Colonial Police Force (CPF). Auckland Harbour Bridge Superintendent.

Member of Lodge Eastern Scotia No 823 (Scottish Constitution)

Served:

1930s-40s: Hong Kong Police

WW2: Hong Kong, Singapore.

In 1941-42 the Hong Kong Police were sworn in as auxiliary troops. MacPherson's rank was Lance Sgt. During the Japanese occupation he was taken prisoner and was interned at the Stanley POW Camp where he met and married Doris Brooks (the daughter of Henry Tom Brooks).

While based in Hong Kong Duncan MacPherson was a member of the Eastern Scotia Lodge No 923, a lodge operating under the Scottish Constitution.

post-WW2:

1946 - circa1954: Hong Kong Police

1954: transferred to Kenya

November 1955: appointed Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police, Kenya.

Duncan MacPherson was in Kenya during the 'Maumau rebellion'. He was one of those who criticised the treatment of prisoners in Kenya, and gave evidence to that effect, and ultimately resigned his position. His descriptions of the conditions were quoted by Barbara Castle, MP for Blackburn, during a British parliamentary debate in June 1959. "I would say that the conditions I found existing in some of the camps in Kenya were worse, far worse, that anything I experienced during my four and a half years as a prisoner of the Japanese. I was horrified. I could never satisfy myself as to why violence was being used, although if appeared that unless a prisoner admitted Mau Mau he was subjected to it until he did."

1957: Retired from Police Force and to emigrated to New Zealand and worked as the first superintendent of Auckland Harbour Bridge (opened in 1959).

"D. G. McPherson - When he retired as bridge superintendent in 1978, McPherson ended a rich career which had seen him swap gunfire with bank robbers and pirates in Hong Kong; he had earlier led volunteer raids behind Japanese lines in World War II to help civilians escape the Japanese advance; he was entangled in gun battles during China's communist struggles; he became director of criminal intelligence in Hong Kong and then transferred to Kenya where he helped check the Mau Mau uprising. His abiding memory of the bridge was the car that skidded and rolled on to its roof as it approached the toll plaza. As it came to a rest, a hand emerged from the upturned vehicle, holding a 20c piece."

From: Paul Lewis, "Auckland's 175th anniversary: The bridge that nearly sailed away", New Zealand Herald, January 31st, 2015

(http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11394299)