Cheung Koon Fu

At the end of 1941 subsequent to the surrender of the British, the New Territories were in disorder and the problem of banditry in Sha Lo Tung was severe.  Most bandits came from Mainland China into the New Territories, armed with weapons such as ‘box cannons’ and revolvers.  Since the British Hong Kong government prohibited private possession of weapons before the war, Sha Lo Tung villagers only had rusty knives that rendered them unable to resist bandits.  Cheung Koon Fu could recall three incidences of looting committed by the bandits.  The first time, they took away poultry and other livestock.  The second time, the bandit gang, with more than 30 people, looted a variety of food.  In the third time, they even robbed the cotton blankets.  Sha Lo Tung did not have much agricultural land in the first place, so food was in scarcity after the looting.  The villagers subsisted on sweet potato, wild potato and sarsaparilla.  

Shortly after the fall of Hong Kong, the Sha Tau Kok squadron of East River Column’s Hong Kong-Kowloon Independent Battalion sent a liaison officer to Sha Lo Tung to promote the resistance efforts of the guerrilla force and to organise the youth into militia under the guerrilla force’s direction.  The enrolees could choose to stay in the village or go for guerrilla training at a base in the Mainland.  Sha Lo Tung became chaotic after the fall of Hong Kong. Cheung Koon Fu and family lived in hardship and suffered from the ordeal of Japanese rule, but did not want to just stay idle at home all day.  Having learnt that the guerrilla force was fighting for the country and that it was not bad in nature, he finally joined the Sha Tau Kok squadron in 1943.  He admitted that joining the army was out of a need and was a way to survive.  He felt that human life was cheap in those war years and did not bother to consider personal safety.   

After the completion of training in the East River Column’s base, Cheung Koon Fu returned to Sha Lo Tung with the responsibility to organise literacy classes for villages. Cheung Koon Fu and students talked about the wartime situation, and used facts to depict the brutalities of the Japanese as well as the need for resistance.  He only discussed what he knew.  He was just an ordinary New Territories villager before joining the force.  With limited knowledge on national issues, he dared not make any causal talks.  Cheung Koon Fu emphasized to them the benefits of the guerrilla force.  He gave them an honest account of his own background, and hoped to let the older generation know about guerrilla force through the younger people.   

In 1946, Cheung Koon Fu joined the police force at the age of 25.  His police ID number was 938. In 1947/1948, the New Territories’ Superintendent of Police founded the Village Police Patrols, informally known as "pangolin" and in short as "VPP".  The Superintendent of Police invited Cheung Koon Fu to join the VPP, considering that Cheung is an indigenous Hakka person of the New Territories.  Cheung led a four-person unit, patrolling villages, liaising with villagers and helping villagers apply to the government for the construction of bridges and roads.  The VPP was a special unit in the police force, which worked four days a week and took rest on the other three.  The team members prepared their own equipment rather than signing out firearms from the police station.  After becoming part of the VPP, Cheung Koon Fu was promoted to corporal- a rank commonly known as "two chevrons".  Two to three years later, he was further promoted to Sergeant - a rank referred to as "three chevrons". 

When the police later organised the Village Police Patrol (VPP, known as "pangolin") in the New Territories, they appointed Cheung Koon Fu to be the first captain. Members of VPP must be indigenous Hakka in the New Territories because Hakka people had an edge in language, wide kinship networks, and geographical knowledge in the New Territories’ villages.  Cheung Koon Fu led four teammates who were all chosen by him.  The VPP’s jurisdiction covered the New Territories and the Lantau Island area, with patrol area reaching as far as Lok Ma Chau, Lung Kwu Tan and other places.  Occasionally, they also carried out duties in the urban area. When Cheung Koon Fu entered the villages for the first time, he reported his parents’ identity to the villagers, an act informally known as "tat dor", which was a way to build rapport by playing up the sense of kinship and rural affection.   

In the 1950s, Lau Fau Shan, Lung Kwu Tan, Nim Wan, Pak Nai were seriously plagued by bandits mostly from Mainland China in groups of more than 10 people.  Cheung Koon Fu considered the suppression of bandits riskier than serving as a liaison officer for the guerrilla force.  The liaison officers would dodge the Japanese forces and needed not to crossfire with the enemies.  But the police had to be alert at all times when dealing with the evasive bandits.  The bandits were heavily armed and were equipped with box cannons, revolvers and other firearms.  The VPP was not the only unit involved in fighting bandits, but they must be present in the field.   

Before the war, many New Territories residents already migrated abroad, mainly to the United Kingdom.  In the early years after the war, local industry had not flourished yet.  There was a serious unemployment problem in the New Territories, and the government recruited a lot of New Territories’ youth into the police, fire service, artillery and other disciplinary forces.  To Hakka people who could not be enlisted due to language barrier, the government encouraged them to go abroad to earn a living.  Application to go abroad was easy then.  The applicant simply needed to submit a letter of guarantee from an overseas relative to the District Office to get some simple procedures done.  Cheung Koon Fu thought that encouraging enlistment and immigration was a political manipulation used by the British high officials in the government.