D) The Blow Falls!

The Blow Falls!

And then the blow fell!  Radio ‘knob-twiddlers,’ who chanced to listen in during the small hours of December 8th, heard the news of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. At 6am in Hong Kong the code message came through which meant, “To your stations!” From that moment life in our hitherto peaceful colony was a nightmare. The first Japanese air attack came immediately, military pressure was applied from South China in such strength that the portion of the Colony which is on the mainland had to be abandoned in the first few days. The garrison retired to what was publicly described as ”the impregnable fortress of the Island.”

But the scanty troops were unable to guard all possible landing places. The Japanese shelled and bombed the city heavily, pressed into use the large number of launches and ferries available in a busy harbour, and soon over-ran the Island, though they lost some thousands of men in the process. The British garrison numbered 10,000 (comprising Home, Canadian and Indian troops). It is estimated by the British General-Officer Commanding that the Japanese brought to bear a better equipped force of 60,000 men.

To have maintained a larger British garrison would have been useless. Doubling the numbers would require extensive barrack building schemes; to have held so many extra men in a crowded city under sub-tropical conditions during the years 1940 and 1941 (in anticipation of attack) would have accentuated grave social problems, for Hong Kong has an evil reputation from the angle of military hygiene. 

Whatever numbers the British put in, the Japanese could have over-called the bid.  Against 10,000 they brought 60,000; against 20,000 they could have marched 100,000. To the British, Hong Kong was a small, distant outpost; to the Japanese it was a mere pocket of resistance in a tract of South China already under their control.