Along the Southern Boundary: A Marine Police Officer’’s Frontline Account of the Vietnamese Boatpeople and Their Arrival in Hong Kong

＂We had no jurisdiction outside of Hong Kong waters. But we could see their vessels sinking in heavy seas. It was life or death, right there. We just went.＂ Former Marine Police officer Les Bird tells of the harrowing sea journey to Hong Kong made by tens of thousands of refugees in the years that followed the end of the Vietnam War. And as he patrolled the southern maritime boundary of Hong Kong, he photographed their makeshift boats and later the people-smuggling vessels coming in, including the Sen On, a freighter ship that the crew abandoned. With his previously unpublished collection of personal photographs he tells the stories of the young children, the father who just bought a boat to embark on a 1,000-mile journey, and the disillusioned North Vietnamese battle-hardened veterans - all searching for a new life.

Born in 1951 in England, Les Bird joined the Royal Hong Kong Police in 1976 and served for two decades in the lead-up to the change of sovereignty. He was a rural officer in the remote fishing town of Tai O, he was involved in bringing in Vietnamese refugees along the Southern Boundary, and he chased down the ＂big flyer＂ daai fei smuggling speedboats which carried stolen luxury cars across Mirs Bay to China. Bird is married with two daughters and still lives in Hong Kong.