The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945

by Oliver Lindsay

  Major G E Grey, commanding the border force of C Company 2/14 Punjabis and the Engineer demolition parties to the east and north of Fanling, immediately and successfully blew up all forward demolitions, having received orders to do so at 5 a.m.

  At 6.45 a.m. the garrison was told that the British Empire and Japan were at war. Some 75 minutes later the loud crescendo of an air raid warning ominously disturbed the bright sunny morning. Practice alerts had never taken place at that hour before.

  John Harris went out onto the veranda of his flat in May Road, halfway up the Peak, in time to see planes circling over Kai Tak airport. The loud rattle of anti-aircraft and machine-gun fire mingled with the explosions of falling bombs. So sudden was the attack that people elsewhere at first thought that “the bloody Royal Air Force was practising for a display”. He also saw bombs landing very close to a Royal Navy ship in Victoria Harbour. She was moored fore and aft and was trying frantically to sail to safety. He had never seen the Navy unloose a ship so quickly.

  John drove in his Morris car to his battle position at the Dairy Farm, close to the Royal Artillery gun positions on Mount Davis in the northwest of the Island and near Queen Mary Hospital. He met there about a dozen other Sappers. The Dairy Farm was a well-built, single-storey agricultural building on a beautiful site overlooking the Canton Delta. His role was to repair any structural damage and to maintain the pumps which carried water to the Gunners. He did not anticipate that he would have to undertake infantry patrols when more and more men were lost in the desperate days ahead. We will return to his adventures in due course.

  The Japanese attack on Kai Tak had been most successful. All but one of the five ancient Vildebeeste and Walrus aircraft were left blazing on the airfield close to wooden buildings which had crumbled into sheets of flame. Eight civilian aircraft had also been destroyed. The implications of losing so much so soon were serious: Maltby no longer had the ability to mount air reconnaissance to discover the location of the Japanese. Attempts to camouflage the dispersed aircraft were futile; no dispersal bays had been built due to the expense involved.

  The Japanese then switched to their secondary targets. Ignoring the port, gun positions and troop emplacements on the Gin Drinkers’ Line, they chose to attack the 2,000 Canadians still in Shamshuipo camp. Heavy bombs descended upon the barracks while fighter aircraft machine-gunned the huts from 60 feet. But the Japanese intelligence was faulty: both Canadian battalions had moved on the previous day. There were only two Canadian casualties – Sergeant Routledge and Signalman Fairley. They were the first Canadian soldiers to be wounded in the Second World War.

  The Japanese had over-estimated the strength of the RAF in Hong Kong. They gleefully reported on Radio Tokyo the destruction of 14 large and 12 medium planes.

  The Hong Kong scene had changed dramatically. Trucks, cars, buses, wagons, carts and rickshaws still ran through the narrow streets, but air raid wardens, auxiliary nurses and uniformed Volunteers of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps were already at their posts.

  Conscription for British residents had been introduced in Hong Kong in 1941. Most had joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, referred to hereafter as ‘the Volunteers’. They had become something very special, for they alone were training to fight for their families and homes. They came from many professions: there were humble clerks and dockyard artisans as well as prosperous bankers and the taipans of the big trading firms. All parts of the British Isles were represented in their ranks, which also included Chinese, Free French, Russians and Portuguese. There were also Scandinavians and Americans who can even more truly have been considered Volunteers since their nations were then neutral.

  As Hong Kong prepared for its first morning of war, Sawyers, Churchill’s butler at Chequers, carried in a cheap portable radio to the Prime Minister’s dining room. A programme of music was suddenly interrupted by a warning to listeners to stand by for an important announcement. Averell Harriman from Washington and Churchill heard the calm, grave voice of the BBC announcer tell Britain that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The Stars and Stripes and Union Flag were now irrevocably entwined.

  In Hong Kong furious work continued on the demolition of the railway bridges over the Sham Chin river. (See Map on page 37) The British could see the Japanese quite clearly, scarcely 300 yards away to their front – well within shot. But the Japanese made no attempt to rush the bridges or open fire, since they too were equally busy preparing their own bridge which they would push across when the British had blown theirs and departed.

  As the dust settled after two enormous explosions, the British and Japanese alike saw that both bridges had been destroyed. The Japanese eagerly rushed forward with their replacement as the demolition party pulled back behind Major Grey’s covering force.

  Forward observation posts reported hundreds of Japanese sweeping south in two separate thrusts at best possible speed, travelling across country rather than by roads when necessary. At 6.30 p.m. the railway tunnel south of Tai Po was destroyed, while defensive positions were taken up for the night on the higher ground to the south.

  Despite the inevitable loss of the obsolete RAF aircraft, the first day of the battle for Hong Kong had gone to plan, thanks to Major General Maltby and his garrison. The 12,000 British, Canadian, Indian and Chinese troops were in their defensive positions and the ships at battle stations in good time. Maltby had ordered the blowing up of the demolitions four hours before the Japanese 38th Division had attacked.

  * * * * *

  This should be compared to developments elsewhere. We have seen how the British Expeditionary Force in France had no warning of the German onslaught; at Singapore the first Japanese air raid on the installations was an instant success; everything was beautifully lit up because the man responsible for blacking everything out had gone off duty taking the key to the electricity power station with him.

  An American radar unit at Pearl Harbor had detected the approach of aircraft. Close to the island an American warship had sunk a Japanese submarine. Nevertheless the alarm was not raised. When the Japanese started positioning themselves to attack the US Pacific Fleet at Hawaii several Americans started making out low infringement flying reports, still believing the aircraft must be their own. There subsequently occurred one of the strangest episodes in American military history: the destruction of General Douglas MacArthur’s air force, on the ground, nine hours after word had reached him of the disaster at Pearl Harbor. The need for momentous decisions in Manila that morning proved to be too much for him. The United States lost most of their aircraft in the Philippines, practically all the B-17s and most of their fighters, surprised on the ground, with negligible cost to the Japanese.1

  * * * * *

  By dawn on 9th December, Major Grey’s forward troops were between the northeast of Needle Hill, on Monastery Ridge and Sha Tin – the last of their delaying positions. They had fulfilled their role admirably. Communications had been well maintained, over 100 casualties inflicted on the enemy and 16 major demolitions carried out on the bridges, roads and railway. By dusk they withdrew behind the Royal Scots, Rajputs and Punjabi Battalions on the Gin Drinkers’ Line. But the Japanese were clearly fit, skilful and well led. The ability of the Japanese to move rapidly and stealthily, particularly at night, disturbed and probably surprised Maltby.

  On the Island, theatres, cinemas and some restaurants still functioned normally. At the Palace Floating Restaurant, which resembled a Mississippi steamboat, diners leisurely chose their lobsters, shrimps, crabs, scallops, oysters, squids, prawns and garoupa, all of which wallowed alive in large cages beneath the restaurant, a few paces from the toilets which spilt their contents into the static, stagnating water.

  The South China Morning Post on Tuesday 9th December was as reassuring as always. Life went on as normal on the Island “as if we were taking part in yet another exercise”, recalled Captain A G Hewitt, the Adjutant of the Middlesex. “We were not very concerned that the Japanese had advance
d rapidly. I drove round the Island with the RSM and visited our companies and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, drinking Scotch with our people and Canadian rye with the others. Morale was high.”2

  To what extent they were influenced by Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham’s stirring Order of the Day is doubtful. It read: “We are ready. We have had plenty of warning and our preparations are made and tested… We are confident. Our defences are strong and our weapons efficient. Whatever our race, we have one aim and one aim only. It is to defend these shores, to destroy such of our enemies as may set foot on our soil…”

  General Maltby’s Order of the Day was “… I expect each and every man of my force to stick it out unflinchingly, and that my force will become a great example of high-hearted courage to all the rest of the Empire who are fighting to preserve truth, justice and liberty for the world.”

  By 9th December the Japanese closed up to the Gin Drinkers’ Line. The blow was to fall on the Royal Scots’ Shingmun Redoubt – the ‘vital ground’ to the British and Japanese alike, the key to the defensive position on the Mainland. The redoubt was the dominating ground which, if captured by the enemy, would enable them to choose the most advantageous approach into Kowloon City itself, bypassing the Rajputs and Punjabis to the east.

  Brigadier Wallis commanding the Mainland Brigade was well aware of the extreme vulnerability of the redoubt. He had participated in exercises earlier in the year when his Rajput Battalion broke through the position. Little did he realise that the tracks he was using would be used by the Japanese some months later. A Royal Scots officer made a ‘dummy’ attack on the Redoubt in early December to practise the defences. He had no difficulty in getting a section through the perimeter wire onto the position undetected. There are two reasons why this vital ground was so vulnerable. The principal one is that only No. 8 Platoon Royal Scots, an artillery observation post and A Company Headquarters, 42 men in all, could be spared to hold the position because all Maltby’s forces, in particular those on the Gin Drinkers’ Line, were spread too thinly. Secondly, the ground favoured the attacker because the front consisted of a confusing complex of defiles, re-entrants, bowls, sloughs and streams, varying in height between sea level on the west to over 1,000 feet on the east. There was, therefore, no prospect of many of the platoons being able to support each other.

  In keeping with Brigadier Wallis’s orders, the Commanding Officer of the Royal Scots, Lieutenant Colonel S E H E White, impressed on all ranks that the concrete defensive works were only to be used for Vickers machine-gun teams in the special weapon bays, for storage and, as a last resort, as protection against artillery or mortar fire. The need for sustained patrol activity was stressed. No mines could be spared for the redoubt’s front.

  The Royal Scots clearly had their problems, but so did Colonel Doi Teihichi and his 228th Regiment, whose leading battalion was advancing towards Tai Wai at the foot of Tide Cove.

  * * * * *

  To digress very briefly by introducing a personal note, having served in Hong Kong in the mid 1970s, I was posted at my request to Ottawa to serve ‘on exchange’ for two years in the Canadian National Defence Headquarters. Knowing that I was about to meet veterans of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, which had much in common with my own Regiment including the same cap badge and Regimental March, I visited the Canadian Historical Branch. I enquired there if they had any files in their archives on the Winnipeg Grenadiers who had fought in Hong Kong. To my amazement, Brereton Greenhous showed me shelves of dusty files which contained all I needed, including numerous files with personal accounts by the senior surviving Japanese officers. These accounts are in no other archive. It transpired that the Japanese officers in question were brought back to Hong Kong after the war to face trials on the atrocities they had allegedly committed. Canadian prosecuting teams met them there and they all frequently walked the ground together with interpreters, and so the accounts ended up in Ottawa. The Japanese first-hand stories which follow in this book can therefore be relied upon.

  * * * * *

  By 3.00 p.m. on the 9th, Colonel Doi, ahead of his two other battalions, was on Needle Hill watching the Gin Drinkers’ Line. “For about two hours we carried out a reconnaissance of the main line of defence,” he recalled. “Although the enemy was not to be seen, a good view of the trenches and defensive positions was obtained, and a sighting of something like white clothes being dried gave a clue to the likely presence of enemy troops. My impression was that the enemy was still inactive perhaps because of their estimate that it would take at least several more days for the Japanese troops to approach their position. Heavy fog suddenly limited the visibility to about 20 metres, and as the rain began to fall and the wind was increasing it became utterly impossible to continue the recce.”3

  Colonel Doi’s communications had failed and he had lost touch with his three battalions. Moreover, although he was being drawn irresistibly to attack the Shingmun Redoubt, it lay firmly in another Japanese regiment’s sector. In the Japanese army, orders, once issued, had to be rigidly obeyed forthwith; there was no flexibility, or opportunity for commanders to use their discretion.

  At last Doi located his battalions, which had already had an exhausting approach march; his supporting artillery had been delayed well back due to the British demolitions on the Tai Po Road and would not be available.

  Near Jubilee Reservoir he ordered his 2nd Battalion on the left to recce the enemy. The 3rd Battalion was to attack at 11.00 p.m., with two Companies, containing at least 150 soldiers, leading. Obstacle-clearing teams moved forward to clear the pathways through the wire entanglements; this would take them an hour. As the Japanese prepared to attack the vital ground, Colonel Doi wondered what the British were up to.

  At 8.00 p.m. 2nd Lieutenant J S R Thomson left the Redoubt with a patrol of nine soldiers. The remaining 17 men of his platoon were largely manning the Vickers machine guns or on sentry duty in the pill-boxes, of which there were five – all constructed of concrete and steel and connected to each other by underground tunnels.

  The Company Commander, Captain C R Jones, had received orders from Colonel White that his Company should patrol to the north, to check on any enemy being on the southern slopes of Needle Hill and in the Shing Mun Valley, and that his patrols should then return via Captain H R Newton’s D Company of the 5/7 Rajputs. It had been moved earlier that day to Smuggler’s Ridge, which lay to the southeast of the Redoubt.

  Thomson returned at 10.20 p.m. having spent some time with Captain Newton. “It seems beyond doubt, in view of the short time that had elapsed, that Thomson did not patrol towards the Shingmun river or Needle Hill. If he had, he would have run head-on into the advancing Japanese,” recorded the history of the Royal Scots.4 Had Thomson discovered that Doi’s battalions were massing for an attack, he could have sent runners to the Forward Observation Officer, Lieutenant L C Wilcox, on the Redoubt. The FOO could then have brought artillery fire down on the Japanese, while all the mortars within range could have lobbed explosive projectiles at a high angle into the Japanese forming up points. Instead, Thomson reported to Jones in the artillery observation post, which was located underground alongside the Company Headquarters, stating that there was no indication that the enemy was near.

  Ten minutes later Jones received a message that F W Kendall, who was nearby with another platoon, wanted to speak to him. Kendall was in charge of ‘Z’ Force, which had received some training to sabotage the enemy behind their lines. Because of the poor visibility, Jones ordered his runner, Private Wyllie, to guide Kendall to the observation post. Wyllie, contrary to orders, borrowed the key to the grille at the entrance of the post from the sentry there and, on departing locked the gate on the outside and went off with the key. The only other entrance was by the ‘trap’, or upper grille. “Although those inside the observation post were not aware of the situation the reality was they were trapped below ground. Thomson was the first to discover this predicament when he tried to return to his platoon,” conti
nues the Royal Scots’ history.

  At 11.00 p.m. Corporal Laird, on sentry nearest to the Shingmun river, saw lights and a group of shadowy figures approaching the wire. He challenged them. Receiving no reply, he opened fire with a sub-machine gun. Grenades were flung at him and his fire was returned. Laird alerted his section commander and shouted to the signaller to inform Sergeant Robb and Captain Jones of the situation.

  “The Companies leading the attack,” wrote Colonel Doi, “assaulted the eastern position. First, a small number of troops threw hand grenades into the air ventilation chimneys of the connecting tunnels, and the infiltrating teams went into the tunnels and engaged in fierce close-quarter fighting.”

  Jones told Brigadier Wallis on the field telephone that he had heard muffled explosions and shouts. Wallis ordered that this serious situation must be quickly dealt with and told Jones “to get out with all his men to evict the enemy quickly”. Never, to his dying day, did Wallis ever discover that Jones was trapped inside the post with the Platoon Commander and Forward Observation Officer. The Japanese started to drop grenades down through the grille. The field telephone line became silent at 1.30 a.m. Over an hour later there was a large explosion which blew the roof off the observation post. By that time the three officers within the position, Jones, Thomson and Wilcox, were all wounded as were six soldiers, while two Indian Gunners had been killed. In these circumstances Captain Jones decided to surrender. They were virtually on their own because 18 men of the Royal Scots had decided to ‘live and fight another day’ by moving southeast up to a mile away to join Captain Newton’s Rajputs, whom they reached at 3.30 a.m. on 10th December.

  The last Royal Scots section post on the Redoubt held out for a further 11 hours before a British shell caused the concrete pill-boxes to cave in. Four soldiers were dug out alive by the Japanese.