North Point Camp

For the camp at Adirondack Park, see Carnegie Camp North Point.

North Point Camp was a Japanese World War II Prisoner-of-war camp in North Point, Hong Kong which primarily held Canadian and Royal Naval prisoners.

History

Built by the Hong Kong government as a refugee camp before the war, it was severely damaged during the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong Island on the night of December 18, 1941. It began life as a POW camp almost immediately after, as non-Chinese civilians from the area were interned there, as were the first men of West Brigade who were captured in the battles at the beachheads, Jardine's Lookout, and Wong Nai Chung Gap. After a few months, the Royal Naval prisoners were moved to Sham Shui Po POW Camp and North Point became purely Canadian. The Canadians themselves moved out to Sham Shui Po on September 26, 1942, at which point the camp was closed. Conditions at camp were overcrowded and unsanitary. The two main threats that the prisoners faced were disease and the lack of food, which proved fatal for many.

Today part of the old camp site is the King's Road Playground, but there are no memorials of any kind.

See also

• Tin Chiu Street
• Japanese occupation of Hong Kong
• List of Japanese-run internment camps during World War II
• Second Sino-Japanese War
• Stanley Internment Camp

External links

• Hong Kong War Diary: The POWs
• North Point Refugee / POW camp, on Gwulo website
• Picture of the camp

Further reading

• Charles G. Roland (2001). Long Night's Journey Into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 0-88920-362-8.
• Tony Banham (2009). We Shall Suffer There: Hong Kong's Defenders Imprisoned, 1942-1945. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 978-962-209-960-9.