1967 Hong Kong Riots
The next story concerns a revolution. The overspill from the so-called Cultural Revolution that upended Mainland China in 1967. This spilled over into HK when Mao’s base disrupted the colony with street riots and the placing of bombs – both real and dummies.
At the time, American Marine was also facing a financial crisis and, to satisfy the demands of the bank, it was vital that the quarterly results were positive. We were building the first Grand Banks 57 and we were desperate to have the boat shipped with the money in the bank by June 30th. If we missed the deadline by even one day we would have the costs but not the income on the balance sheet.
We were working literally 24 hours every day and had many new carpenter hires. We had heard that at 3 pm on a certain day what the authorities had dubbed “inflammatory posters” were going to be plastered all around the yard. Just before that time, I made sure I was out of my office and in the yard. At 3 pm, on the dot, posters suddenly appeared from drawers and lockers and I found myself in a tug of war with a young carpenter apprentice at opposite ends of a rolled-up poster. Realizing just how ridiculous this was, I returned to my office and awaited the inevitable 5 demands I knew would be coming. The posters carried such messages as “Blood debts will be repaid with Blood” and something derogatory and threatening about “Fry the Yellow Running dogs”.
I don’t remember all the 5 demands but one was that we were not allowed to remove any of the posters and, if we did, each one removed would have to be replaced by seven new ones. Another demand was that we could not alert the police. I told them that their security was so bad that we had alerted the police before the posters had even been posted so it was too late for that.
The following morning about eighty of the carpenters (out of the more than 200 employed) sat in a group chanting from their copies of Mao’s little red book. In a bizarre situation, the remainder of the workforce continued working as if nothing had happened.
The police had a small contingent waiting outside but we didn’t want a serious confrontation on the premises so there was a standoff. Fortunately, at lunch break, the rebels went off into the nearby village and came back late after the main gate was closed so they were now outside in the tropical sun. Just before quitting time, when we had been anticipating a confrontation, they stood across the main gate and chanted some slogans before leaving for the car park around the corner taking their soda bottles with them – which was unusual in HK at that time. By this time, an unsurfaced road had been extended past the boatyard.
Myself and colleague, Dave Wilson, followed them at a cautious distance on my motorcycle to see what they were up to. They were climbing into a couple of trucks and we noticed they were loading stones. Rather rashly I parked the motorcycle and walked closer to write down the vehicle registration numbers. This seemed to cause some annoyance as some of the rioters came rushing over and tried to wrest the piece of paper from my hand. I suppose I should have been alarmed but I just remember feeling irritated and the Churchillian phrase: “What kind of people do they think we are?” entered my head. I quickly realized that a slogan more suited to present circumstances was “he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day” so we ran. Dave said, “I’ll hold them off while you start the motorcycle”. I said something along the lines of “Screw the bike” and, followed by a fusillade of stones and soda bottles, we ran back towards the yard. These all missed but were picked up and returned to the assailants by the main workforce now leaving work so essentially Dave and I were caught in the crossfire! Fortunately, others already in the trucks were anxious to leave and shouted at my attackers to get on board.
I still had the registration numbers of the trucks and gave them to the police who were parked at the main gate which was out of sight of the fracas. They radioed these into the police contingents waiting in trucks at the depot in Kowloon. The road connecting our location with the city had no turn-offs as it wound its way through the hills. I imagined a huge confrontation between truckloads of police and rioters but it was probably just as well that the latter just – and only just – made it into the city ahead of the police.
A huge battle did occur that evening when the police tried to enter the carpenters union building when they were met by barricades and bottles of acid. They had to go into adjacent buildings and bash holes in through walls to get in.
We had no more trouble of that kind at the yard but, while riding my motorcycle, I armed myself with a water pistol filled with ammonia.
But we still had to complete the boat. Before the deadline.
The boats were paid for by an Irrevocable Letter of Credit. This method of international payment has a very long history. There is even a clay promissory note of Babylon dating from 3,000 BC.
For those not familiar, this is a document issued by the buyers’ bank which guarantees the goods will be (irrevocably) paid for provided the seller meets certain conditions. In this case, it was a document called a Mate’s Receipt which confirms that the boat was safely loaded aboard the ship by a certain date. The boat was complete in time but the problem was we had to get it to the distant Western Approaches where the ship was anchored. It was a long tow with the boat already in its shipping cradle and there was a risk we might not reach the ship and be hoisted aboard within the deadline. Amazingly, to help us out – the First Mate on the ship agreed to go out on a limb and sign the Mate’s Receipt before the boat reached the ship.
I was on board the ship when the GB57-001 came alongside. As it was hoisted aboard it looked increasingly unlikely that it would fit the space allotted for it. The attached photo confirms this. But it HAD to fit! We already had the document confirming it had been safely loaded on board! Ultimately the only thing preventing it actually fitting were a couple of brackets supporting the ship’s bulwarks. Summoning the welder, the First Mate had him cut off these brackets and the situation was saved! Of course, if we had been unable to load, the Mates Receipt would have been torn up and the Letter of Credit unprocessed.
POSTSCRIPT
Three months later we completed GB57-002 and the same ship was back in Hong Kong to take her to her destination. This time we knew she would fit because the brackets had never been welded back in place.