Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Description

A Rare Working Survey Chart Created To Improve Existing Charts of Hong Kong

Detailed map of Hong Kong, created by the Hong Kong Surveying Unit in November and December of 1945.

The present map has been annotated in red, blue and purple, showing various changes (red) and contour features necessary to revise one of the Admiralty's existing charts (No. 1459).

At the end of World War II, the job of improving the existing charts of Hong Kong Harbor fell to a specially commissioned part of the British Admiralty called the Hong Kong Surveying Unit.  As noted by Tam Kowng-lim in Making Charts for and around Hong Kong -- Survey Work Since the Second World War":

Since the Second World War, the British returned to East Asia. Since 1941, under pressure from Japanese naval expansion in Asia, the British China Station was re-organized, with the stipulation that in the event of war, the three main commands in the Far East, the East Indies Squadron, the China Squadron and the Australian Squadron, should all fall under one command called the Eastern Fleet based in Singapore. When the Allied forces gained the upper hand and Japanese expansion was checked, the British created the British Pacific fleet in 1944 - 1945, and the Eastern Fleet later became the Far East fleet which operated in all Far East areas, including parts of the Pacific Ocean.

Similar to the arrangement of the “China Station”, the main bases remained in Singapore and Hong Kong, where the survey vessels were based.

Partly because of reduced funding and perhaps due to post-war geopolitical realities, British naval survey ships’ work in Hong Kong waters was gradually curtailed. Survey vessels stationed in the Far East were often more focused on survey work in Malaysian waters. Often only one survey ship was assigned to the Far East Fleet, covering the survey work of Southeast Asia and occasionally Hong Kong.

In 1945, to urgently upgrade and update the pre-war Admiralty charts, a special Hong Kong Surveying Unit was set up and tasked with obtaining local sounding data. A survey ship, HMS Challenger (commissioned in 1932, of 1,140 long ton displacement and a shallow draft of 3.81 metres), was sent to assist the Hong Kong Surveying Unit in surveying and producing two charts: “Hong Kong Water, East” and “Taikoo Docks and Aldrich Bay”. The dock area was heavily bombed during the War and therefore needed re-surveying.

The present chart, "Hong Kong Harbour . . .  ", was apparently unknown to the author.  Locally created and redlined, this chart notes that it is:

Tracing of Chart No. 1459, showing resurvey carried out with soundings obtained, wrecks and obstructions fixed.  Amened coastline and topography shown in red.  Mooring buoys are being raised and relaid and a subsequent tracing will be forwarded with theis information when completed together with particulars of anchorages, berths, and salvaged.

An important post World War II survey chart, which was almost certainly used to improve Chart 1459, however, we locate no surveying examples of this chart.

Condition Description
Red lined (and blue and purple llined) mimeograph.
Reference
Tam Kowng-lim: Survey work since the Second World War: https://www.mardep.gov.hk/theme/port_hk/en/p2ch4_5.html