{"id":503125,"date":"2025-10-16T03:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T03:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/503125\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T03:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T03:25:12","slug":"d-day-diary-reveals-chinese-role-in-allied-liberation-of-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/503125\/","title":{"rendered":"D-Day diary reveals Chinese role in Allied liberation of France"},"content":{"rendered":"

OUISTREHAM, France (AP) \u2014 The captain of the giant Royal Navy battleship called his officers together to give them a first morsel of one of World War II\u2019s most closely guarded secrets: Prepare yourselves, he said, for \u201can extremely important task.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeculations abound,\u201d one of the officers wrote in his diary that day \u2014 June 2, 1944. \u201cSome say a second front, some say we are to escort the Soviets, or doing something else around Iceland. No one is allowed ashore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The secret was D-Day \u2014 the June 6, 1944, invasion<\/a> of Nazi-occupied France with the world\u2019s largest-ever sea, land and air armada. It punctured Adolf Hitler\u2019s fearsome \u201cAtlantic Wall\u201d defenses and sped the dictator\u2019s downfall 11 months later. <\/p>\n

The diary writer was Lam Ping-yu \u2014 a Chinese officer who crossed the world with two dozen comrades-in-arms from China to train and serve with Allied forces in Europe. <\/p>\n

For 32-year-old Lam, watching the landings in Normandy, France, unfold from aboard the battleship HMS Ramillies proved to be momentous.<\/p>\n

His meticulously detailed but long-forgotten diary was rescued by urban explorers from a Hong Kong tenement block which was about to be demolished. It is bringing his story back to life and shedding light on the participation of Chinese officers in the multinational invasion.<\/p>\n

As survivors of the Battle of Normandy<\/a> disappear, Lam\u2019s compelling firsthand account adds another vivid voice to the huge library of recollections that the World War II generation is leaving behind, ensuring that its sacrifices for freedom and the international cooperation that defeated Nazism aren\u2019t forgotten.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaw the army\u2019s landing craft, as numerous as ants, scattered and wriggling all over the sea, moving southward,\u201d Lam wrote on the evening of June 5, as the invasion fleet steamed across the English Channel.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone at action stations. We should be able to reach our designated location around 4-5 a.m. tomorrow and initiate bombardment of the French coast,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

Breakthroughs <\/p>\n

Sleuthing by history enthusiasts Angus Hui and John Mak in Hong Kong pieced together the story of how Lam found himself aboard HMS Ramillies and proved vital in verifying the authenticity of his 80-page diary, written in 13,000 wispy, delicate Chinese characters. <\/p>\n

Hui and Mak have curated and are touring an exhibition about Lam, his diary and the other Chinese officers \u2014 now on display in the Normandy town of Ouistreham.<\/p>\n

One breakthrough was their discovery, confirmed in Hong Kong land records, that the abandoned 9th-floor flat where the diary was found had belonged to one of Lam\u2019s brothers.<\/p>\n

Another was Hui\u2019s unearthing in British archives of a 1944 ship\u2019s log from HMS Ramillies. A May 29 entry recorded that two Chinese officers had come aboard. Misspelling Lam\u2019s surname, it reads: \u201cJunior Lieut Le Ping Yu Chinese Navy joined ship.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lost, found and lost again<\/p>\n

Lam\u2019s leather-bound black notebook has had a dramatic life, too. <\/p>\n

Lost and then found, it has now gone missing again. Hui and Mak say it appears to have been squirreled away somewhere \u2014 possibly taken to the U.S. or the U.K. by people who emigrated from Hong Kong \u2014 after the explorers riffled through the apartment, salvaging the diary, other papers, a suitcase, and other curios, before the building was demolished.<\/p>\n

But Hui, who lived close by, got to photograph the diary\u2019s pages before it disappeared, preserving Lam\u2019s account. <\/p>\n

\u201cI knew, \u2018Okay, this is a fascinating story that we need to know more about,\u2019\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a remarkable piece of history … could have remained buried forever,\u201d Mak says. <\/p>\n

They shared Lam\u2019s account with his daughter, Sau Ying Lam, who lives in Pittsburgh. She previously knew very little about her father\u2019s wartime experiences. He died in 2000.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was flabbergasted,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a gift of me learning who he was as a young person and understanding him better now, because I didn\u2019t have that opportunity when he was still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lucky escape<\/p>\n

Lam was part of a group of more than 20 Chinese naval officers sent during World War II for training in the U.K. by Chiang Kai-shek<\/a>. Chiang led a Nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949, fighting invasion by Japan and then Mao Zedong\u2019s communists, before fleeing to Taiwan with the remnants of his forces when Mao\u2019s insurgents took power.<\/p>\n

On their long journey from China, the officers passed through Egypt \u2014 a photo shows them posing in front of the pyramids in their white uniforms \u2014 before joining up with British forces.<\/p>\n

In his diary, Lam wrote of a narrow brush with death on D-Day aboard HMS Ramillies, as the battleship\u2019s mighty guns were pounding German fortifications with massive 880-kilogram (1,938-pound) shells before Allied troops hit the five invasion beaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree torpedoes were fired at us,\u201d Lam wrote. \u201cWe managed to dodge them.\u201d <\/p>\n

His daughter marvels at the lucky escape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that torpedo had hit the ship, I wouldn\u2019t be alive,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Through ships\u2019 logs, Hui and Mak say they\u2019ve confirmed that at least 14 Chinese officers participated in Operation Neptune, the naval component of the invasion which was code-named Operation Overlord. Some 7,000 vessels took part. The Chinese were deployed in pairs, on seven ships, Hui and Mak say.<\/p>\n

Operation Dragoon<\/p>\n

Some of the officers, including Lam, also saw action in the Allied invasion of southern France that followed, in August 1944.<\/p>\n

\u201cAction stations at 4 a.m., traces of the moon still visible, although the horizon is unusually dark,\u201d Lam wrote on Aug. 15. \u201cBombardment of the French coast started at 6, Ramillies didn\u2019t open fire until 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Germans put up such a feeble resistance, one can call it nonexistent.\u201d<\/p>\n

France awarded its highest honor, the L\u00e9gion d\u2019honneur, to the Chinese contingent\u2019s last survivor in 2006. Huang Tingxin, then 88, dedicated the award to all those who traveled with him from China to Europe, saying \u201cit was a great honor to join the anti-Nazi war,\u201d China\u2019s official Xinhua News Agency reported at the time.<\/p>\n

Lam\u2019s daughter says their story remains inspirational.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt talks about unity, talks about hard work, about doing good,\u201d she says. \u201cWorld War II, I think it shows us that we can work together for common good.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Leung reported from Hong Kong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OUISTREHAM, France (AP) \u2014 The captain of the giant Royal Navy battleship called his officers together to give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[13861,11410,1395,2000,299,36,4179,3749,164876,8615,164875,164874,82846,66009,35426,7660,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-503125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-adolf-hitler","9":"tag-asia-pacific","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-hong-kong","16":"tag-huang-tingxin","17":"tag-international-news","18":"tag-john-mak","19":"tag-lam-ping-yu","20":"tag-military-occupations","21":"tag-nazism","22":"tag-socialism","23":"tag-war-and-unrest","24":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115381713303620864","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}