CANADA HISTORY - War

Hong Kong


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By 1941 with the war going badly in Europe, the British Empire was also faced with rising tensions in the Pacific. Japan had been on he March since the early 1930's. The crown colony of Hong Kong was considered a vulnerable position and Britain and Canada decided that re-enforcements were needed to shore up its defences. Canada ordered the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers to Hong Kong and on October 27th, 1941 they sailed from Vancouver on the Awatea escorted by the HMCS Prince Rupert. These units comprised over 1877 men and 96 officers. These two groups became known as C Force. The heavy equipment and transport which was shipped just a few days later was never to reach Hong Kong because of the attack on Pearl Harbour and the outbreak of war with Japan.

These units arrived in Hong Kong on November 16th and took up their garrison duty, expecting to have time to train most of the troops which were relatively green. The Japanese attacked the U.S. forces in the Philippines, Pearl Harbour, Guam and Wake Islands and Hong Kong.

The Canadian's were deployed along a defensive position known as Gin Drinkers Line. On December 10th, 1941 these defensive positions were breached. By December 13, all of the commonwealth troops had retreated from the mainland to Honk Kong Island. The Japanese demanded surrender that day and again on December 17th. The allies turned them down and on the night of the 18 Japanese troops massacred 20 commonwealth troops. On the night of the 19th another massacre of commonwealth troops toke place and continued to December 15th when the hospital at St Stephen's College was captured and over 60 injured soldiers were tortured and killed. That afternoon brought the realization to the Governor of Hong Kong that things must be stopped and that a surrender to the Japanese would have to take place. He did so and the commonwealth troops were marched off into captivity.

The reaction in Canada and Britain was one of confused surprise. The upstart Japanese were sweeping through Southeast Asia and the British Empire was crumbling. The only bright spot in the December of setbacks was that the U.S. was now in the war and an ally of Britain and Canada.

Battle:

December 8 - 25, 1941

Campaign:  

Pacific War

War: World War II 1941 - 1945
 
Where: Hong Kong
China Theatre
Asia
 
 

Opponents

Belligerents: Canada Japan
Britain  
India  
Hong Kong Troops  
 
Commanders:
 Mark Aitchison Young - Br
 Christopher Maltby - Cdn
Takashi Sakai - Jp
 
Forces: 14,000 troops 52,000 troops
 
Result:

Japanese Victory

 
Casualties: Canada & Allies Opponents
Killed -  2,113 Killed - 1,996
Wounded -  2,300 Wounded -6,000

Cite Article : Reference: www.canadahistory.com/sections/documents/documents.html

Source: NA



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