The Battle for Hong Kong 1941-1945

by Oliver Lindsay

  During the afternoon the enemy attacked Stanley Mound and Stone Hill, which the Royal Rifles were holding with difficulty. With no 3-inch or 2-inch mortars left, the Canadians could give no effective reply. A lack of signals resources prevented the forward artillery observation post being effective. Home was still “anxious to withdraw and was reiterating that further fighting was merely causing useless casualties which could not stave off final defeat,” recorded the Brigade War Diary. Home was presumably unaware that Churchill had signalled the Governor telling him to fight on.

  Wallis gave orders “for a strong counter-attack, supported by all the fire available, to recapture all Stone Hill and Stanley Mound”. It took place at dawn on the 23rd and was successful, with the Royal Rifles reoccupying their forward positions but in smaller numbers. Captain Weedon’s Middlesex machine guns’ support was most effective, as was the artillery fire.

  Almost two hours later, Wallis told Maltby that the Royal Rifles had been driven off the position and that Home had stated that his Battalion had lost by now 18 officers killed, wounded or missing and he had only 350 men left (less A Company, believed to be at Repulse Bay). Home insisted that his unit must fall back as the men were exhausted and would fight better on the flatter ground around Stanley village. Orders were accordingly issued to move back after dark.

  After the withdrawal, Wallis spent considerable time that night trying to encourage Home to keep going.

  The following morning, Christmas Eve, Wallis attended a conference at the Royal Rifles’ HQ. He found the senior officers gathered there. Home announced that “it was the considered opinion of the Battalion as a whole that fighting should cease”. Wallis rejected this “and told the Canadians they must either fight or march out under a white flag to Repulse Bay. The Royal Rifles refused to surrender alone,” continues the Brigade War Diary. Wallis decided “to temporarily withdraw the Canadians to Stanley Fort on the southern tip of the Peninsula so that they could rest and reorganise leaving the defence of the Peninsula to more reliable troops.”

  Was Lieutenant Colonel Home right to seek to surrender? Wasn’t the situation quite hopeless? Was Home acting in the best interests of his Canadians, endeavouring to save their lives thereby? Should Wallis have removed him and appointed the Second in Command with categorical orders to hold the front line, instead of the equally exhausted, over-extended, composite, ad hoc group of Middlesex, Volunteers, Gunners and others? Are there precedents in the British Army in war for the sacking of senior officers who refused to attack? Then, a crucial point, can the Brigade War Diary quoted above be trusted? It was largely compiled by Brigadier Wallis himself.

  These questions will be briefly addressed in the next two chapters. Certainly none of those in Stanley on Christmas Eve could anticipate the catastrophic events which were about to occur there.

  Notes

  1. Letter from Brig. A Peffers to Brig. W H S Macklin, 22.9.45 (NDHQ).

  2. Guest, Freddie, Escape from the Bloodied Sun, Norwich: Jarrolds, 1956, p. 13.

  3. Letter Man to author.

  4. War Diary of Chief Signal Officer China Command, Hong Kong, 1941, and POW diary of Chief Signal Officer.

  5. Beevor, Antony, Berlin, London: Viking, 2002, p. 299.

  6. War Diary and Narrative of East Infantry Brigade and advanced troops, pp. 123–4.

  7. Letter Templer to author.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Surrender of Hong Kong:

  Christmas Day 1941

  “Christmas greetings to you all,” signalled Churchill. “Let this day be historical in the proud annals of our Empire. The order of the day is hold fast.”

  Sir Mark Young’s message read: “In pride and admiration I send my greetings this Christmas Day to all who are fighting and all who are working so nobly and so well to sustain Hong Kong against the assault of the enemy. Fight on. Hold fast for King and Empire.”

  The Governor was remarkable in at least one respect: during the campaign, quite regardless of the enemy snipers, the shelling and bombing, he was invariably ‘out and about’ encouraging people, whether it be in an Advanced Dressing Station, a distant unit or a Headquarters. Captain Iain MacGregor, the General’s ADC, had just emerged from Fortress HQ on Christmas Day and was waiting for a temporary lull in the heavy bombardment before making a dash for Flagstaff House. He suddenly saw Sir Mark strolling towards him in a beautifully cut, lightweight suit, grey Homburg hat and highly polished shoes. “He was unconcernedly swinging a Malacca walking stick, as if he was playing truant from the Colonial Office and taking a quiet walk in the sunshine of St James’s Park,” recalls Captain MacGregor. “I called out, ‘It’s getting a bit hot along there, sir; better take cover.’ He smiled and said, ‘Hullo MacGregor! Lovely day, isn’t it?’ and strolled on, neither slackening nor quickening his pace, completely composed and apparently without a care in the world. He walked straight through the shelling, leaving a very red-faced ADC in his wake.”1

  Behind the facade, Sir Mark Young was acutely conscious of what the people in Hong Kong were suffering. Four days earlier he had forewarned London and Ottawa of the extreme gravity of the situation: “Enemy hold key position on hills, and GOC advised that we are rapidly approaching the point at which only remaining resistance open to us will be to hold for a short time only a small pocket of City, leaving bulk of population to be overrun. I feel it will be my duty to ask for terms before this position is reached…”

  As the Governor’s signal was being transmitted to the Colonial Office, the Director of Military Operations, Major General J N Kennedy, was briefing the CGS. (He had earlier disagreed with Grassett that Hong Kong should be reinforced.) “Resistance could probably not be counted on for more than a few days and it would be on a small scale,” Kennedy told Alanbrooke. “Therefore it would have practically no direct influence on operations in the Far East in the way of tying up Japanese forces which might be released for operations elsewhere, but if we fought to the last round and the last man at Hong Kong, we should gain an indirect military advantage in that the Japanese would judge our resistance in Malaya and elsewhere by the same standard… ”2

  The Christmas Day issue of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post was as optimistic and irrelevant as usual. “Day of Good Cheer” read the headline. “Hong Kong is observing the strangest and most sober Christmas in its century-old history… All are cheerful in the knowledge that, for all the hardships, they would not go either hungry or thirsty this Christmas… ”

  Greetings came from an unexpected quarter: the Japanese were keeping up their propaganda broadcasts from Kowloon. “A merry Christmas to the gallant British soldiers,” many heard. “You have fought a good fight, but you are outnumbered. Now is the time to surrender. If you don’t, within 24 hours we will give you all that we’ve got. A merry Christmas to the gallant British soldiers… ”

  The Japanese were certainly giving all that they had to the troops defending the Island. The Royal Scots were in the area of Mount Cameron and to the north. On Christmas Eve D Company had suffered particularly heavy casualties. The effective strength of the Battalion was down to 175 all ranks, although there were a number of missing sub-units which had been cut off but were still fighting with others. Very early on Christmas Day the enemy attacked the Royal Scots again but failed to penetrate any of the positions.

  At 7.00 a.m. anti-tank mines were laid on the main Japanese approaches to Wanchai. The defenders were still holding the eastern approaches to Bennetts Hill.

  Two hours later two British civilians came through the Japanese lines carrying a white flag. They were A L Shields, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, and Major C M Manners, Manager of the Kowloon Dockyard. Both had been captured at Repulse Bay and persuaded to ask Sir Mark Young to surrender. Not much persuasion was necessary as they had seen the terrible suffering of the seriously wounded abandoned on the hillsides, and the abundance of Japanese troops, artillery and equipment. A bullying Lieutenant had started pushing Shields aro
und. So Shields made a formal protest to the Japanese Commanding Officer, who was so anxious that the fighting be stopped he gave Shields some tea, after ordering the Lieutenant to take off his shoes and stand in his stocking feet as a humiliating punishment.

  Shields and Manners told Maltby all they had seen and emphasised the uselessness of continuing the unequal struggle.

  “A special defence meeting was immediately called, where it was decided that there could be no talk of surrender,” recorded Maltby. “The Japanese sent one message – that their forces would not initiate active hostilities for three hours. I conformed… This impromptu ‘truce’ was difficult to stage for Japanese planes, operating from Canton, did not conform and bombed Stanley, Aberdeen and Mount Gough… At midday Japanese artillery opened up punctually on a large scale and later hand-to-hand fighting was reported by 5/7 Rajputs on Mount Parish… which fell into enemy hands and an advance along Kennedy Road was threatened. This put Fortress HQ area, which had a garrison of only one Punjabi platoon, in jeopardy… Communications were increasingly difficult to maintain… There were at noon only six guns of the mobile artillery left in action… very heavy dive-bombing attacks were made in the Wanchai Gap… which was reported lost… Captain C M M Man, commanding the Middlesex Z Company, had telephoned ‘the line is breaking’. This advance by the enemy along the line of Gaps, the isolation of the forces at Stanley, the deployment by the enemy of such superior forces and armament, the exhaustion after 16 days of continuous battle with no relief for any individual, our vulnerability to unlimited air attack, the impossibility of obtaining more ammunition for the few mobile guns I had remaining, the serious water famine immediately impending – these were the factors which led to the inevitable conclusion, namely, that further fighting meant the useless slaughter of the remainder of the garrison, risked severe retaliation on the large civilian population and could not affect the final outcome. The enemy drive along the north shore was decisive,” continued Maltby. “I asked Lieutenant Colonel H W M Stewart OBE MC commanding the Middlesex how much longer the men could hold the line. He replied ‘one hour’. The Commodore agreed with my conclusion. At 15.15 hours I advised HE the Governor and C-in-C that no further useful military resistance was possible and I then ordered all Commanding Officers to break off the fighting and to capitulate to the nearest Japanese Commander, as and when the enemy advanced and opportunity offered.” That concluded Maltby’s despatch.

  A Japanese newsreel unit subsequently filmed Maltby and his principal staff meeting the senior Japanese officers outside Fortress HQ. The film shows that there were smiles, salutes and handshakes all round.

  * * * * *

  A Bloodless Mutiny

  There were certainly no smiles at Stanley where Brigadier Wallis, out of touch with events elsewhere, seemed determined to fight on to ‘the last man and last round’.

  As we have seen, Wallis had decided to withdraw the Royal Rifles to Stanley Fort because he felt it “imperative to clear the battlefield of disaffected troops liable to jeopardise the defence,” continues the Brigadier. Then, referring to himself in the third person, he writes, “The Brigade Commander stated he had also considered arresting or shooting Lt Col. Home and placing Maj. Price (2nd in C) in command. He had however refrained from doing so as he had come to the conclusion that many officers would require shooting – that it was in fact a bloodless mutiny.”3

  Wallis wrote the above within nine months of the events. It seems apparent from his reference to shooting Canadian officers that he must have become seriously mentally unbalanced. Worse was to follow.

  * * * * *

  There are few, if any, examples in regimental histories of senior officers being suddenly removed from their commands. Letters found in Scotland, published recently in The Guards Magazine, the Journal of the Household Division, reveal one such case, although the official history of the Grenadier Guards does not refer to it. Brigadier R B R Colvin, commanding 24th Guards Brigade, was a highly experienced and capable Grenadier Guards officer who had been wounded at Dunkirk. In April 1943 his Divisional Commander, believing a German position at the Bou in North Africa to be lightly held, ordered him to advance his Brigade at once, although there was no tank support. Colvin protested and was told his attack must take place in daylight the next day. He reluctantly agreed, stipulating that they must start at 6.30 p.m., close to dusk, because there was so much open ground to cover. At noon on the appointed day the Divisional Commander said the attack must be brought forward to 4.00 p.m., which meant there would be no time for a reconnaissance or for briefing the Guardsmen; the attack would have to be carried out in the heat of an African afternoon although the men were still in their heavy battledress (as were the Canadians at Stanley); and at no stage of the attack would they have the advantage of surprise or the cover of darkness (again, like the Canadians at Stanley on Christmas Day).

  Colvin refused to carry out these orders on the grounds that there would be unnecessary casualties. He was absolutely right. Yet he was immediately sacked and reduced in rank. The daylight attack, without him, proved extremely costly. In 1987 a Guards battlefield tour visited the Bou at exactly the same hour and date of the attack; the light was incredibly clear and it was obvious that the very strong German position of 1943 would have started killing the advancing Guardsmen at 1,000 yards.4

  After some unhappy months commanding a reinforcement camp, Colvin was appointed Brigade Commander in Italy, was wounded at Monte Cassino and won the DSO.

  * * * * *

  Home refused to obey certain orders in Hong Kong, having no confidence in the judgement of his senior officer – Wallis. Colvin did the same, quite rightly, in North Africa. They had one other matter in common: Home was also eventually promoted to Brigadier.

  * * * * *

  In the absence of the Canadians at Stanley Fort, Wallis reorganised his defences in three zones. The first line consisted of the Middlesex, Royal Artillery Gunners fighting as infantry, Volunteers, and staff from Stanley prison. Wallis had nothing but praise for them, being particularly impressed by the Middlesex and No. 2 (Scottish) Company of the Volunteers which was commanded by Major H R Forsyth. He had been a Gunner in the First World War and a peacetime chartered accountant. Wallis greatly admired his “fine leadership, courage and devotion to duty. This brave officer though mortally wounded refused to leave his post in Stanley. He stayed with his men to the last.”

  Another whose gallantry was remarkable was a disgraced regular officer who had been imprisoned at Stanley just before the invasion. Sir Mark Young approved his release and Wallis wrote that the Captain was invariably where the fighting was thickest and that “he did the best any man can do to make up for his former shortcomings by his conduct in the face of the enemy”.

  At 6.00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, the enemy opened a one-hour intense artillery and mortar bombardment on the forward and support positions before launching a major assault with strong bodies of infantry. The enemy were using light tanks, light machine guns, mortars and grenades. Even so, their attempts to filter forward were largely unsuccessful. That night Brigadier Wallis learned with astonishment that some European nurses were at St Stephen’s College, a few hundred yards northeast of the police station, in Japanese hands. He thought the hospital had been evacuated; an ambulance was sent to try to rescue them. At 7.00 a.m. Captain Weedon led a well-planned counter-attack and the enemy was beaten back, but not for long.

  Brigadier Wallis explained the situation to Lieutenant Colonel Home and said the Royal Rifles must attack. “Home demurred and said his unit had not had enough rest. The Brigade Commander replied that nobody else had had any rest at all. That we could not sit inactive and watch the Middlesex, Gunners and Volunteers fight a battle as infantry, when much of the Royal Rifles, probably still the largest unit intact on the Island, was available,” reported the Brigade War Diary. “The Brigade Commander insisted and Major Parker was detailed by Lt Col. Home to collect and launch a strong attack.” Orders were issue
d to him at 8.30 a.m. No artillery support was available due to the configuration of the ground.

  Fortress HQ told Wallis that “there would be a stand-fast for three hours from 10.00 hours while a white flag party of women and children were being moved from Repulse Bay Hotel”. Despite this ‘truce’, Wallis ensured that Major Parker’s attack continued. His D company left the fort at 11.30 a.m. and then departed for the assembly area for the attack between 1.30 and 2.00 p.m. Wallis watched them, recording that “the men were in bunches about shoulder to shoulder as if they found greater courage by this method. They were shouting and yelling as they advanced. On reaching the northwest of the cemetery [which lay just to the northwest of the prison] they were met by heavy fire from St Stephen’s and its bungalows and suffered numerous casualties. After some 15 minutes the disorganised Company withdrew right back to Stanley Fort in a broken manner and suffered more casualties in once more crossing the open ground near the prison.”5

  Sergeant G S MacDonell commanded one of the Royal Rifle platoons; he saw it differently: “Since the enemy had a much superior position on higher ground above us and had good cover, I decided we must close quickly or suffer… Accordingly I ordered the men to fix bayonets and charge which they did with fearful war-whoops. Within seconds we were upon the enemy – which led to a confused mêlée of hand to hand fighting which lasted no more than three or four minutes – We then carried on and, driving the remnants of the enemy before us, entered into the houses on the high ground. Another close scrap took place as the Japanese stubbornly refused to be evicted… We continued on until we ran into a platoon of Japanese… we fired first and literally wiped out the enemy platoon as it stood… Heavy fire was now directed at us and casualties began to mount; we therefore returned to the houses to regroup… and began to repel the Japanese counter-attack which now developed in some strength. Shells began to explode through the roof and walls. With ammunition running low and the houses literally being shot to pieces around us, I received an order to pull back as we were in danger of being cut off.”6