The Battle for Hong Kong

In the early hours of 8 December 1941, Lieutenant-General Sakai Takashi, commander of the 23rd Army of Japan, ordered air strikes on British warships and various strongpoints in Hong Kong: Japanese bombers attacked Victoria Barracks, the Taikoo Dockyard, Kai Tak airport, the barracks of the Indian units stationed in Hong Kong near Fanling and Sheung Shui as well as buildings outside Kowloon City. The destruction of all the British military and civilian aircrafts at Kai Tak airport allowed Japan to secure complete command of both air and sea. On the same morning, Japanese forces crossed the Shenzhen River and entered the New Territories at a number of different points, and they proceeded to seize the Shing Mun Redoubt on the Gin Drinker’s Line. The defending troops retreated to Hong Kong Island, abandoning the Kowloon Peninsula to Japan, which had occupied it by 12 December. Six days later, on 18 December, the Japanese army landed several units at North Point and Taikoo Dockyard. They advanced westwards into Wong Nai Chung Gap on the following day, where they met fierce resistance from the defending troops. Japan had planned the invasion of Hong Kong in meticulous detail and deployed more than 40,000 troops, seriously outnumbering the 13,000 men assigned to Hong Kong’s defence. Close to 2,700 defending troops were killed in action or reported missing during the Battle for Hong Kong, which ended with the city’s defeat after just 18 days of conflict.

Upon learning of the Hong Kong Government’s intention to surrender later in the day, General Chan Chak, the Chinese Nationalist government’s military representative in Hong Kong, decided to break out of the city with his aides and British personnel, 68 men in total, on 25 December. After fierce fighting with Japanese troops, they managed to escape Hong Kong and eventually arrived in Qujiang (present-day Shaoguan), which was still under the control of the Chinese army. In the afternoon of the same day, Governor Mark Young surrendered to Lieutenant-General Sakai Takashi, commander of the Japanese forces, at the enemy’s temporary headquarters in the Peninsula Hotel. The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, which was to last three years and eight months, began.