The Fall of Hong Kong
-Jason

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            The opening phases of the Pacific Theater of World War II in December of 1941 were disastrous for the Allied forces.  The Japanese launched a stunning series of surprise attacks throughout Asia and the Pacific Ocean with those first weeks.  These actions irrevocably crippled the British, Dutch, and American military forces who encountered the Japanese and ensured the success of Imperial Japanese operations.

            Hong Kong is located on an island off the southeast coast of China and had been a British Crown Colony since the Treaty of Nanking signed on 29 August 1842.  It served as a major economic and military base in Asia for the British.  Despite this significance, realistically Hong Kong was indefensible: over the course of the 1930s the Japanese had effectively cut the island off with their seizures of Canton, Hainan Island, French Indochina, and Formosa.  Little hope existed that reinforcements could be rushed to relieve the garrison if war erupted.

            The British Empire was severely overstretched by the end of 1941: the Germans and Italians were heavily engaging the British in North Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean.  War materials, warships, and men were in short supply for the British and Hong Kong was quietly reclassified as an outpost instead of a Crown Colony in 1940.  Little work could be done to reinforce the existing defenses, much less build new ones, on the island until September 1941.  At this time, additional British, Canadian, and Indian soldiers arrived on the island, as well.  These actions were taken to discourage further Japanese aggression and reassure Chinese Nationalist Leader Chiang Kai-shek that the British and Americans supported his war effort.

            The limited number of aircraft, ships, and weapons hampered the garrison’s ability to defend the island.  Over 14,000 soldiers and sailors defended Hong Kong and the nearby Kowloon Peninsula; these troops were woefully underequipped to fight against the battle-hardened Japanese facing them.  Only five British aircraft were stationed in Hong Kong, and these were obsolete.  Three World War I-era destroyers and four river boats comprised the naval forces available to defenders.  Against this small Allied garrison, the Japanese had 29,700 troops, 47 aircraft, one cruiser, 3 destroyers, and numerous smaller ships.  The Japanese also enjoyed the advantage of easy resupplies and replenishment of casualties. 

            As Japanese aircraft decimated the United States Pacific Fleet on 7 December 1941, Japanese forces also struck targets across the Pacific Ocean.  The Japanese simultaneously attacked the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong at the same time as the Pearl Harbor attack was taking place.  The British garrison was aware that Japanese forces had been massing their forces along the Kowloon Peninsula since early December.  An air raid against Hong Kong’s airport destroyed the British planes on the ground.  Despite fierce resistance by British troops stationed on the Kowloon Peninsula, it was apparent that Hong Kong was doomed.  The Royal Navy ordered two of the British destroyers to break out of the harbor and escape to Singapore; this was an inauspicious sign for those members of the garrison left behind.

            By 13 December 1941, the British had moved their surviving forces from the Kowloon Peninsula to defend the Hong Kong.  The fortifications that had been completed before the outbreak of the war were inadequate to resist the Japanese.  Japanese soldiers landed on the north shore of Hong Kong on 18 December and cleared out the defenders.  Casualties among the garrison skyrocketed and several determined, but doomed, counterattacks were crushed.  By 25 December, the situation for the British was untenable; their last defensive lines were overrun.  The British governor, Mark Young, and General Christopher Maltby sent representatives to surrender to the Japanese on the afternoon of Christmas Day. 

            The next three and a half years proved to be brutal for the survivors of the Fall of Hong Kong.  The British, Indian, and Canadian POWs suffered disease, starvation, torture, and death under Japanese incarceration.  The civilians of Hong Kong fared little better: an estimated 10,000 citizens were executed during the Japanese occupation.  Despite the loss of Hong Kong, many local resistance groups sprung up to contest Japanese control of the Kowloon Peninsula and the island.