Hong Kong

Hong Kong. This British colony, situated in southern China, contained in its 1,035 sq. km. (400 sq. mi.) a population of about 1.4 million, almost all of them Chinese. Japanese spies had been at work there for many years and had obtained accurate intelligence on the British defences, troop dispositions, and communications. A Japanese invasion from occupied China (see China incident) was not unexpected; the colony had simply been told to hold out for as long as possible. But lacking any possibility of reinforcement—and with help from Chiang Kai-shek's army failing to materialize—resistance from its inadequately armed 12,000-strong garrison was brief.

The principal British defensive line was just 5 km. (3 mi.) north of Kowloon in the Leased Territories. Manned by three battalions of Indian and Scottish troops, it was too long for the numbers available to defend it. Another three battalions were deployed on Hong Kong island; two were Canadian—the first Canadian troops to see action in the war. Local artillery and volunteer defence units were the only other ground forces available to the garrison's commander, Maj-General Christopher Maltby, and his air and sea support were pitifully inadequate: seven obsolescent aircraft, one destroyer, eight MTBs, and four gunboats.

Early on 8 December 1941 Japanese bombers destroyed all seven aircraft at Kai Tak airfield and the Japanese Twenty-Third Army's 38th Division, commanded by Lt-General Sano Tadayoshi, crossed the Sham Chun river into the Leased Territories. By the evening of 9 December it had reached the main defensive line and that night took an important redoubt. This made the overextended British positions untenable and forced Maltby to evacuate the mainland.

After Maltby's hasty withdrawal to Hong Kong island, completed on 13 December, Sano immediately began to bombard it, and heavy air attacks were also launched. These badly damaged the destroyer and two MTBs, and caused bad fires in the central business district, Victoria. Though most of the civilian population had responded to a call to resist the Japanese, some civil unrest and banditry followed, and a number of Chinese unsuccessfully attacked an important anti-aircraft position. An attempt by Sano's troops to cross the island on 15 December was repulsed, but three nights later they landed in strength between North Point and Aldrich Bay. They quickly penetrated inland, splitting the defending forces. MTBs tried to stem the tide, by attacking boats carrying Japanese reinforcements, but Japanese air superiority was complete and naval losses were heavy. Nevertheless, resistance was so stiff that on 20 December Sano was forced to halt temporarily to reorganize, but by 24 December the surviving defenders were exhausted, and water and ammunition supplies were short. On the afternoon of Christmas Day a cease-fire was arranged and that evening the governor surrendered the colony unconditionally to Sano's army commander, Lt-General Sakai Takashi.

Japanese casualties amounted to 2,754; the garrison's were 4,400 including 800 Canadians. A few of the defenders escaped, including those who formed the British Army Aid Group, but most became prisoners-of-war. Some Indian troops joined the Indian National Army; white civilians suffered internment; and the colony remained in Japanese hands as part of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere for the remainder of the war.