The Surrender at Hong Kong - Christmas Day 1941

The decision to surrender was taken taken at or around 1515 hours (1) during the afternoon of Christmas Day 1941. It is sometimes referred to as 'Black Christmas' because it ushered in the brutal military occupation of Hong Kong. Shortly after this the white flag was hoisted on some of the public buildings in the central district. An eerie silence prevailed over the north shore of Hong Kong Island as the news of the surrender was disseminated amongst the opposing combatants. Nonetheless, the sound of gunfire emanating  from Stanley and Aberdeen on the south side of the Island provided evidence of on-going battle. The British military HQ, known as China Command, had been out of communication with Stanley and other parts of Hong Kong because of severed telephone lines cut by artillery, aerial bombing and mortar fire. At 1605 hours, (2) three staff officers, Lt Colonel Ronald Lamb, Royal Engineers, Lt James Prior, King's Own Scottish Borderers, and Wing Commander Hubert ('Alf') Bennett, RAF, a Japanese linguist, arrived at Lt Colonel Henry Moncrieff ('Monkey') Stewart's HQ at Murray Barracks. Lt Col Stewart was the commander of the 1st Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment and the officer in charge of the troops fighting on the north shore. The three staff officers had been sent  from China Command located in the Battle Box, a deep underground bunker from which Major General Christopher Michael ('Mike') Maltby, the army commander, had fought the Battle for Hong Kong. The three staff officers carried orders from Maltby instructing Stewart to proceed through the battle torn streets of Wan Chai under a flag of truce to the Japanese battle HQ in order to give effect to the surrender and bring the fighting to an end.

The fomal surrender at the Peninsula Hotel

The Christmas capitulation marked the end of a short but brutal battle for the defence of Hong Kong. The battle which lasted eighteen days had been a losing-battle from the outset. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, knew that if Hong Kong was attacked by the Japanese it could neither be defended nor relieved. Hong Kong was too close to Japanese airbases in Formosa (present day Taiwan) and Southern China and it was too near the Japanese 23rd Army, commanded by Lt General Sakai, headquartered in Canton with several infantry divisions at his disposal. Early in 1941, Churchill, responding to a request to reinforce the garrison at Hong Kong, wrote in a note to his military advisor, General Hastings Ismay that he would rather reduce the number of troops in Hong Kong than add more troops to what had become an isolated out post and a strategic liability.

It is most unwise to increase the loss we shall suffer there. Instead of increasing the garrison it ought to be reduced to a symbolical scale ... We must avoid frittering away our resources on untenable positions ... I wish we had fewer troops there but to move any would be noticeable and dangerous. (3)

Hong Kong had been effectively  relegated from a 'fortress' to an 'untenable position'. Given Churchill's views on the prospect of defending Hong Kong, it is surprising that a Canadian force, known as C-Force, consisting of some 2,000 men was sent to Hong Kong in November 1941 three weeks before the battle began. It may have been agreed because they were coming from Canada rather than being drawn from stretched British resources. The two Canadian battalions could only prolong the battle rather than change the outcome. Likewise the mooted addition of a squadron of Brewster Buffaloes from Singapore would have made little difference given the number of Japanese aircraft in the theatre. If it came to war with Japan, Hong Kong would have to be sacrificed but not without a fight. Sir Geoffry Northcote, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief in Hong Kong from 1937 until September 1941, had at one time proposed that Hong Kong be demilitarised and treated as an open city. This suggestion received little support especially from the military. Winston Churchill was reluctant to reduce the size of the garrison at Hong Kong as to do so would give the wrong message to Chiang Kai-shek, to the Russians, to the Americans and to the Japanese. There were geopolitical issues that had to be taken into account both in maintaining the size of the garrison and in the Canadian reinforcement.

Magor General Christopher 'Mike' Maltby and Sir Mark Young, Governor and C-in-C

In December 1941 when the Pacific War began, with the exception of coastal defence, Hong Kong was weak militarily. By way of example, there were only five RAF aircraft stationed in Hong Kong. At a time when aviation technology was changing rapidly, the aircraft, all biplanes, had become obsolete and they were no match for modern Japanese fighter aircraft. The RAF aircraft consisted of two Supermarine Walrus flying boats,  a type of aircraft normally used for reconnaissance  or air-sea rescue. These flying boats were often deployed on battleships and cruisers. The were launched by catapult and recovered by crane and were normally used for spotting enemy surface ships. In addition to these two antiquated amphibian aircraft there were three open-cockpit Vickers Vildebeest torpedo bombers. Four of the five obsolete RAF aircraft were  destroyed on the ground at Kai Tak Airport, or at their moorings in the case of the two flying boats, during the first air raid early in the morning on 8 December 1941. The one surviving aircraft, a Vildebeest, was never used and was put out of action by the RAF three days later when the airfield was evacuated. The destruction of the five aircraft made not the slightest difference to the course of the battle.

Walrus flying boat 

Vickers Vildbeest

The Royal Navy's presence in Hong Kong was similarly weak and for the same reasons, in that the loss of Hong Kong was a foregone conclusion, at least for the high command in London. There were four gunboats originally intended to defend pre-war British interests along the major rivers of China. One of the gunboats, HMS Moth, was in dry-dock at the RN Dockyard when war broke out and other than the occasional use of her anti-aircraft armament, she played no part in the battle. She was scuttled in the flooded dock and after the surrender was re-floated and put into service with the Japanese Navy as the IJN Suma. She was sunk by a mine in the Yangtze River in 1945. HMS Cicala, the same class of gunboat as Moth played an active part in the battle particularly in providing naval gunfire support to the army. Despite their small size, these Insect class gunboats were surprisingly well-armed. They were equipped with two 6-inch guns, one mounted forward and one aft. In addition they carried a 2-pounder pom-pom gun and a 3-inch high-angle gun both of which were suitable for anti-aircraft fire. The two remaining gunboats were small and of limited use militarily. 

There were eight motor torpedo boats (MTBs). These were wooden vessels armed with double-barrelled Lewis guns, depth charges and stern launched torpedo tubes. One of the MTBs was destroyed by aerial bombing while on the slipway at Aberdeen Dockyard and two were destroyed during an attack by the MTBs on Japanese landing craft in the harbour. The five remaining MTBs escaped from Hong Kong on Christmas night following the surrender and after nightfall. There were three antiquated 'S' Class destroyers built during the closing stages of the First World War.  These destroyers had standing orders to sail to Singapore in the event of hostilities breaking out. On Monday 8 December, two of the destroyers, HMS Scout and HMS Thanet, sailed south for Singapore. HMS Thracian, remained in Hong Kong because it had been fitted out for minelaying and its stern gun had been temporarily removed. She was still needed for completing the task of laying minefields.  Thracian was continuously in action until badly damaged while undertaking a night raid and subsequently beached on an island (Round Island) near Repulse Bay. The 6-inch guns on Cicala and the presence of the MTBs with their ability to strike with speed and surprise posed a considerable threat to the Japanese fleet especially alongside the coastal defence batteries and the minefields. The coastal defence batteries constituted a ring of fire and included the long range 9.2-inch guns at Mount Davis, Stanley and Cape D'Aguilar. The 9.2-inch guns could fire a 380 pound armour-piercing shell a distance of over 20 kilometres. The Japanese 2nd China Expeditionary Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Niimi, had no ships with this gun calibre and range. The 9.2-inch batteries were augmented by a series of 6-inch and 4-inch coastal batteries for engaging closer targets. Indicator loops laid on the seabed could detect the movement of an  enemy ship or submarine . The data derived would be relayed to the RN indicator loop station at Tai Tam Tuk. The intruding vessel could be then be sunk by gunfire or by detonating remote controlled mines. The minefields protecting the approaches to Hong Kong consisted of both remote-controlled and traditional contact mines. The remote controlled mines could be detonated from the shore stations located at Chung Hom Kok and Shek-O. The coastal defence of Hong Kong island was second to none but because the Japanese Navy stayed out of range, the coastal defence guns were seldom used for seaward firing. Instead, the guns, except those blocked by terrain, were traversed and used for landward firing. This was something they had not been designed for. Most of their ammunition was armour-piercing, suitable for engaging enemy ships, but not suitable for engaging enemy infantry. There were insufficient high explosive (HE) shells needed for landward firing. The Japanese Navy, except for some occasional forays by night, stayed well out to sea and concentrated on ensuring that there could be no extrication from Hong Kong nor reinforcement or resupply by sea.

F2 (middle gun of three) coastal defence battery on Mount Davis

Two of eight Motor Torpedo Boats based in Hong Kong 

The defence of Hong Kong was hampered by the lack of modern fighter aircraft and the shortage of warships, mortars, howitzers, transport, ammunition, AA guns and men. Almost everything was in short supply. Officers and senior NCOs had been frequently 'milked', the expression referred to the transfer of experienced officers and men to serve in other more important  theatres of war. The reason for this was that Hong Kong was simply not a priority. Military assets in the Far East had been concentrated in Singapore and Malaya. Singapore was seen as the 'Gibraltar of the East', the impregnable fortress. On 15 February 1942, Lt General Arthur Percival, the army commander at Singapore surrendered his force of some 85,000 British and Commonwealth troops to General Yamashita, who became known as the 'Tiger of Malaya', who commanded a smaller force of some 35,000 men. The Japanese had advanced so rapidly down the Malayan Peninsula that they had reached the end of their supply lines. The British had been out-manoeuvred and out-fought. Churchill described the Fall of Singapore as the 'worst disaster and the largest capitulation in British military history'. It was an unexpected defeat, whereas Hong Kong was an expected defeat. In Hong Kong, the British garrison of some 12,500 men, (4) surrendered to a larger Japanese force consisting of some 21,000 men (5)  predominantly from the 38th Infantry Division and the 1st Artillery Group (6). 

The original British defence plan envisaged one infantry battalion being deployed on Kowloon side, referred to as the Mainland. Their role being to delay the Japanese advance and to buy time to carry out demolitions of factories, docks and other infrastructure. Following the arrival of Canadian reinforcements in November 1941, the Mainland infantry was increased from one to three battalions. The force, known as the Kowloon or Mainland Brigade, was supported by the howitzers of the Hong Kong Singapore Royal Artillery (HKSRA). The Mainland Brigade dug in along the ten-mile line of defence referred to as the Gin Drinkers Line (GDL). The new defence plan was based on the same premise i.e. delaying the enemy advance from the border and thereby buying time for the demolitions before a withdrawal to Hong Kong Island. A withdrawal from the Mainland was always anticipated, it was part of the defence plan, but it occurred quicker than expected. The withdrawal from the Mainland was brought forward because of the loss of the Shing Mun Redoubt, a strong point on the GDL. The loss of the redoubt on Tuesday night 9 December compromised the western flank of the GDL and necessitated the withdrawal of the line to the ridge which runs from Golden Hill to Lai Chi Kok. The Golden Hill Ridge Line was steep and covered an extensive area. It had not been prepared as a defence line and as a result there were no slit trenches, no barbed wire, no pillboxes and no minefields. The infantry gave ground on the ridge although one company held the high point of Golden Hill throughout Thursday 11 December.  The evacuation commenced during the evening of 11 December with the Royal Scots breaking off the fighting and being ferried back to Hong Kong Island. The two Indian Army battalions manning the centre and east flank of the GDL were withdrawn from Devil's Peak Peninsula on 12 and 13 December. The defence plan envisaged that after the withdrawal from the Mainland, the Island would be held until relieved. Holding the Island would deny the enemy access to the harbour.

Royal Scots officer wearing the Tam o' Shanter at the Shing Mun Redoubt

The Hong Kong Government had built a large number of concrete food stores at various locations around the Island. There was enough stored food to sustain a siege of three to six months until Hong Kong could be relieved by British forces from Singapore. The loss of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales, and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, off the east coast of Malaya on 10 December 1941, only three days after the war began, demonstrated that no relief could be expected from Singapore. The near simultaneous attack on American, British and Dutch territories in the Asia Pacific Region ensured that there would be no relief  coming from elsewhere either. During the battle the suggestion that a Chinese army was coming to relieve the colony by attacking the rear of the of the Japanese force invading Hong Kong proved illusory. The military evacuation of Kowloon was completed in the early morning of Saturday 13 December. The Japanese invasion of the Island occurred on 18 December. The day following their landings the Japanese captured Wong Nai Chung (WNC) Gap a central and strategic point on the Island. It may have been the landings on the Island and the capture of WNC Gap that dissuaded the Chinese Army from joining the battle for Hong Kong. After the Japanese had successfully landed on the north shore and established a bridgehead; Churchill ordered Sir MarkYoung, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief and by extension Major General Maltby, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Troops in China and Commodore Alfred Collinson, the Senior Naval Officer, not to surrender and to resist to the end.

We were greatly concerned to hear of the landings on Hong Kong Island which have been effected by the Japanese. We cannot judge from here the conditions which rendered these landings possible or prevented effective counterattack upon the intruders. There must however be no thought of surrender. Every part of the Island must be fought and the enemy resisted with the utmost stubbornness. The enemy should be compelled to expend the utmost life and equipment. There must be vigorous fighting in the inner defences, and, if need be from house to house. Every day that you are able to maintain your resistance you help the Allied cause all over the world , and by a prolonged resistance you and your men can win the lasting honour which we are sure will be your due. (7)

Resist they did, but by Christmas Day, the enemy were at the gates to the city. On the south side of the Island the Japanese had captured Repulse Bay, Brick Hill, Deep Water Bay and they were in the process of attacking Bennett's Hill. Once captured, this hill feature would open the way for Japanese troops to attack the Aberdeen Naval Base. On the line of gaps, or hill-passes, the Japanese were close to capturing Wan Chai Gap. The possession of Wan Chai Gap would allow the Japanese to advance on Magazine Gap which provided access to the city of Victoria by way of Magazine Gap Road. In the north shore, in the Wan Chai District, close-quarter fighting was taking place from street to street and from tenement to tenement. By 1450 hours, British troops had fallen back to the support line, referred to as the O'Brien Street Line, which was close to the central district of Victoria. Lt Colonel Stewart  had moved his HQ all the way back to Murray Barracks situated on Garden Road at the very edge of the central area. On Christmas Morning, the main English language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, carried Sir Mark's Christmas message to the garrison and residents of the besieged and war torn colony'

In pride and admiration, I send my greetings this Christmas Day to all who are fighting and to all those who are fighting so nobly and so well to sustain Hong Kong against the assault by the enemy. Fight on, hold fast for King and Empire. God bless you all in this your finest hour. (8)

The two infantry brigades, East Brigade and West Brigade , had become separated during the fighting. By Christmas Day, East Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier Cedric Wallis, was cut off at Stanley on the south side of the Island. During the night of 24 December, the Japanese had over-run the front line at Stanley Village using light tanks and infantry. In the early hours of 25 December, the Japanese smashed their way through the support line which ran across the grounds of St Stephen's College. A third line of defence had been hastily prepared on high ground between the support line and Stanley Fort. The third line guarded the approaches to the fort on either side of Wong Ma Kok Road. If the third line was breached, the final line of defence would be the wire perimeter at Stanley Fort. Brigadier Wallis, commanding troops in the Stanley area was preparing to fight a last stand.

The fighting brigadier - Cedric Wallis

Just before dawn on Christmas Morning, Japanese troops broke into the temporary hospital located in the main building at St Stephen's College. In an orgy of unfettered violence, Japanese troops bayoneted patients in their beds, killed doctors and medical orderlies and raped Chinese and British nurses. On Christmas Eve, CSM Stuart ('Tooti') Begg, a member of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) attached to the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) having been cut off had swum from Repulse Bay to Stanley to escape capture by the Japanese. Injured and exhausted he was admitted to the temporary hospital. He was surprised to find his wife, Eileen Begg, at the hospital. She was a volunteer  military nurse and had been transferred from Bowen Road Military Hospital to the temporary hospital at St Stephen's. She spent the night of 24 December at her husband's bedside. The ward was dimly lit by hurricane lamps and the windows were covered by mattresses to provide black-out and to protect patients from shrapnel and flying glass. They could hear the noise of battle, machine gun fire, mortar fire and explosions as the fighting drew closer to the hospital. When the Japanese broke into the main ward, Eileen Begg helped her husband to get under the bed. Stuart Begg stated in an affidavit that while they huddled under the bed they could see the mattress above them pierced several times by the point of a bayonet. Eileen saved her husband's life but lost hers. She was one of five British nurses who were raped and she was one of three who were raped, mutilated and killed that Christmas Morning.

Pre-war Civil Defence Exercises

At 0900 hours that morning, two civilians, Major Charles Manners and Andrew Lusk Shields, captured at the Repulse Bay Hotel, were allowed by the Japanese to cross the front line at Causeway Bay under a flag of truce. Their captors granted them parole to meet with Sir Mark Young at Government House. They were instructed to return to Japanese lines by noon. The Japanese would observe a cease fire until they returned. The Japanese authorities had already made two peace proposals  calling for the British  to surrender and thereby avoid further unnecessary bloodshed. These entreaties had been summarily rejected by Sir Mark and Major General Maltby. This time the Japanese made no such demand for a surrender. The Japanese, however, expected that the two civilians having seen the strength of Japanese troops and guns on the Island would impress upon the British commanders the futility of carrying on with the plainly one-sided fight. Sixty-year-old Andrew Shields was a member of the Governor's Executive  Council (EXCO) and a Director of HSBC. Charles Manners, also aged sixty, was the General Manager of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company. They had been captured at the Repulse Bay Hotel on 23 December. The following day they and other hotel guests were marched from Repulse Bay to North Point where they spent Christmas Eve in a bombed-out battle damaged paint factory. The two exhausted civilians duly met with the Governor and GOC. They were given a hearty breakfast and they reported what they had seen of the strength of the Japanese Army on the Island. A meeting of the Defence Council was convened but it was decided that there should be no talk of surrender and that the garrison would continue to fight on. 

Shields and Manners returned to Japanese lines by noon as instructed. The Japanese were irritated because the two hostages were an hour late. It transpired that the Japanese were using Tokyo time which was one hour ahead of Hong Kong time. The two men re-joined the group of civilian prisoners which included their respective wives who were all waiting at the Duro Paint Factory. During the afternoon the civilians at the paint factory including Manners and Shields were taken across the harbour and interned at the Kowloon Hotel which was used as a temporary place of internment for enemy civilians. In late January 1942 most enemy civilians including Shields and Manners were interned at Stanley Camp.  They both died while interned in 1944 and were buried in the disused military cemetery at Stanley. Shields died from cirrhosis of the liver. His wife a US national was repatriated to the US in September 1943. Manners died of arteriosclerosis. His wife, Agnes, eighteen years his junior was said to be a  Eurasian from Shanghai. She was repatriated to Shanghai in 1942 with other Shanghai residents. 

Fifty-five-year-old Sir Mark Young had only arrived in Hong Kong in September 1941. He had previously been Governor at Tanganyika in East Africa. He had spent his entire career with the Colonial Administration Service other than military service during the First World War. Fifty-year-old  Mike Maltby had spent most of his career with the British Indian Army. He arrived in Hong Kong to take up the role of GOC in July 1941. The two men, both newcomers to Hong Kong, got on well. They shared a sense of urgency in respect of military and civil defence as opposed to the complacency that persisted amongst some of military and business community. Some three hours after Shields and Manners  returned to Japanese lines the British garrison surrendered. In Sir Mark's post-war report on events in Hong Kong on 25 December 1941, he states that the position in the late morning although grave was not such that a capitulation was contemplated. 

For several days before that date it had been evident to my military advisers and to myself  that the question  before us  was not whether but when the enemy would be able to occupy the whole of the colony, and that while we had no chance of preventing that calamity it was our duty to use every effort to postpone it for the longest possible period of time. ... Up to about 1500 hours on 25 December the position on the fighting line was extremely grave but not desperate. We still had a reasonable hope of being able to achieve our daily ambition, namely to add another twenty-four hours to the credit of the account. (9)

The situation deteriorated in the early afternoon. At or around 1500 hours Maltby telephoned Lt Colonel Monkey Stewart at his battalion HQ in Murray Barracks asking for his appraisal. Stewart replied that 'Z' Coy, 1/Mx, was in the process of falling back to the O'Brien Street Line  but between that and the city of Victoria there was no organised defence line other than the RN Dockyard, Commander Collinson, the naval commander, had told Sir Mark  that he would defend the dockyard to the last man, and that his men had taken up positions along the east wall of the dockyard facing the direction of the Japanese advance. Meanwhile, the troops in Wan Chai were coming under artillery fire  from both Kowloon and North Point. Maltby wrote in his report on operations in Hong Kong  that the Japanese drive along the north shore and their proximity to the central district had been the decisive factor. 

I [Maltby] asked Lt Colonel Stewart ... how long in his considered opinion the men could hold the line now occupied. He replied one hour. The Commodore agreed with my conclusion. At 1515 hours, I advised H.E. the Governor and C-in-C. that no further useful military resistance  was possible  and I then ordered all commanding officers to break off the fighting and to capitulate to the nearest Japanese commander, as and when the enemy advanced and opportunity offered. (10)

Having made the difficult decision to capitulate, Sir Mark asked his two senior military commanders, Maltby and Collinson to join him at Government House to await the anticipated arrival of Japanese troops. Maltby left the Battle Box  and Collinson left the RN Dockyard, the two officers made their separate way to Government House. The surrender party, consisting of Lt Colonel Stewart, Wing Commander Bennett, Lt Colonel Lamb and Lt Prior, set off with the unenviable task of conveying the surrender to the Japanese. They proceeded from Murray Barracks through the front line in Wan Chai  walking in the middle of the road. 

George Baxter, an American newsman, was in the bomb damaged bathroom of his apartment in Duddell Street when he glanced out the window and noticed  a white flag flying from the Exchange Building. He rushed up to the roof of the apartment block from there he could see that the union jack had been lowered at Government House. His eyes filled with tears as he realised what this meant. 'It  meant that the city had surrendered ... and that the Japanese would soon be upon us with all the savagery of a conquering army.' (11).

The surrender party were halted by Japanese troops on their frontline and escorted to the Japanese HQ located at the Lee Theatre in Causeway Bay. The Japanese officer in charge was polite. He offered them tea while he contacted his commanding officers advising that two lieutenant colonels and a wing commander had arrived at his HQ to surrender the garrison. After waiting for a period, some senior Japanese staff officers arrived perhaps from their Divisional HQ at North Point. They informed the British delegation that Lt General Sakai, the Japanese Commander-in-Chief would only accept the surrender from the British Commander-in-Chief and the GOC. Two of the officers, Lt Col Lamb and presumably Lt Prior were sent back to Government House to pass the message to Sir Mark and Major General Maltby that unless they came in person to the Japanese HQ the attack would resume at 1830 hours. Collinson recalled that shortly after he arrived at Government House from the Dockyard, Maltby arrived from the Battle Box. A little later, Lt Colonel Lamb arrived from Japanese HQ. The Governor, the GOC and the two staff officers, Lamb and Prior, got into the car. There was no room  for the Commodore so he returned to the RN Dockyard. Sir Mark and Maltby were driven to the front line in Wan Chai and then taken in a Japanese vehicle to the Japanese HQ in Causeway Bay where Lt Colonel Stewart and Wing Commander Bennett were waiting. Sir Mark and Major General Maltby confirmed  that the order to ceasefire had been given to all troops other than those at Stanley. The garrison at Stanley was still out of communication because of severed telephone lines. Arrangements were made for Lt Colonel lamb and Lt Prior, to dive to Stanley in a car bearing the white flag and later with headlights switched on. They were instructed to advise Brigadier Wallis that the GOC had given orders to cease fire and surrender and that he must do the same. 

Sir Mark and Maltby were asked whether they understood that they were prisoners of war. They replied to the affirmative. The Japanese commanding officer, perhaps  Lt General Sano, commanding the 38th Division, gave orders countermanding the Japanese attack that was supposedly scheduled for 1830 hours that evening. Lt General Sakai, the commander  of the Japanese 23rd Army, was moving his HQ from the New Territories to the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon. He would preside over the formal surrender at his new HQ. The British surrender party, Sir Mark, Maltby, Stewart and Bennett, were taken across the harbour by launch while Lamb and Prior  made their way to Stanley. It is thought that the surrender formalities at the peninsula Hotel took place in Room 336. In the absence of electricity, the proceedings took place by candle-light. The British commanders were asked whether their surrender was unconditional. Sir Mark  replied that there were no conditions. When a photographer appeared, Sir Mark protested and the Japanese rather generously sent the photographer away, but not before a few photographs were taken. One of these photographs catches Major General Maltby and Lt Colonel Stewart  seated at a table looking to their right  possibly at Sir Mark who is out of the photograph. In the background we can see Wing Commander Alf Bennett, dark haired, moustachioed, sitting at a bench against a window and away from the table. After the formalities had been completed, Maltby, Stewart and Bennett were allowed to return to Hong Kong. Sir Mark was ordered to remain and was held in comfortable but solitary confinement in a two-room suite at the hotel. He made frequent requests to see members of his former government, to receive information on casualties and to collect some of his personal  effects from Government House. None of these requests were allowed. He asked for a meeting with the Japanese general. The meeting with a Japanese officer, possibly a staff officer, was granted but the meeting went badly. Sir Mark came across as too demanding. The interpreter ended up yelling at Sir Mark and reminding him that he was a defeated prisoner of war and that he must obey the Japanese. After a few weeks, Pte John Waller, 1/Mx, was selected by Lt Col Stewart to act as a batman for Sir Mark. The next day the two men were flown to Formosa and then on Shanghai. Sir Mark was interned in Shanghai, Formosa and  finally in Manchuria until the war ended. 

The Surrender at the Peninsula Hotel (Repeat Pic.)

Brigade Major John Monro, RA, based at the Battle Box recalled that the white flag was hoisted sometime after 1500 hours. Thereafter secret documents were destroyed and rifles, tommy guns and revolvers were put out of action. Somebody in the Battle Box mentioned that their Webley revolvers used dumdum rounds, otherwise known as expanding bullets. There was concern amongst the officers that if found with this type of banned ammunition they could be summarily shot by the Japanese. Consequently, there was a rush to hide the revolver rounds before the Japanese arrived. Monro described how they were hidden in all sorts of nooks and crannies and especially in the ventilation ducts. (12) Major Monro recalled how Colonel Levett, the Chief Signals Officer, came across to the Royal Artillery Command Office in the Battle Box and complained that some of the nearby British guns were still in action despite the order to ceasefire and surrender. Monro related how there was a heated exchange  between Colonel Levett and Brigadier Macleod, Commander Royal Artillery. Monro was sent out with another officer to investigate and found that the sound of gunfire was coming from a burning Bren gun carrier located near Murray Parade Ground. The fire had ignited grenades and small arms ammunition in the carrier. A Japanese field gun on Kowloon side was firing at the source of the conflagration. At about 1600 hours, 2/Lt Geoffrey Hamilton, 2/RS, received a runner at his HQ at Wan Chai Gap. The runner conveyed a message that the garrison had surrendered and that he was to cease fire and assemble at the Peak. Augustus Muir, writing in the official history of the Royal Scots, described how 'Hamilton put the man under close arrest and sent one of his own men to Battalion HQ to find out the truth'. (13) At 1700 hours, Lt Colonel Simon White, the Royal Scots battalion commander together with Captain Douglas Ford, the second-in-command, and Pte George King, an orderly carrying the white flag, proceeded from Wan Chai Gap to Stubbs Road to give effect to the surrender in that area. The Japanese were occupying two residential houses at No. 48 and 49 Stubbs Road as their area HQ. 

2/Lt Drummond Hunter, 2/RS, a patient at the Bowen Road Military Hospital (BRMH) had been wounded in the shoulder while in action on Golden Hill on 11 December. Twelve days later he was moved by ambulance to the temporary hospital at the Hong Kong Hotel for convalescence. He never got there. The ambulance crashed into a wall during an air raid and as a result he incurred a fractured spine. He was taken back to BRMH and put in plaster from head to hip. His fiance, Peggy Scotcher, was a volunteer military nurse at the hospital. When Drummond Hunter heard about the surrender he immediately sent for the hospital chaplain, Major James Squires, and asked him to conduct a marriage there and then.  The witneeses included Mrs Violet White, the wife of the battalion commander, and Mrs Joan Challinor, daughter of an officer serving with the Royal Artillery at Stanley.  The two ladies were both volunteer nurses at the Military Hospital. The commanding officer of BRMH, Lt Colonel Shackleton, RAMC, arrived in the ward with a bottle of champagne. Edith Dyson, the hospital matron, broght a cake intended as a Christmas cake which she had 'liberated' from the RAMC mess. Peggy Scotcher got married in her nurse's uniform. An air raid took place during the bedside ceremony and a bomb landed close to the ward. The guests took temporary cover and the wedding carried onshortly afterwards. The wedding brought some cheer to an otherwise cheerless day. Peggy Hunter and her mother, Bertha Scotcher, an Oxford University graduate, were interned at Stanley Camp. Her father and new husband were interned in the military prisoner of war (POW) camps.

Regimental Sergeant Major Enos Ford, based at Mount Davis with its battery of three 9.2-inch guns was shocked to hear of the surrender. In his diary he recorded that nobody at Mount Davis expected Hong Kong to surrender and some of the men had tears in their eyes when they heard the news. The gunners at Mount Davis blew up their guns in the time honoured fashion of placing a shell in the muzzle and firing a shell from the breach. The men broke their rifles or took out the bolts and threw the bolts down the hillside. Pte Tom Forsyth, WG, was stunned when he heard news of the surrender. His battalion, headquartered at Wan Chai Gap, was ordered to lay down their weapons at Peak Mansions a residential apartment building close to the Peak Tram Station. There were different emotions at play. There was relief that one had survived when so many others had not and there was concern about Japanese ill-treatment and the conditions they woud face during internment. 

The white flag party consisting of the two British staff officers, Lt Colonel Lamb and Lt Prior and presumably one or more Japanese officers but these are not mentioned,  arrived at Stanley Fort at 2000 hours. Lt Colonel Lamb  advised Brigadier Wallis that Sir Mark Young and Major General Maltby had gone to Japanese HQ to formalise the surrender of the garrison. They informed Wallis that his orders  were to surrender his force and to hand over all arms, artillery and equipment in good order. Wallis knew Lt Colonel Lamb but only slightly; he did not know Lr Prior, a junior staff officer (GSO-5)  working in the cypher office. Orders of this magnitude would normally be given in writing. Wallis was uncomfortable with the instructions to hand over the 9.2-inch guns without first putting them out of action. Furthermore the decision to surrender  was inconsistent with the communication he had with Maltby earlier that day before the telephone lines were cut.

In view of the GOC's personal talk with me during the last week and a conversation as early as 25 December, in which he had impressed me not to give up so long as ammunition, food and water were available, it seemed a doubtful story. Could I trust these two excited officers? Surely the GOC would give me some confidential warning to enable me to destroy the big guns and important equipment in time. ... After careful consideration, I decided I could not surrender without confirmation. Accordingly, I despatched Major Harland, 2/RS,  my Brigade Major, to obtain confirmation or otherwise. (14) 

Major Harland left Stanley with the two staff officers. The roads were pitted and battle-damaged and there were numerous Japanese posts that they had to pass through. Harland returned  carrying a formal written order and a personal note from Lt Colonel Stewart. The formal message signed by Stewart for and on behalf of the GOC confirmed the order to cease fire and surrender. The personal note  commiserated with him and urged him to convey the surrender in person to the local Japanese commander on his front. At about 0230 hours on 26 December, Wallis ordered  the white flag to be hoisted at Stanley Fort. The 9.2-inch coastal defence guns had been put out of action at Fort Bokhara and Fort Davis. Wallis made the decision not to blow up the three 9.2-inch and the two 6-inch guns at Stanley. Wallis wrote in his war diary  that he was concerned that if the explosions were heard it may negate the efforts of the GOC and the Governor to implement the surrender. Having received confirmation of the order to lay down arms, Wallis accompanied by Major Harland then proceeded to the local Japanese HQ which he described as being situated in a large white house in Stanley some 400 metres from the police station. The two officers were held overnight albeit they were well treated. The next morning, Wallis was released and Harland was held until his place was taken by Captain James, RA,  who was to act as liaison officer between Stanley Fort and the Japanese HQ at Stanley. A telephone was duly run  from the Japanese HQ to Stanley Fort.

Commander Hugh Montague, the Senior Naval Officer at Aberdeen (SNOA) received a signal from the Commodore at around 1530  with the orders to cease hostilities. The Aberdeen naval base, located in the former Aberdeen Industrial School (AIS), sent out runners to inform the RN personnel fighting as infantry in the hills behind Aberdeen that they should return to AIS. A naval platoon under Lt Laurence Beattie which occupied  the summit of Bennett's Hill was the last of the RN personnel to return to the base. Commander Montague went across to the Aberdeen Naval Dockyard to inform personnel  to cease fire and return to base. Despite the ceasefire, AIS came under heavy artillery fire during the remainder of the afternoon. The main building was hit several times although casualties were light because of the strength of the structure. The gunboat, HMS Robin, moored in Staunton Creek, was scuttled and the crew returned to the Aberdeen Naval Base. While at the Dockyard, Montague gave orders to re-float the grounded naval tug C-410 which he used later that evening with a volunteer crew to escape from Hong Kong. Apart from a brief return to AIS at 1600 hours, Montague spent the rest of the afternoon at the Aberdeen Dockyard waiting for nightfall to make good his escape. The personnel at AIS were not aware of Montague's intended escape and at 1900 hours reported his absence to the Commodore. He was assumed to have been wounded or killed during the artillery bombardment  of AIS and the nearby Naval Dockyard. Commander Herbert  Millet replaced Montague as SNOA assisted by Lt Commander  Arthur Pears, the former commanding officer of the destroyer HMS Thracian. At 1730 hours, the personnel at AIS were mustered by Lt Cdr Pears. He confirmed that the garrison had surrendered and provided some explanation as to the capitulation and guidance as to their future conduct as prisoners of war. The Commodore ordered that the stocks of alcohol at AIS should be destroyed to avoid the Japanese soldiers in jubilant mood getting hold of liquor, getting drunk and running amok. The Aberdeen Naval Base held stocks of liquor and naval rum from HMS Tamar and the China Fleet Club. That afternoon they disposed of 1,800 gallons of rum. Across the defeated colony, weapons were being put of action, code books and secret documents were being burnt. RSM Ford at Mount Davis described it as a bitter moment because amongst the rank and file no-one had expected Hong Kong to surrender. Earlier that Christmas morning, the message from both the Governor and the GOC had been to 'fight on and hold fast'. 

When Major General Mike Maltby was appointed to the role of GOC and arrived in Hong Kong in July 1941 I wonder whether he realised that he had been given an impossible task ie to defend Hong Kong in the event that it was attacked. The same applies to Sir Mark who arrived a little later in September 1941. Given the paucity of aircraft, warships, guns and men, they must have realised that there was little that could be done against a determined Japanese invasion. Of course nobody could be sure that Japan would go to war and many thought they were simply sabre rattling. Few would have anticipated that the Japanese would simultaneously attack Hawaii, Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore. Maltby and Sir Mark took the threat seriously and pressed on with military and civil defence preparations. Maltby must have been encouraged by the arrival of the Canadian force in November 1941 and by the plans to send a squadron of fighter aircraft to Hong Kong. Sir Mark and Maltby knew they had been dealt a weak hand but they were determined to do their best despite the limitations. Maltby described their predicament  as being 'hostages to fortune'. The reality was that he, the Commodore and the Governor were presiding over a lost cause. Sir Mark and Maltby were criticised by some for not surrendering earlier and thereby saving more lives. However, their instructions from the Prime Minister were clear. They were ordered to resist  for as long as possible and that this would assist the Allied cause. The Governor and his military commanders were following their orders. It had become a matter of honour. Writing after the war, Churchill acknowledged that the colony had put up 'a good fight' and that they had indeed won 'the lasting honour'.

Notes

1. The time of 1515 hours is taken from Maltby's Report on Operations dated January 1948. At this time the General advised the Governor that 'no further useful military resistance was possible'. 

2. The time 1605 hours is taken from 1/Mx battalion war diary.

3. Note to General Hastings from the Prime Minister. Source: The Second World War Volume III (1950) Winston Churchill (p. 157)

4. Estimates of the British garrison size vary between 12,500 and 14,000. My number of 12,500 is derived from the number quoted in Maltby's Report on Operations after adding the number  of non-army personnel ie Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Dockyard Defence Corps and the RAF contingent.

5. Estimates of the Japanese invasion force vary significantly and depend on whether one includes, the Japanese Navy, Japanese Air Force and the troops held in reserve across the border. The Japanese deployed one infantry division (38th Division) to attack Hong Kong consisting of 13,000 men and the First Artillery Group consisting of 6,000 men I have assumed 2,000 men from other ancillary units (ie Gendarmes and 23rd Army staff) to make a total of 21,000 and this excludes Air Force and Navy personnel

6. It was an unexpected defeat but Singapore and Malaya lacked tanks, HE shells and up-to-date aircraft. The Japanese had both air and sea superiority. The latter more so after the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. Lt General Percival the GOC in Malaya Command based in Singapore had the manpower but lacked the military assets. 

7. Prime Minister to Governor Hong Kong dated 21 December 1941. Source: The Second World War Volume III (1950) Winston Churchill (p.563).

8. Official communique from Governor reproduced in South China Morning Post.

9. Events in Hong Kong on 25 December 1941 by Sir Mark Young for the Secretary of State for the Colonies published in Hong Kong Government Gazette July 1948.

10. Operations in Hong Kong from 8 to 25 December by Major General Maltby  published in London Gazette January 1948

11. Personal Experiences during the siege of Hong Kong by George Baxter (p. 16).

12. A Gunner's War in China  the private papers of Lt Col J H Monro (IWM Docs. 17941).

13. The First of Foot (1961) Augustus Muir (p.128).

14 East Infantry Brigade War Diary (UKNA CAB106/35).

NB: 

If you like this blog and would like to see more of these type of posts please click the 'Follow' button on top right of first page allowing you to receive an email version as they come out. If interested in the history of the battle  my book (pic below) is available through usual outlets including Amazon.

.............................................