This year's Force Remembrance Day Ceremony took place for the first time at the new ceremonial area in Arsenal House on October 24. Staff working in or visiting Arsenal House, will also be aware that the Roll of Honour bronze tablets and memorial books have now been moved from Caine House to the 3rd floor lobby of Arsenal House, and the memorial has been revised by the addition of a third bronze tablet.

This year also marked the revival of the practice of publishing the names of the officers on the Roll of Honour in the ceremony programme. Anyone who has examined the list will notice that, apart from officers who died in military service during World War I, there are no names included on the Roll prior to those officers who died during the invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941. In fact, in the 100 years following the issue of the first Magistrate's Warrant to William Caine in April 1841, at least 80 officers died in the course of duty.

Reasons for the missing names

To understand why these names are not recorded we have to examine the circumstances surrounding the development of the Roll of Honour. In short, as a result of the invasion and occupation of Hong Kong during World War II (WW II), almost all original Force records and correspondence were lost, some no doubt deliberately destroyed prior to and during the invasion. The Force administration and filing systems were re-created, almost from scratch, after August 1945.

In mid-1948, the then Commissioner of Police, Duncan MacIntosh, initiated the Roll of Honour in its current form. The original correspondence still exists, and indicates that prior to WW II a Roll of Honour of officers killed in the execution of their duty, was on display in Central Police Station (which was also Police Headquarters until 1941). This memorial was lost (destroyed or looted?) during the war. Additionally, a marble tablet with the names of 11 European Officers who had served in the military during World War I (WW I), and who had been killed or died on military service in Europe, had survived the Japanese occupation, and was still located in the Police Recreation Club (PRC) (then in Happy Valley). [Ironically the Recreation Club memorial did not survive the demolition of the Club in the mid-1970s - only a photograph remains.]

System for the future

An attempt was made to reconstruct the names on the pre-war Roll of Honour, by circulating a memorandum to all Commands (as they were then termed), asking officers to forward the names that they could remember. This did not meet with much success.

It was decided instead to concentrate on matters that were already known, and to establish a system for the future. As a result, three lists were created, incorporating: -

* The 11 officers who died on military service during WW I,

* The officers killed in action during the invasion and battle for Hong Kong, December 8-25, 1941, and also those who were executed or who died as internees or prisoners of war during the period December 25, 1941 - August 31, 1945, (totalling some 226 officers), and

* Those officers killed in the execution of their duty since September 1, 1945.

This is still the situation as it stands today.

Sources of information

In his books "Asia's Finest" and "Asia's Finest Marches On", Kevin Sinclair listed around 40 deaths pre-WW II, which appear to have been those identified from the annual reports, retrieved from the United Kingdom post-war (available online via the Hong Kong University Library website).

A much richer source of information, however, is the micro-filmed records of original Colonial Office correspondence from 1842 to 1952 now available at Central Library in Causeway Bay. In particular the Hong Kong University has indexed the main series of correspondence, known as "CO 129" (which is a filing series similar to that used in the Force with main files, L/Ms, etc), and has made the index available online, at http://obelix.lib.hku.hk/co129/. This information together with some private research on some 300 police graves in the Hong Kong, Catholic and Muslim cemeteries in Happy Valley, has provided much more detailed information than recorded in the annual reports.

List of 82 deaths drawn up

From examining all the information available to date, the following list of 82 deaths (which meet the criteria used in the current Roll of Honour) has been drawn up, details of which are in the table below. Some names are as yet unidentified. Additionally, five deaths recorded for 1922, 1923 and 1940 are from an unofficial list supplied by Chief Inspector Cunningham, C.I. (A)"E", in 1948, and no details have been located from other sources.

Assistance welcome

The aim of this research is to have these officers included in the Roll of Honour, and with that aim, additional information and source documents are being collated in preparation for a submission. Anyone with further information about the cases listed (including any Chinese language documents) or about any other deaths, which they believe should be included, is welcome to contact Mr Morgan. His email address is rejjmor@netvigator.com.

One of the Gresson Street siege victims, Detective Police Sergeant Henry Goscombe Clarke, was buried in Happy Valley

Many cases of police officers who were killed in the execution of duty are well known, including the Gresson Street siege in 1918, during which five officers were shot dead

• English version only