Who won the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941?
Japan won. The 38th Division of the Japanese 23rd Army crossed into the New Territories on 8 December 1941 and forced the British colony to surrender on Christmas Day, about 18 days later. The garrison of some 14,000 had no hope of relief.1
On 8 December 1941, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft bombed Kai Tak airfield and Japanese infantry crossed the Shenzhen River into Hong Kong's New Territories. On Christmas Day the British Crown colony surrendered. Its defenders had no air cover, no fleet and no hope of relief, and for most Canadian survivors years of captivity followed.2
Background: an outpost nobody expected to hold
Churchill and his chiefs of staff judged that Hong Kong could not be held in a war with Japan and treated it as an outpost. In September 1941 they changed course: Major-General Grasett, the former commander in Hong Kong, argued that two or more extra battalions would let the garrison withstand a long siege, and London hoped they would also deter Japan and reassure China's Chiang Kai-shek. On 19 September the Dominions Office asked Canada for "one or two" battalions.3
Why did Canada send troops to Hong Kong?
Canada sent troops because Britain asked in September 1941 for one or two battalions to strengthen Hong Kong, as a deterrent to Japan and a sign of support for China. Ottawa agreed, expecting garrison duty rather than war. The Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers sailed from Vancouver on 27 October 1941. › Second Battle of Changsha, 1941
The two battalions, about 1,975 Canadians under Brigadier John K. Lawson, formed C Force: the Royal Rifles came from the Quebec City area and the Grenadiers from Winnipeg. They landed on 16 November, but their 212 vehicles, aboard the freighter Don José, never arrived and were handed to the defenders of the Philippines.4
The garrison and the attackers
Major-General Christopher Maltby had some 14,000 men: the 2nd Royal Scots and the 1st Middlesex, a machine gun battalion; the 5/7th Rajput and 2/14th Punjab Regiments; the two Canadian battalions; the Hong Kong and Singapore Royal Artillery; and the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. The historian V. M. England notes volunteer companies known as Portuguese, Chinese and Eurasian.5
The attack fell to the 38th Division of Lieutenant-General Tadayoshi Sano, part of Lieutenant-General Takashi Sakai's 23rd Army. A study published by the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association counts nine Japanese battalions against six of the garrison plus volunteers, while Hong Kong Memory, a government archive, gives more than 40,000 Japanese troops against 13,000 defenders. Japan held complete command of the air.6
8 to 13 December: the Gin Drinkers Line and Kowloon
Maltby put the Royal Scots and the two Indian battalions on the Gin Drinkers Line, about 18 kilometers of trenches and pillboxes across the hills north of Kowloon, while the Canadians held the island's south coast against a landing from the sea. On the night of 9 to 10 December the Japanese seized the Shing Mun Redoubt, the key to the line's left flank, in a night attack. The Canadian official history calls its loss "a disaster": Maltby had noted in a dispatch that "Japanese night work was poor".7
On 11 December a company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers sent to the mainland exchanged fire with the enemy, which Veterans Affairs Canada describes as the first combat of a Canadian Army unit in the war. At midday Maltby ordered the mainland abandoned. Kowloon was in Japanese hands by 12 December and the last covering troops reached the island on the morning of 13 December. A Japanese demand for surrender that day was rejected, as was a second on 17 December.8
18 to 19 December: the landing and Wong Nai Chung Gap
Three Japanese regiments crossed the harbor on the night of 18 December and landed on the north shore around North Point and Taikoo. The Rajputs in the beach pillboxes were almost wiped out. By early on 19 December the Japanese had reached Wong Nai Chung Gap (Wong Nei Chong in wartime papers), the pass in the middle of the island where Lawson had his West Brigade headquarters.9
When the Grenadiers' A Company was cut off after fighting on Mount Butler, Company Sergeant-Major John Osborn threw several Japanese grenades back, then threw himself on one he could not reach in time; he was killed and later received a posthumous Victoria Cross. About 10 a.m. Lawson told headquarters he was going outside to "fight it out" and was killed near his shelters. The Grenadiers' D Company held its shelters at the Gap until the morning of 22 December, when food, water and ammunition ran out.10
The turning point: an island cut in two
When the Japanese pushed through the Gap to Repulse Bay, the defense was split in two. The East Brigade, the Royal Rifles with volunteers and Middlesex machine gunners, fell back towards Stanley, and its attempts to break north around Repulse Bay and Tai Tam failed.11
Black Christmas: the surrender of 25 December
A truce on Christmas morning ended around midday and the attacks resumed. At 3.15 p.m. Maltby advised the Governor, Sir Mark Young, that further resistance was futile, and the white flag went up. Maltby warned of "the useless slaughter of the remainder of the garrison". Young surrendered at the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon, the Japanese headquarters. The day became known as "Black Christmas", as the historian Francis Pike notes.12
How long did Hong Kong hold out?
Hong Kong held out for about 18 days, from the Japanese attack on 8 December 1941 to the surrender on the afternoon of 25 December; Veterans Affairs Canada counts seventeen and a half days of fighting. The mainland fell within five days, and the island resisted for a week after the Japanese landing.
How many died in the Battle of Hong Kong?
Canada lost about 290 killed and 493 wounded in the battle. For the whole garrison, the Canadian official history quotes Maltby's dispatch: about 955 killed or died of wounds and 659 missing, figures not then final; Hong Kong Memory puts defenders killed or missing at close to 2,700. For the Japanese the official history cites their own narrative: 675 killed and 2,079 wounded, far below Maltby's estimate.13
Massacres and captivity
At the Salesian Mission near Sau Ki Wan, an aid post overrun on 19 December, the Canadian Army report, citing Captain Banfill's own account, records that all the male medical and civilian staff were killed and that Banfill, the Canadian medical officer, alone survived; the Canadian official history calls it the scene of particularly revolting atrocities. Early on 25 December Japanese troops entered the emergency hospital at St Stephen's College in Stanley and killed many wounded soldiers, medical staff and teachers.14
The prisoners were held at North Point and Sham Shui Po camps. From January 1943 some 1,184 Canadians were shipped to Japan, mostly to work in mines, and 136 of them died there. Between 264 and 267 Canadians died as prisoners, by different counts, so more than 550 of the 1,975 never came home. Hong Kong stayed under Japanese occupation for three years and eight months, until August 1945.15
The Japanese side
For the 23rd Army, Hong Kong was one objective of a coordinated opening offensive that also struck Malaya and the Philippines, where American and Filipino troops would make their own stand on Bataan. The same study says operations were to begin as soon as word came of the landing in Malaya, and Sakai and Sano drew up an uncomplicated plan: reach the Gin Drinkers Line, attack it in strength, then win a beachhead on the north shore and widen it.16
The tide in the Pacific would only turn at Midway in June 1942. Canada's defense and veterans ministers noted in 2021 that the Japanese government formally apologized to Canada's Hong Kong veterans in 2011.17
Controversy: the Duff report and how Canada remembers
A Royal Commission under Chief Justice Sir Lyman Duff reported on 4 June 1942. It found nothing between Canada's agreement in September and the sailing in October that gave cogent reason to pull out, and judged that about 120 partly trained men had not harmed the force's fighting efficiency. The Army's official historian, C. P. Stacey, later called the reinforcement a mistake and the hope of deterring Japan with two battalions "an egregious absurdity", while Maltby called it a worthwhile gamble that was lost. In December 1998, UPI reported, Ottawa announced C$24,000 for each surviving veteran or spouse for forced labor Japan had refused to compensate.18
The battlefield today
According to Veterans Affairs Canada, 283 Canadian soldiers lie in Sai Wan War Cemetery, in the east of the island, 107 of them unidentified, and its memorial names more than 2,000 dead with no known grave, Osborn among them. Wong Nai Chung Gap is a graded historic site with a military trail, and the school house of St Stephen's College is a declared monument. See also the greatest battles of World War II.19
