Jake Saunders
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Sir John Saunders (John Anthony Holt Saunders, C.B.E., D.S.O., M.C. , widely known as Jake) (born July 29, 1917) was chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (now HSBC Holdings plc), at a time rapid and turbulent development of the Hong Kong economy. In his banking career, as chief manager (effectively chief executive) from 1962, and chairman from 1964 to 1972, Saunders was at the helm of Hong Kong's most important financial institution at a time when the Crown Colony was rapidly changing from a trading post to a regional centre of manufacturing and finance.
A fierce pace of economic growth was fuelled by an influx of industrious migrants from China and an administration dedicated to laissez-faire tax and trade policies.
From 1966, however, domestic business confidence and dealings with mainland China were severely disrupted by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. In 1967 the devaluation of sterling - to which Hong Kong's currency was then fixed - was another blow.
Tall and confident, with perfect manners, Saunders led the bank through these events with a calming hand. In its centenary year, 1965, Hongkong Bank was offered a majority stake in the Hang Seng Bank, a local retail bank which had suffered a sudden run on deposits after rumours that it was in trouble.
Saunders was out of the colony when the crisis arose, but returned to complete the negotiation. In the same period, he broadened Hongkong Bank's own customer base to include a new generation of Chinese (often Shanghainese) entrepreneurs, and acquired for the bank an early equity stake in the World-Wide Shipping Group, the shipping empire of Sir Yue-Kong ("Y.K.") Pao, with whom Saunders formed a close friendship.
The bank also invested in the Swire family's Cathay Pacific airline. Its branch network expanded, and it was a frontrunner in computerisation.
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[edit] Early life
He was born at Uxbridge, the son of a banker, and educated at Bromsgrove School. He joined the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation in London in 1937 on the introduction of the Duke of Devonshire, to whom his maiden aunt Elsie was private secretary.
As training for his first tour of duty in the Far East, he was posted to the bank's Lyons branch in France, where the principal business was financing the silk trade with Indo-China. He became a lifelong Francophile, acquiring a particular enthusiasm for champagne and oysters.
[edit] World War II
During the Second World War he fought in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, was wounded and Mentioned in Dispatches and won an MC and a DSO in Italy in the battles of Monte Spaduro and the Argenta Gap.
When war broke out in 1939, he resigned from the Hongkong Bank and took the train back to England to enlist in the Army as a private soldier. He was selected for officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst where he was awarded the Belt of Honour for the best cadet in his intake.
He was commissioned into the 1st Battalion, East Surrey Regiment and fought with the battalion, part of British First Army's 78 Division in North Africa, first as a platoon commander and later as intelligence officer. After serving with the Battalion in the Allied invasion of Sicily, 78 Division was shipped to Taranto, Southern Italy, in September 1943 to become part of British Eighth Army and joined the campaign up the Adriatic coast of Italy including actions crossing the Biferno, Trigno and Sangro rivers. In January 1944 (by which time Saunders was the Battalion Adjutant) 78 Division moved to the Cassino sector to take part in the third and fourth battles, the final battle starting in mid May. After the Allied breakthrough the Division took part in the pursuit continuing to fight northwards from Rome towards Arezzo. In July the Division was taken out of the line for rest in Egypt.
Early in October 1944, the battalion, in which Saunders was now commanding a Company, returned to Italy and travelled by transport on a circuitous route from Taranto that took them through Assisi, Perugia and Arezzo to San Apollinare in the Tuscan Apennines.
It was a grim, mountainous area with narrow, winding tracks, pitted with shell holes which turned to slippery mud in the heavy rain. The task of 78 Division was to join in the offensive to break through the mountains to the Lombardy plain. The battalion's role was to capture two objectives, Monte La Pieve and Monte Spaduro, which blocked the advance.
On the night of October 15, the 1st Surrey's attack on Monte Pieve was only partly successful, but an attack in brigade strength two days later ended in anti-climax when the enemy was found to have gone.
Monte Spaduro, a massive, razor-backed ridge running from south to north for almost two miles, remained in German hands and on the night of October 23 the battalion took part in a brigade attack on the feature.
The approach march to the brigade assembly area took the 1st Surreys along three and a half miles of winding mountain tracks with steep, muddy gradients. After a heavy artillery barrage, "A" Company, commanded by Major Saunders and "D" Company led the assault on Monte Spaduro with "C" Company bringing up the rear.
By one o'clock in the morning, after heavy fighting, the battalion had achieved the objective, but persistent sniping and machine-gun fire from the cover of deep gulleys pinned down "A" Company and prevented "C" Company from moving up to its correct position. The following afternoon, Saunders tried to flush out the Germans with two-inch mortars but this failed.
The use of heavier weapons was considered but dismissed; the enemy was too close. When two men in the 1st Surreys attempted to move their position, one was sniped in the head and killed, the other took a bullet in the arm.
Saunders grabbed a rifle and bayonet and, taking two men with him, worked his way round to the gulley. Reaching a point above where the enemy appeared to be, he charged down the gulley towards them, yelling as he did so. Four German soldiers with two Spandau light machine-guns surrendered. Saunders was awarded an immediate MC.
The Battalion then spent a miserable winter holding these mountainous unsheltered positions in bitterly cold and wet conditions.
In the spring of 1945, the 8th Army's objective was to break through the German defences on the rivers Senio and Santerno and drive through the Argenta Gap, a strip of land between Lake Comacchio and flooded land south of the river Reno, to destroy the German armies south of the River Po.
On April 14, the 1st Surreys and the 2nd Battalion, the Lancashire Fusiliers, as part of 78 Division's 11th British Infantry Brigade, moved up to a concentration area in readiness for an assault on the Argenta Gap. The Lancashire Fusiliers had suffered heavy casualties and Saunders was transferred from the 1st Surreys and appointed second-in-command.
The 11th Brigade crossed the river Reno and negotiated extensive minefields until it reached the outskirts of Argenta. On the approach to Fossa Marina, a canal running north-eastwards from Argenta across the entire width of the Gap, it ran into strong opposition.
It was essential to press on to the Fossa Marina before the enemy could establish a firm defence there, and it was decided that a full-scale assault would be necessary.
On the evening of April 16 the 1st Surreys moved forward after dark and secured a base from which the Lancashire Fusiliers could cross the Fossa Marina and establish a limited bridgehead beyond it. At midnight, after a bitter struggle, a foothold had been secured across the canal when the commanding officer of the Lancashire Fusiliers was wounded and the attack became stabilised on the line of the canal.
At this critical moment, Major Saunders took command of the battalion and, under his leadership, all the objectives were reached and held against determined counter-attacks the following morning. He was awarded an immediate DSO. He finished the war in Austria and retired from the Army in 1946.
[edit] Post-war banking career
After the war, Saunders rejoined the bank in Singapore and was posted to Hong Kong in the early 1950s. He became Chief Accountant in 1955 and held a series of appointments in Hong Kong and Singapore, before becoming Chief Manager in 1962.
As head of the bank, Saunders was also an important civic figure: he was a member of the Executive Council, was much involved in the development of Hong Kong University (for some years serving as Treasurer of the institution), and was chairman of the stewards of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, where he introduced a new level of professionalism. He served as a Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong from 1955 and was also a longstanding trustee of the Gurkha Welfare Trust. His influence in Hong Kong and the region led to the Portuguese Government conferring on him in 1966 the Commandership of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator. He also received an honorary Degree of Doctor of Social Sciences from the The University of Hong Kong in 1969.
He was appointed CBE in 1970 and was knighted in 1972 when he retired from the bank. He continued to hold a number of non-executive positions in other organisations for some years afterwards. He died on 4 July 2002.
[edit] Sources
G.L.A. Squire and P.G.E. Hill (1992), The Surreys in Italy. The Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment Museum, Clandon, Surrey
Maurice Collis (1965), Wayfoong: The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Faber and Faber, London
