon to go to the ferry which is about two miles I think, to walk. And as we walk on the street every morning we saw corpses here and there. Chinese, die from lack of food. And we saw these trucks painted in green picking up the bodies and throwing them in like garbage. And we got on the ferry every morning to go to Kai Tak Airport. And we had to move a mountain to in the sea in order to enlarge the Kai Tak Airport. It was in the hot sun. We had a G-string, nothing on the head. And it happened a few times, too many times that we didn't have any breakfast or we didn't have any dinner. Imagine, and we didn't have enough to eat and yet they were not giving us our meal.

Garfield Lowe:

They took us across to the mainland and we had to work on extending the runway on the Kai Tak Airport air strip. What we had was a pole across our shoulder and there would be two baskets, and one on each end, hanging from each end of the pole, and they’d fill them with dirt from the mountainside and we’d carry them down and dump them where they wanted it and then go back for more. It kind of knocked hell right out of their health.

John McGee:

Interviewer: What happens next?

Well from when we finally got down to the harbour, they took us to, our camp was camp Sham Shui Po, then we did the walk from Kowloon to Sham Shui Po. That was the eight mile march we, and we did it so many times during the, after we were in the, on the way to (inaudible) Kai Tak airport. I'm sure everybody's heard about the, we built the, we did the groundwork for it. There was two mountains and they took 1,800 of us out there and an officer got up on top of the back of the truck and they shouted out to us in Japanese, and then the little guy had to interpret it and he said that we are going to take those two mountains and dump them in the ocean. Well that was our laugh for the day, you know, who the hell is... and 18 months later it was as flat as that table top. We had carried it on our backs and dumped it in the ocean.

Interviewer: So your march you were always carrying heavy...

Yeah, we had a big, long bamboo pole, one guy in the front and one guy in back and the bag of rice, rice bag and they throw three and a half, two and a half shovels of dirt on this bag and there were strings from end, like this and then we'd put a bamboo pole through it, put them on our, and march, dump them in the ocean, march back. And we were alright as long as we kept moving but if we stopped...

After the Japanese surrendered, there were still POWs working at the airport - but this time the prisoners were the Japanese themselves. The HMS Nabcatcher site mentions them, as well as general conditions around Kai Tak and Hong Kong immediately after the end of the war. Two good examples from that site are the memories of Charles Davidson and E.C. 'Mac' McCarthy.

MrB

The 'Walk The Talk' site has a good article about Sir Kai Ho Kai, the source of the "Kai" in Kai Tak.

MrB

You may find these books good companion:

The Squadrons Of The Fleet Air Arm        0 85130 223 8

The Squadrons Of The Royal Air Force      0 85130 083 9

Action Stations Overseas                         1 85260 319 4

Short Sunderland in World War II              1 85310 429 9

Sunderland Squadrons of World War II      1 84176 024 2

Hawker Hunter in Action                           0 89747 273 X

Hawker Hunter in Color                            0 89747 181 4

Airport Of The Nine Dragons Kai Tak          0 9586746 0 4

Kai Tak, A History of Aviation in Hong Kong - Government Information Services

The Life And Times Of Sir Kai Ho Kai        962 201 873 4

Enjoy

isdl

Hi there,

You folks might like to take a look at this despite the site is produced in Chinese. It showed photos of a recent dig/survey in last April at Kai Tai. It was in some Chinese newspapers earlier last week. I cannot verify if it's in SCMP or not.

The site also have older reference photos and maps.

Enjoy.

T

http://www.hiking.com.hk/discus/messages/59/51326.html?1211201024

The remnants of the pier could be the Kowloon City Market Landing Place. Cultural and historical references to Kowloon City and Kai Tak can be found in this link:

http://www.epd.gov.hk/eia/register/report/eiareport/eia_0592001/12-3.pdf

Thanks to Isdl, T, and Moddsey for the links. I've just borrowed a copy of ' The Life And Times Of Sir Kai Ho Kai' from the local library. He was an interesting man, and it's a good read about Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century.

The document Moddsey links to refers to old photos of the area. You can see those photos here.

MrB

A few more odds and ends:

We've been sent this clipping from the SCMP, describing the conditions for POW labour at Kai Tak under the Japanese.

A reader also noted this photo gallery at the Civil Aviation Department website, which has several photos of old the old airport.

Finally here's the section from the book 'The life and times of Sir Kai Ho Kai' (see pg. 31) that describes his involvement with the airport:

Au Tak (1840-1920) was the proprietor of a furniture shop named Chiu Loong Tai, situated on Chiu Loong Street in the Central District. The street still exists, but not the shop. Besides furniture, imported sundry goods and photographic equipment were also sold at the shop. Au was one of Hong kong's earliest developers, the owner of houses on such prime sites in the Central District as Chiu Loong Street and On Lan Street.

In 1912, Ho Kai went into partnership with Au Tak to form a company to develop a piece of land formed by reclamation. It was planned to build something like a garden estate there with houses, recreation grounds etc., for private tenancy. For this venture, Ho kai sold his two town houses on West Terrace, for which he received $12,000 and took up residence at 45B Robinson Road. This house valued at $22,500 was bought for him by Madame Wu TingFang and Au Tak who paid $10,000 and $12,500 respectively.

The development company was formed with a capital of $1 million, divided into 50 shares of $20,000 each. It was hoped that Ho Kai would have been made managing director with a competent salary and be entitled to one share of the company free. But the venture was a failure, it had not taken off in the two remaining years of Ho kai's life and eventually went into liquidation in 1924, ten years after Ho Kai died.

The land, which was named Kai Tak Bund, after the two principal partners, was taken back by the government. In 1925, and American pilot, Harry Abbot, leased the land to start a flying school there. Abbot was said to have fought on the side of Sun Yat-Sen as a mercenary during the civil strives [sic] among the warlords in the early years of the Republic. At the opening of the school, everything went wrong. The mechanic who demonstrated a parachute jump was drowned after he dropped into the harbour instead of landing on the airfield.

For the next few years, the airfield was used by the Hong Kong Flying Club for the purpose of teaching people to fly an aeroplane, with facilities for members to enjoy weekend flying. The Royal Air Force and Royal Navy also used it as a base for their planes.

[...] For all that Ho kai had done for Hong Kong, no street or building had been named after him. He is remembered only as the kai of the old airport, which was build originally on his business venture, Kai Tak Bund. After [the airport's] demolition, Ho Kai and his friend Au Tak will be forgotten, unless housing estates to be developed on the site will still be named Kai Tak.

MrB

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