Battle of Hong Kong: 80 years on, the memories of an indelible episode in city’s history still resonate
- While the British-led forces held out for less time than London had hoped, the resistance was stronger than Tokyo planned
- The horrors of war are hard to reconcile with some uncharacteristic acts of generosity by the commander of the Japanese forces
On December 8, 1941, I left my family’s home in Hong Kong and set off for school as usual, only to hear our maid frantically yelling for me to return. While I did not know it at the time, hours earlier and over 8,000km away, the Japanese had attacked the US fleet at Pearl Harbour.
He noted even then “nobody pretends that the position of the Colony is strong” but remarked that the people seemed complacent and uninterested in Japan’s movements.
Others pompously believed that the Japanese military had “neither the audacity nor capability” to seize the colony. Britain’s plan in the event of an attack was for the garrison to hold out until reinforcements could arrive from Singapore.
In late summer 1941, concern over morale and prestige prompted the decision to dispatch two battalions from Canada to reinforce the Hong Kong garrison. The Canadians arrived on November 16, less than three weeks before the fighting started.
The Japanese forces were led by Lieutenant General Takashi Sakai, who was instructed to take the city within 10 days. While the British-led forces held out for less time than London had hoped, the resistance was stronger than Tokyo planned.
My family spent the duration of the fighting hunkered down inside our home. One member of the household was killed by a bomb shell in the garage. I left the house on December 25, the day the British surrendered, and saw a group of Japanese soldiers hang a Chinese man upside down from a tree and beat him.
Two days after the surrender, two Japanese military vehicles pulled up to our house carrying none other than General Sakai himself. I immediately feared he had come to arrest my father, a high-ranking general in the Kuomintang Army.
To my surprise, Sakai entered our house and warmly shook hands with my father, who I learned was an old friend from their days as classmates in Tokyo. Rather than arrest my father, Sakai asked if there was anything we needed. When my father asked for provisions, Sakai sent enough food and water for us to share with our neighbours.
My father then asked Sakai to arrange transport for my family to Chongqing, where the Kuomintang government had relocated. Sakai would not do this, but he agreed to arrange a cargo ship to Shanghai instead.
When our household of 47 people arrived at the docks to meet the ship, the Japanese were initially reluctant to allow us all to depart. Again, it was Sakai who intervened and personally authorised our entire party’s departure.
‘I have shot Buzz’: British officer in the Battle of Hong Kong
Others were forcibly evacuated as the Japanese attempted to limit the city’s population. Some were forced onto boats that abandoned them on deserted islands or were burned and sank in the harbour. For these actions Sakai would be executed in 1947.
The journey in the cargo ship that took us away from Hong Kong was tense. We were all aware that our vessel would be a target for any American submarine operating in the area. Then a hurricane forced us to stop in Taiwan overnight. We finally made it to Shanghai and took a train to Beijing, where we spent the duration of the war.
There are few survivors left to tell their stories of the battle, surrender and occupation of Hong Kong. That the battle’s outbreak coincided with the attack on Pearl Harbour and the surrender occurred on Christmas Day means the dates themselves often fail to resonate in the West.
Chi Wang, a former head of the Chinese section of the US Library of Congress, is president of the US-China Policy Foundation