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Japan attacked on December 8, 1941
Japan’s invasion and the sacrifice of Hong Kong:
By 1930, Japan had become East Asia’s strongest power, and increasingly expansionist. The nations that might have deterred Japan – the UK, US, USSR, and China – were all suspicious of each other, had other priorities competing for their physical, financial, and human resources of all sorts, and did not cooperate effectively until war was well underway.
The London Naval Treaty, which limited both ships and coastal defence installations in East Asia, lapsed in 1936. In response, Britain quickly began building nine batteries on Hong Kong Island, including the Jubilee Battery on the site of this campus. However, Hong Kong remained very vulnerable, especially from the air; the British had only 5 military planes in the area, based at a small, vulnerable, landing strip at Kai Tak, while Japan had multiple air bases within flying distance of the city.
Japan started its attack on the 8th December 1941, taking the New Territories and Kowloon quickly; the defenders were evacuated on the 11th December through the 13th December. On the 18th December, Japan attacked Hong Kong Island. As Japanese troops advanced, the guns of Mount Davis Battery turned eastward and fired across Hong Kong Island. The island’s defenders were outnumbered by the Japanese invaders roughly 15,000 to 37,000, and lacked air support; they resisted longer than the Japanese had expected, but surrendered on the 25th December. The defenders had known from the beginning that their forces were inadequate, but there were many rumors (which were untrue, but encouraged by some British authorities) that if they could hold on a while, they would be relieved by Nationalist Chinese forces headed towards them from Guangdong, British forces arriving by sea, or some combination thereof.
Over 10,000 defenders were captured; about 2,000 died, along with 4,000 civilians and 675 Japanese. A brutal occupation began, lasting until 1945. The city’s population fell by almost half, and by one estimate, by the war’s end, 80% of Hong Kongers had been affected by malnutrition.
The odds against holding Hong Kong had been so high that some people question whether the British should have tried to defend it; evacuating troops and surrendering the city would have saved lives. Others, however, argue that immediate surrender might have weakened the resolve of China (which had been fighting Japan since 1937), and undermined anti-Japanese cooperation with the US. In this view, though Hong Kong’s defenders could not protect the city, their sacrifice served a larger purpose.
bombed it heavily
Aerial view of the Japanese bombing of Mt Davis, showing explosions all over:
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(Source: Kwong, C.M. (2021). The Battle of Hong Kong 1941: A Spatial History Project. Retrieved October 1, 2024, from Hong Kong Baptist University Library, History in Data: https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/1941hkbattle/)
Bard’s makeshift operating area:
A British photo of some buildings at the Jubilee Battery, now the site of our campus, taken just before the war, in 1941. It is very close to where Bard was the second time he almost got killed.
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(Source: Kwong, C.M. (2021). The Battle of Hong Kong 1941: A Spatial History Project. Retrieved October 1, 2024, from Hong Kong Baptist University Library, History in Data: https://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/1941hkbattle/)
was almost killed on two occasions
One of these incidents occurred on top of Mt. Davis. There was a 9.2” diameter gun that could propel a shell over 20 miles in any direction, making it particularly important, and the Japanese bombed and shelled the site heavily. (Since the Japanese were approaching from the mainland, rather than from the sea, the guns lower down the mountain, which pointed out to sea, were not very important.) Bard had a makeshift clinic in a stone bunker there and also in a plywood hut that had once been used as a signaling station; it was flimsy and exposed, but near the action, and equipped with a telephone. Bard and some assistants did triage in the bunker, provided care to those who needed it immediately, and sent others down the mountain to the Jubilee Battery (part of which is now this campus) for further treatment. At one point, a Japanese artillery shell tore through the wall of this clinic, but it did not explode. If it had, Bard and the roughly 60 patients in the room would all have had a high risk of death.
The other occurred across Victoria Road from this campus, near the secondary treatment site at Jubilee Battery. Bard, who was taking a break after checking patients there, was caught in a bombardment, and took shelter in the basement of an empty building at Felix Villas (now owned by HKU), where he was joined by a terrified stray dog. As he described it later, he then suddenly had a bad feeling about the place, grabbed the dog and ran out; seconds later, the basement was hit by a shell and collapsed.
another prisoner’s exceptional bravery
Click to watch interview of Jason Wordie:
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