START 00:23:56 Scenes filmed from a vantage point showing Chinese marchers celebrating the end of the war and victory over Japan as they parade through the centre of Hong Kong behind a large portrait of Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang-Kai-Shek, colourful banners and parasols and Nationalist Chinese, American, Soviet and British flags. Playing a conspicuous part in the parade are marchers wearing dragon costumes, musicians banging on big drums, a float with a replica of a naval destroyer, complete with smoking funnel, and men walking on stilts.

00:26:28 Travelling shots along a street in Hong Kong's Central District showing the colourful shopsigns and Chinese Nationalist flags flying from flagpoles. More shots of the Chinese victory parade in which marchers ride by on floats behind portraits of Chiang-Kai-Shek. A horse draws a float belonging to 'The South China Merchants Association'. Royal Navy personnel on shore leave can be seen among the large crowds lining the parade route. Passengers on two Hong Kong electric trams get a good view of the celebrations as they slowly make their way through the crowds. Street musicians banging on a big drum and clashing cymbals and women carrying vases of flowers on wooden poles take part in the parade.

00:29:20 Cameraman's slate 'N.I.L. Div B.P.F. 28/9/1945 Hong Kong Bank'. Views of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank headquarters, built in 1935 in the Chicago school style and recently vacated by the Japanese occupation authorities who had used it as their own headquarters. Views of the big commercial buildings along Des Voeux Road (or Queen's Road Central). Upside down slate 'Des Voeux Rd'.

00:31:11 Slate 'Bank of East Asia'. Views of The Bank of East Asia headquarters, also built in the 1930s, and pedestrians in the street opposite the entrance to Hong Kong city hall. Shots showing scenes in sidestreets and alleys off the main thoroughfares with laundry hanging on lines between tenement blocks, people going about their businesss such as a father who gathers up his child, another man frying food in a wok and another man carrying a heavy load on wooden poles. A view from Victoria Peak overlooking Hong Kong, the shipping in Victoria Harbour and the Central District.

END 00:34:40

Scenes filmed on 16mm Kodachrome stock showing the celebrations by the people of Hong Kong to mark the end of the Japanese occupation in September 1945.

Notes

Summary: The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank headquarters was the first building in Hong Kong to be fully air-conditioned. It was demolished in 1981 to make way for a 180 metre-tall 47-storey building designed by Norman Foster and completed in 1986.

Acquisition: Harold Thomson retrieved this Kodachrome footage from the Royal Navy and passed it on to the IWM after meeting Neil Pilfold of the Department of Information Retrieval in 1980.

Remarks: excellent footage.