Bagpipes Sound For SAR's Last Battle Of HK Veteran

The funeral has taken place of Ng Sai-ming a “gunner” in the British Army Royal Artillery during the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941 and the SAR's last remaining second world war veteran.

He was born in 1922, and at the age of 19, with just a few months of training, he was put on a war footing as the Japanese military invaded Hong Kong.

During the 17-day battle, he helped man a gun at Brick Hill which overlooks Ocean Park. At 98, Ng, a father of nine, was the final veteran of the second world war here in Hong Kong. His co-gunner at Brick Hill, Peter Choi, died just a few weeks earlier.

At a Hung Hom funeral parlour, Ng’s family members paid their respects alongside representatives of Hong Kong ex-servicemen’s associations and the British Consul-General, Andrew Heyne, whoacted as a pall-bearer for Ng’s coffin. A bagpiper led mourners out of the funeral parlour.

After the fall of Hong Kong on December 25, 1941, Ng’s officer in charge instructed him to change out of his uniform and he returned to his home. Ng was the 26th generation of his family at Nga Tsin Wai. He would later join the police force and retired in the 1970s.

“It would be wrong for us to forget that they laid their lives on the line for today’s people of Hong Kong,” said Brigadier Christopher Hammerbeck, the president of the Royal British Legion (Hong Kong). “His contribution to Hong Kong and devotion to duty will always be remembered.”