Hebe Jebes Issue Sep to Oct 2013 Sep 2013 | Page 49

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Opposite: 1) Members of the East River Detachment with
Donald Chan—Admiral Chan Chak’s son. 2) Stone originally
marking Hiram’s Highway. Note the 42 RM CDO—42 Royal
Marine Commando on the side. This page: 3) Inspector Chris
Potts RHKP, 4) General Ritchie presenting the banner and
monetary rewards as thanks to the people of Sai Kung in 1947
and 5) A replica of the Golden Pennant.

Highway. What has happened to it I do not yet know but I soon
will. I also knew that the lieutenant that was in charge of the road’s
construction earned the nickname ‘Hiram’ because of his love of
the American brand of sausages made by Hiram K. Potts.
Even Sir Denis Bray, in his book Hong Kong Metamorphosis named
him incorrectly as Hiram Potts, but had correctly recorded the fact
that he was a Lieutenant in the Royal Marine Commandos. This is
how Bray described his time as a District Officer:
“The district had no major towns and only two roads. One
was a good two-lane pre-war road down the length of the Clear
Water Bay peninsula to a gun emplacement for the defence of
the eastern approaches to Hong Kong. In early postwar years, a
permit was required for access to this road as nearly the whole
length of it was used as an ammunition store, the munitions being
stored in little huts at intervals on alternate sides of the road.
The main road to Sai Kung town was a jeep track rejoicing in the
name of Hiram’s Highway. It was built by the army in the very
early postwar years as a reward for the resistance by the Sai Kung
people during the Japanese occupation.
The road derives its name from the Commando Lieutenant,
Hiram Potts, who was in charge of its building in the early postwar
days. He and his commandos laboured alongside people of the
district to construct a perilous jeep track down from the Clear
Water Bay Road. Traffic could only move one way and, if you
missed the timing, you had to wait for ty minutes for the next
window of oppor tunity. The widened road was only opened for
two-way traffic just before Chinese New Year in 1960.”
Lieutenant John Wynne Potts of 42 Royal Commando had a
good war raiding the Japanese in coastal Burma. He arrived in
Hong Kong with Admiral Harcour t’s liberation fleet. Due to the
war a lot of American food was shipped into England, and amongst
the food supplied to the Commandos was Hiram K. Potts’ tinned

sausages, and he loved them. The English love a nickname so Mr
John Wynne Potts acquired the nickname of Hiram.
Sai Kung, prior to the war, had always been remote and difficult
to get to—one of the reasons the Japanese found it difficult to
control.The only way in was by a footpath or a boat. So with military
logic, a Marine Commando—with an engineering background
limited to digging trenches in India and gun emplacements on the
Orkney Islands in Scotland—now had the task of constructing
a road, to live up to the Marine motto per mare per terram—
by land and sea. With his company of eighty Marines as well as
Japanese and Korean POWs he set to building the road. A visiting
officer seeing him at work made a sign saying Hiram’s Highway
and the name stuck. This was replaced later with a concrete block
formalising its name as Hiram’s Highway.
Potts stayed in the Marines for 36 years, retiring in 1978, also
seeing action in Cyprus and Malaya. His son was an inspector in
the Hong Kong Police Force and posed by the stone.
By this time (1949) Potts had transferred from 42 Commando
to 40 Commando and was still in Hong Kong. At a full dress
parade, upon receiving the order, ‘Officers draw swords’ Potts
drew and presented his, but it was broken. He had been in a light
hear ted—drunken—sword fight with a fellow officer the night
before and his sword had an accident. He completed the whole
parade with only half a sword.
As one can see from his military records, he stayed in the
Royal Marines for some time, retiring finally in 1978. He was only
promoted to Honorary Major on his retirement. He died in 2009
in Chichester.
My thanks to Colin Aitchison and the following websites as valuable sources
of information when researching this article:
www.unithistories.com, www.militaryforums.co.uk, and www.rm-badges.com
September/october 2013

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