Forces With History #222--December 8th, 1941

Battle of Hong Kong

This edition of Forces With History is coming to you a couple of days early because I want to publish it on December 8^th, a date that marks the grim events that befell the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada in 1941.

Every American schoolchild would be able to tell you that December 7^th was the Day of Infamy, when Japan attacked the US fleet in Pearl Harbor. But across the international date line in Hong Kong it was December 8^th.

Just arrived in Hong Kong some three weeks earlier were the Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles, sent from Canada to reinforce the British, Indian, and Hong Kong troops already present. They comprised a force of about 14,000 in all.

Without warning, Japanese infantry and artillery poured across the boundary separating the British New Territories from occupied China. Within a matter of hours the few British aircraft at Kai Tak Airfield were destroyed by Japanese planes.

From December 8^th until Christmas Day, the defenders were battered by hugely superior numbers of battle-hardened Japanese troops backstopped by artillery and aircraft. The Grenadiers, Royal Rifles, and their compatriots “fought like tigers,” as one commentator noted to me. But on the 25^th, the Union Jack was hauled down. The surviving Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen faced a bleak future as prisoners of war.

Looking back now, it’s hard to imagine how disastrous things looked for Britain and her allies. Most of continental Europe flew the swastika. Hong Kong was gone. Singapore fell in short order, accompanied by the nearby sinking of His Majesty’s Ships Prince of Wales and Repulse. The American Pacific Fleet was gone.

The Pacific Ocean was a Japanese lake.

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If any readers happen to be in the area, I’ll be signing copies of THE FORGOTTEN: A NOVEL OF THE KOREAN WAR at Indigo in Langley today, December 8th from 1 to 3 pm. It would be great to see you!