Sir Cecil Halliday Jepson Harcourt was a British naval officer. He was the de factogovernor of Hong Kong as commander-in-chief and head of the military administration from September 1945 to June 1946. He was called by the Chinese name "Ha Kok", a reference to the fourth-century Chinese nobleman :zh:宗慤|Chung Kok.
Military career
Harcourt was born in Bromley, Kent, England, to Halliday Harcourt and Grace Lilian on 11 April 1892. He was educated at Fonthill, East Grinstead, and later at the Royal Naval College at Osborne and Dartmouth. He had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy, which he entered as a midshipman on 15 September 1904, at the age of 12. He served in both world wars. In 1939, Harcourt was appointed Director of the Admiralty's Operations Division. In 1941 he was Flag Captain of the Home Fleet, while commanding HMS Duke of York. In August 1942 until January 1943 he commanded the 10th Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet. From 1942 to 1944 he took part in the North Africa campaign, the capture of Tunisia, Pantelleria, Lampedusa, and Sicily, and the landing at Salerno. In 1944, he became Naval Secretary. In 1945, he was Flag Officer Commanding11th Aircraft Carrier Squadron, with his flag in HMS Colossus. Harcourt commanded Task Group 111.2 for the reoccupation of Hong Kong with his carriers, three cruisers, four destroyers, a submarine, and mine-sweeping flotillas. He ordered his carriers' planes to destroy a small number of Japanese suicide motor boats near Hong Kong. The pre-war colonial secretary Franklin Gimson took Harcourt to the prisoner of war camps and hospitals. Their first stop was the Stanley Internment Camp, which Harcourt reported:
On arriving we found everyone awaiting us and we had a most unforgettable welcome. The Union Flag had been produced by an ex-Naval rating who had hidden it in his bedding when Hong Kong was captured and had managed to hide it for the whole period so as to be ready for this occasion. The morale... was extremely high despite the obvious effects of malnutrition which could be seen on every face. The enthusiasm and the cheering really had to be seen and heard to be believed, it was so obviously spontaneous and seemed to express the pent-up feelings of all these years. I shall never forget it.
On 17 April 1913, he assumed the surname "Harcourt-Morris", but this lasted only a short time. In 1920 he became the second husband of the English pianist Evelyn Suart, a widow. They had no children of their own. One of her daughters by her first marriage was the noted ballerina Diana Gould, who later became the second wife of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Her sister Griselda became the second wife of the pianist Louis Kentner. After Evelyn Suart's death in 1950, Harcourt married Stella, widow of Air CommodoreDavid Waghorn, in 1953.
