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[Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps] James Whitham

Born

26 January 1907, Shanghai

Death

2 October 1942, Lisbon Maru

Unit/Organization

Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps

Rank/Post

Lieutenant

Pre-war

Born to Robert Percy Whitham (who worked for the American Trading Company) and Mary Adelaide Birch, Whitham attended Sherborne School from May 1920 to July 1925, having previously attended Cathedral School in Shanghai and Beechmont Preparatory School in Sevenoaks, Kent. He is remembered as an outstanding sportsman. In 1925 he went to Cambridge, and by 1935 was in Hong Kong, marrying Janet Orr in the same year, though they later divorced. In Hong Kong he had a number of roles in finance, finally, in 1939, becoming Acting Branch Manager of the Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada. Living at 6 Shek O, he married American Beatrice L Brouwer at City Hall on 18 January 1941. Their son Jonathan was born at Matilda Hospital on 30 November 1941. Whitham was a member of the HKVDC.

Wartime

Whitham was transferred into the Middlesex Company on 17 December 1941 as a lieutenant. By around December 20 Whitham was leading a reconnaissance patrol of 13 men, including Company Clerk Robert Wright, in the Maryknoll area of Stanley. Surviving the fighting there, including an episode of friendly fire from PBs 22 and 23, he became a POW. In September 1942 he was one of 1,816 officers and men who were aboard the Lisbon Maru when it was torpedoed. He managed to escape from the vessel.

Wright recalled: “It was then that I heard someone calling my name. It proved to be Lieutenant Whitham who, completely naked, was hanging on to a flimsy piece of wood.” Wright swam off to find a lifebelt for Whitham who had problems with his legs (possibly due to a rugby accident at school), but when he returned there was no sign of the officer. Whitham’s wife and son were interned in Stanley but repatriated to the US in the middle of 1942. By January 1944 Betty and Jonathan were living at Cobble Hill, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, but on 18 January 1944 2-year-old Jonathan accidentally drowned in a creek near their home. Betty then trained as a cypher clerk and was sent to Bombay where she would meet her second husband-to-be.

Post-war

Whitham is remembered at the Saiwan memorial in Hong Kong. Beatrice remarried in 1945 to Major John William Humphries and they had two children. She died in Herefordshire on 24 March 2020, aged 103.

Sources

Photo: Tony Banham; The Battle of Hong Kong 1941: A Spatial History Project