Battle of Hong Kong

[xinhui]

Resistance in Hong Kong: The East River Guerrillas in the Second World War and After
Hong Kong University Press's picture
Published by Hong Kong University Press

* Hong Kong
* Asian history: Second World War
* Military history

Author: Chan, S. J.
ISBN: 978 962 209 850 3
Format: Hardback
Pages: 250
List price(s): 32.50 GBP 34.00 EUR
Publication date: 14 April 2009

Short description

Tells the story of the Chinese guerrilla forces who harassed the Japanese in the World War II period of occupation, and played a crucial part in the escapes from Hong Kong's prisoner of war camps and in rescuing Allied airmen. This book recounts how the leaders of the East River Column faired in the period up to and after the Communist victory.
Full description

Hong Kong's story in World War II has been predominantly told as a story of the British forces and their defeat on Christmas Day 1941. But there is another story: that of the Chinese guerrilla forces who harassed the Japanese throughout the period of the occupation, played a crucial part in the escapes from Hong Kong's prisoner of war camps and in rescuing Allied airmen. This neglected part of Hong Kong's war is S. J. Chan's topic in this pioneering book informed by his many contacts with participants in the guerrilla warfare. The guerrilla group usually described as the East River Column gathered momentum in 1937 after China and Japan embarked on fully-fledged war. Mr. Chan reports on its precursors and the formation of more formal structures that provided the basis for the guerrilla activities in Hong Kong between 1941 and 1945. Just as the guerrilla's story starts before WWII, so it goes on after 1945 and is entwined with the Civil War and Liberation of China itself. An important and valuable part of this book recounts how the leaders of the East River Column faired in the period up to and after the Communist victory. So the book also sheds new light on the struggle between the Guangdong party members and the cadres from the north and 'the problem of Guangdong' as it was characterized by Mao Tse-tung.

[Officer of Engineers]

I don't know the precise makeup of the Japanese forces, But I have always understood that the units leading the advance were either experienced units that had fought in China or highly trained specialist units (paratroops, Naval infantry etc. in the NEI in particular). I would have thought that all things being equal, more experienced & better trained troops would start with an advantage.

Experienced Japanese units went up against Zhukov's planning and came out worst than diapers - twice.

While this was only one of many factors in the Allied defeats (air power, generalship etc.), I have always understood that it was a factor (in Burma, malaya & the NEI at least).

It was THE FACTOR BUT BESIDES THE POINT which I will try to explain again.

Relying on the US fleet to save the day rested on the premise of European superority and incomplete intelligence. The signs were there in the A5M Claude that Japanese avation technology was at best only a generation behind the west. In fact in many ways the technology was equal too or slightly superior to what the allies had. In rough terms the size of the Japanese fleet was also known and one can only wonder WTF was Churchill thinking in sending jsut 2 battleships and a light carrier to take on the Imperial Navy.

Z, you've missed the point, had Op Z failed, the IJN would have been in no position to support either HK nor Singapore and would have readied herself for a Jutland against the USN no matter what that outcome might have been.

But it would not have saved HK, Singapore or Manila, refer you to zraver's post 109.

But again, that is NOT the point. The point was and is, was it militarily feasible to defend HK based upon the thinking at the time. At the time, the defence of HK was made on the best information possible, and despire hindsight, I cannot and will not find fault with the decision.

Hindsight is 20/20. So was the Japanese decision to take on Zhukov.

The simple fact was that the Japanese had an overwhelming advantage in men, material and experience over the Commonwealth troops facing them.

The two things Hong Kong had that the IJA did not have - the water and the defending population.

Put it this way, if 60,000 Japanese can defeat 80,000 British & Commonwealth troops on Singapore, what hope did 12,000 Commonwealth troops have against 50,000 Japanese troops on HK.

I agree with GF here. You are missing the point though. The geography and the doctrinal thinking AT THE TIME favoured the commonwealth, not the Japanese.

It is extremely easy to pinpoint obvious failures on the lossing side. It is MUCH harder to assume their confidence.

The best command lesson I've ever learned. Why were battle captains so confident just before they lost the battle?

Revisionist BS? In what way? The Commonwealth forces were stretched thin fighting the Germans, the Royal Navy was tied down in the Atlantic & Mediterranean and the force deployed at HK was little more then a token one, all facts.

6 line battalions backed by over a mile over water. Have you actually thought this out?

Here is a link as to how unprepared some of the units in the Canadian Regiments were ......many of the Aussies in Malaya were in the same boat.

Again, hindsight is 20/20. The fact was and is that the Japanese wiped our butts like toilet paper but that is NOT the question. The question was and is why were we so confident that HK could have been defended?

I would suggest that you have not understood the military thinking at the time.

I am NOT denying the Japanese won with superior tactics and equipment BUT I am strongly stating that our confidence did not came out of the blue. It was based upon careful, if wrong, analysis of the strategic picture.

Not sure how Canadians on the whole feel about the losses on HK, but personally I don't think it was an embarrassment in any way, the Commonwealth troops on HK put up the best fight they could have under the circumstances.

We were not Zhukov.

[zraver]

Z, you've missed the point, had Op Z failed, the IJN would have been in no position to support either HK nor Singapore and would have readied herself for a Jutland against the USN no matter what that outcome might have been.

Sir, that might hold true for Singapore depending on how the US deployed its battleships. If they sent them in pell mell without carrier support things could go very badly.

However, I have to disagree with Hong Kong. That was an IJA not IJN op. The IJA had numerical superiority, combat experience, total air dominance, and reasonably secure supply lines back to Manchuria. That battle is a foregone conclusion. The Commonwelath forces did not ahve enough troops to man the Gin Drinker Line and the line was easily breached. By 10 December long before any USN assets could have gotten there the defenders were alreadt preparing to abandon the mainland. By 13 Dewcember still long before any help could hope to arrive only Hong Kong island was in the defenders hands.

its 5450 miles from Hawaii to Hong Kong. Assuming a failed Japanese attack on Pearl that some how resulted in the complete destruction of the attackers and a US decision to rescue Hong Kong not the Phillipines, D.E.I or Singapore with the fleet getting under way on 9 December after rushed repairs and restocking from the attack and traveling at an average speed of 20 knots with no ziggzagging its going to be 237 hours of travel. That is almost 10 full days so 19 December is the earliest an allied fleet can show up. That is the day after the Japanese cross the harbor. By the 20th the day after the earliest time a fleet can show up the Island's fate is sealed when the Japanese cut the defenders into 2 pockets.

But realistically, given the needs of the Phillipines, the Dutch east Indies and soon Singapore there would never be a rescue fleet.

But again, that is NOT the point. The point was and is, was it militarily feasible to defend HK based upon the thinking at the time. At the time, the defence of HK was made on the best information possible, and despire hindsight, I cannot and will not find fault with the decision.

Sir, I do not see how it was feasible. Hong Kong was under-manned with porly equipped and trained troops, had no air force, was isolated from support with a combat hardened enemy army and air force on its doorstep. For all their failings, the Japanese are not Zulu's and HK is not Rourke's Drift. Yet the British hope seems to have been that a few thousands white men or white led colonials could hold off tens of thousands Asian troops in a giant recreation of that famous stand against the Zulus.

It was never going to happen. As history shows a lot of brave men got clobbered by a lot more equally brave and better prepared men. The Japanese out fought the defenders at every step of the way.

[Officer of Engineers]

However, I have to disagree with Hong Kong. That was an IJA not IJN op. The IJA had numerical superiority, combat experience, total air dominance, and reasonably secure supply lines back to Manchuria. That battle is a foregone conclusion. The Commonwelath forces did not ahve enough troops to man the Gin Drinker Line and the line was easily breached. By 10 December long before any USN assets could have gotten there the defenders were alreadt preparing to abandon the mainland. By 13 Dewcember still long before any help could hope to arrive only Hong Kong island was in the defenders hands.

The battle plan was 28 days. I agree that the Gin Drinker Line was a Bad, bad, bad mistake but that ONLY adds to my point. The British felt that it could have been defended ... and it was defensible if you followed the thinking at the time. Block the roads. The Japanese avoided the roads.

The main plan has been and always been the island. For six line battalions with artillery, that is should have been doable for 28 days.

[gf0012-aust]

Sir, if the British High Command was planning for 28 days, it was planning for defeat. With no real naval presence in the East, no (not really) air force and the most poorly equipped land units there was no way to win or even end in a position of strength. The one palce the British might have made a stand was Singapore, but Hong Kong was doomed.

Singapore would have been subjected to the same planning malaise that befell HK though. It was another example of where traditonal defensive thought was countered by what we now "wrap" as asymetrical warfare - but in real terms was just good lateral thinking by the japanese.

ie logistics was modified to suit and they had better command and tac/strategic thinkers at that loc.

[zraver]

Singapore would have been subjected to the same planning malaise that befell HK though. It was another example of where traditonal defensive thought was countered by what we now "wrap" as asymetrical warfare - but in real terms was just good lateral thinking by the japanese.

ie logistics was modified to suit and they had better command and tac/strategic thinkers at that loc.

True enough, but Singapore was easier to resupply, not sitting at the head of a enemy supply line stretching straight back in an unbroken line to the factories in Manchuria, had a decent garrison in numbers, had via Malaysia some room to trade for time. A better commander or better planning might have made a differance there, Hong Kong had none of this and was doomed.

[gf0012-aust]

True enough, but Singapore was easier to resupply, not sitting at the head of a enemy supply line stretching straight back in an unbroken line to the factories in Manchuria, had a decent garrison in numbers, had via Malaysia some room to trade for time. A better commander or better planning might have made a differance there, Hong Kong had none of this and was doomed.

The problem with singapore though is that you either hold the malay (mainland) side of the loc and maintain sea control - or you're cut off.

defending singapore required defending inland on the mainland and holding open sea access for secondary supply and naval gunfire support. lose both and singapore becomes a strategic and tactical orphan

[zraver]

The problem with singapore though is that you either hold the malay (mainland) side of the loc and maintain sea control - or you're cut off.

defending singapore required defending inland on the mainland and holding open sea access for secondary supply and naval gunfire support. lose both and singapore becomes a strategic and tactical orphan

Yes, without question. Had the British high command drawn the right lessons from Japanese actions in China and the battle for the Atlantic that could have been done.

If the defending land units had been even modestly equipped with tanks and anti-tank weapons and supported by a decent sized and modern air force Japan would have faced a huge probably insurmountable task.

We can assume that Japanese operational intelligence at the beginning of the war was quite good. They were able to send the right amounts of the right stuff to the right locations.

Imagine for a second that the British had taken the lessons demonstrated by the German FW-200 Condor and sent some Bostons to Singapore. And that they had paid attention to the air battles over China, both in the sophistication of Japanese aviation technology and the reports coming from the AVG and sent a decent amount of Hurricanes or Spitfires to cover the Bostons.

The existence of a real air force throws one hell of a monkey wrench in the Japanese plans. The IJN's carrier based air power was probably the best in the world, but was it good enough to take on Pearl and a properly defended Singapore?

On the ground in 41, the British had a number of obsolete cruiser and Mathilda tanks that were little more than rolling coffins vs the pz III and IV's of the Africa Corps and these were being replaced by M3 Stuarts and M3 Grant/Lees. Send a few dozen to the East and the jokes Japan called tanks are instantly a non-factor. Likewise the 2pdr ATG a pea shooter with all its failings in Africa would have been a god gun vs Japanese armor.

The British had all the tools they needed, they just never connected the pieces to draw a clear picture of the threat they faced.

[gf0012-aust]

The British had all the tools they needed, they just never connected the pieces to draw a clear picture of the threat they faced.

exacerbated in some quarters by a degree of hubris as well....

[zraver]

exacerbated in some quarters by a degree of hubris as well....

Yes, and Japan made good use of it.

[cape_royds]

Sorry to derail again, but all the defense of HK discussion has been taking place here.

I'm reading the memoirs of a Canadian general, E.L.M. Burns. While Burns was in no way involved in the HK battle, what he has to say does concern the state of pre-war opinion about HK's defensibility.

I was selected to attend the Imperial Defence College in 1939. At this time, the course was divided into three terms. During the first we studied the situation which would exist in the Far Eastern Theatre if there were war between Japan and the Commonwealth, and carried out exercises related to it. As I remember it, everyone was confident that Singapore could hold out until a powerful relieving naval force could arrive from British waters. Hong Kong was more of a problem. I think that to the majority of our class the island and territory seemed indefensible, and indeed, some doubted the value of having any larger garrison there than was needed for aid to the civil power, that is, to suppress local disorder if it were more than the police could handle. But the counter-argument, that it would be very damaging to the prestige of Britain if the garrison and fortifications were scaled down, prevailed in the actual event. And this led to tragedy.

(emphasis added)

So zraver's distinction, above, between Singapore and HK, is not only plain enough today, but was similarly understood at the Imperial Defence College at the time.

Burns continues,

The hopes for the defence of Hong Kong were tied to the calculation that if there were an attack by Japan against the British strongholds in the Far East, the United States would see this proof of Japanese expansionism so dangerous to their own interest and security. They would therefore enter the war and their powerful naval forces would relieve Hong Kong before it fell. When war did break out in the Far East, of course the U.S.A. did indeed become the ally of the Commonwealth; but the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbour, as well as bringing the United States into the war, inflicted such damage on the American battle fleet that it prevented any aid to the British at Hong Kong and Singapore, and to the Americans in the Philippines.

OoE can draw some justification from those words. But as zraver said, the timing just doesn't seem to work, at least not on a 28-day measure, unless the Americans inflicted a decisive defeat on the Japanese fleet during that time and the Japanese promptly sued for peace.

Burns mentions one of the political considerations involved, that of British imperial prestige in Asia. But there are others, which changed rapidly during 1940-41 with the overall grand strategic situation, and also related to the state of US/Japan relations during the course of that year.

[ANZAC]

Z, you've missed the point, had Op Z failed, the IJN would have been in no position to support either HK nor Singapore and would have readied herself for a Jutland against the USN no matter what that outcome might have been.

Highly doubtful if there would be a Jutland, even if PH failed.

The mistake you're making here is that the thinking of a climatic one on one showdown with the Japanese went out the window when the Americans realised it would be a two front war & Europe would get priority.


In a drastic revision of US military strategy in late '39 the US had to decide on an Atlantic or Pacific defense, both the US Army & US Navy chiefs of staff decided that Germany, not Japan was the biggest danger & strongly recommended that the Atlantic should be the given priority, Europe first. This change reflected the initial shift in U.S. strategic thinking from the Pacific to events in Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, away from offensive operations toward a concept of defensive operations which in turn required a defensive posture in the Pacific, hold Hawaii & defend the West Coast AT THE ALMOST CERTAIN LOSS OF THE PHILLAPINES AND GUAM, according to the Joint Chiefs.

Meaning there would be no US fleet steaming West for another 'Jutland'

This strategy was unhesitatingly approved by President Roosevelt.

So the old War plan ORANGE,[a one on one battle between the US & Japan] was jettisoned, & the RAINBOW plans [war on two fronts] took it's place, here on......

Rainbow

Why were battle captains so confident just before they lost the battle?

Grasett convinced Crerar that the Japanese would be no serious opposition to Western troops, [the Brits had a few Colonel Blimp types in the army in those days, I suppose all armies had them]

The sad part is that the Canadians fell for it & sent two category C garrison battalions [unfit for battle] who would soon be battling up to 50,000 well trained well equipped Japanese. It just takes one man [like Glasset] who has no hold on reality, to influence others around him, often with tragic consequences.

Could you give me a link or two as to what the battle captains & junior officers actually thought about the feasibility of defending HK? Be interesting, although Captains were hardly in a position to know the real state of affairs if Glasset & Crerar didn't.

6 line battalions backed by over a mile over water. Have you actually thought this out?

Yep I have & came to the same conclusion as the Japanese, Churchill & the Admiralty among others.

We were not Zhukov.

In exactly the same circumstances a dozen Zhukov's wouldn't have made much difference.


Here's a good overview on HK by the Canadian Veterans Affairs.....

The Defence of Hong Kong - Veterans Affairs Canada

By all accounts HK was far from an embarrassment for Canadians, the Battle of Hong Kong was commemorated in 1991 with a Canada Post stamp. This year, on August 15, 2009, a ceremony was held in Ottawa, Ontario to unveil a polished black granite wall with the names of all the courageous Canadians engaged in the merciless combat in 1941, I take my hat off to them & all the others fighting a hopeless battle.

We can assume that Japanese operational intelligence at the beginning of the war was quite good. They were able to send the right amounts of the right stuff to the right locations.

That bit hits the nail on the head, Japanese intelligence, with spies as far out as Hawaii & throughout South East Asia was meticulous, they knew exactly what they would be up against, & it wasn't much.

As a Winnipeg Grenadier veteran said, "The Japanese, they knew every inch of Hong Kong. They had their people in there long before. Even some of the Chinese were helping the Japanese"

On the other hand British intelligence was often found wanting, especially in underestimating the Japanese fighting ability & their superior weapons systems.

Local British intelligence reports actually indicated the Japanese suffered low morale, were badly equipped, and their "slanted" eyes made them poor night fighters. Furthermore, the reports indicated, the Japanese soldiers were weak from a diet of only fish and rice, and prone to seasickness.

Britain had their hands full with Rommel and with the RN in the Atlantic & Med. just about every piece of equipment that didn't go to North Africa was going to the SU. trying to help keep them fighting. Shortly before the Japanese launched their Blitzkrieg, Churchill sent 440 Hurricanes to the Sovs, & diverted one of Australia's best trained divisions the 7th, which was bound for Singapore, to the Middle East.

Once the Japanese attacked South, I don't think there was much anyone could do until the US production & huge military built up was in full swing, things were destined to get worse before they got better.

Or that's what Marshall & Stark stated anyway.

Burns mentions one of the political considerations involved, that of British imperial prestige in Asia. But there are others, which changed rapidly during 1940-41 with the overall grand strategic situation, and also related to the state of US/Japan relations during the course of that year.

Yep, things rapidly changed with the Americans changing their War plans in late '39, with Europe coming first & a defensive posture in the Pacific, to the Placentia bay conference between Churchill & Roosevelt with Roosevelt knocking back Churchills request for the US to enter the war against Japan if The Japanese attacked British possessions,
From then on HK, Singapore & Manila were in a whole lot of trouble..

Senior leaders naturally did not want to admit that the Philippines, as well as the lightly defended Guam,[or HK or Singapore] were "sacrificial lambs." However, most conceded that, even with the fortress on Corregidor at the entrance to Manila Bay, a foothold in the Philippines could only be maintained for a few months, which is precisely what happened in 1942.

As Marshall & Stark said, there was going to be pain before gain.

[Officer of Engineers]

Battle of Hong Kong

Gentlemen, have I missed any posts?

Please forgive me. I will respond within 48 hours. But right now, I await any post that I should move to this new thread.

[Merlin]

This is about Battle of Hong Kong against the Japanese? I was there. But I was only a small child at that time.

But somehow I remember seeing airfights across the Hong Kong harbour, and planes being shot down with dark smoke billowing behind. I also remember seeing a vessel in harbour being bombed until it overturned. It remained overturned in the harbour for a few years after the War.

These incidents must be near 1945, perhaps to try to drive the Japanese away, not the battle in 1941.

[Merlin]

Are there some similarities between the Battle of Hong Kong and that of Singapore?

I don't know how true is it that for Singapore the British were expecting and built up strong defence for a sea attack from the South, but finally the Japanese land force came down fast through Malaya peninsula and came in from the north.