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Subject: Battle of Hong Kong: Lost Opportunity?
Godofgamblers    9/15/2009 11:35:26 PM
From what i've read on the Battle of Hong Kong, most give the British little chance of winning because of the overwhelming odds against them and focus on the Battle of Singapore as the battle where the Japanese should have been stopped. Churchill himself saw reinforcing HK as throwing away troops, "good money after bad" because of the odds and the logistics. Britain could not supply HK or give any naval support; the Japanese quickly assumed full air superiority. Japanese troops outnumbered the British 3 to 1. However, looking at the battle lines in detail, the British had a considerable number of natural lines of defense at their disposal. A defensive line (the Gin Drinkers Line), Devil's Peak ( a commanding mountain position), the channel between Kowloon and HK island, and a natural gorge which separated north and south HK island and which as the only passage through from north to south. The British seemed to give up these natural redoubts virtually witout a fight. Given that they had years to prepare for the battle, a large populace to help with digging trenches, defensive positions, etc, could they not have fought the Japanese to a stalemate? Was the battle really a foregone conclusino or a massive blunder?
 
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smitty237    Morality over valor   9/16/2009 12:16:22 AM
I guess the British conceivably could have held out in Hong Kong, but I think Churchill made the right decision in ordering the garrison to surrender.  Had the Brits made a stand there and fought the Japs to a stalemate a long, bloody seige would have endsued.  The Japanese may have very well achieved a break-through anyway, which would have resulted in the loss of Hong Kong and even greater loss of life.   In the event of a siege it would have been damn near impossible to resupply the garrison, and hundreds of thousands would have died from starvation and disease, not to mention wounds from constant and indiscriminate Japanese artillery bombardment. 
 
Defending a stronghold and dying to the last man may make for great motivation and inspiration, but in many cases is a needless waste of human life.  Many civilian and soldiers died when Hong Kong surrendered, but many more probably would have died had it not surrendered.  I think Churchill made the moral choice, if not necessarily the bravest one. 
 
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Godofgamblers       9/16/2009 12:47:50 AM
I think that in fact churchill wanted them to fight on. He was hoping they would hold out for months, not weeks. The Brits surrendered because they had been backed into a corner and had bungled their options.
 
Holding the Gin Drinkers line was unwise; it was too long to be held by such a small number of troops. It should have come as no surprise when it fell and yet this seemed to have thrown the Brits off balance. As well, the Brits should have made the Jap landing on HK island costly but were again caught by surprise by a Jap night landing. Again at the gorge the Japs reached it before the Brits could dig in. finally, the urban battle: fighting in an urban area could have well made the Japs pay dearly but instead, the Brits found themselves without water supplies to continue and the commander decided that future resistance would be futile.
 
It seems to me though that due to the fact that since 1937 the Brits were expecting war, they could have shored up the Gin Drinkers Line; they could have dug into Devil's peak. They could have made the Jap landing very costly by mining the North shore and building tank traps; they could have built up considerable stores in HK proper for a long seige. Most of the Brits were wearing Pith helmets and using WW1 rifles but if they had had good leadership, i think HK could have been a very different story.
 
Many feel that the Battle of Singapore should have been very different but i feel the battle of HK should have gone differently for the reasons given above.
 
Perhaps most of the best human ressources of the Brits were wiped out in WW1 and they were unable to find decent commanders.
 
 
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albywan       9/16/2009 12:56:57 AM
People who hold Churchill up in esteem at his military leadership are sadly out of touch.
 
It is his treatment of the Australian and New Zealanders at Gallipoli WWI that lost him the respect of the serving men from these nations in WWII. Instead of having these forces geared up for a future conflict with Japan during the initial stages of the war he used them as cannon fodder in the European theatre.
 
It was only a brave decision by the Australian PM to bring his troops back from Europe to defend Australia. But by then Singapore and HK had been lost.
 
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Godofgamblers       9/16/2009 2:43:22 AM

Interesting too that churchill had canadian troops sent to HK after he had opined that sending more troops would be a waste of lives. It seems the colonials were often used for suicide missions like gallipoli, dieppe, HK, etc

 
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bigfella       9/17/2009 6:58:38 AM
I don't know much about the HK campaign, so I'll rely on the accuracy of what is above. I do know a bit about the rest of Japan's campaign, however.
 
GOG, I don't see what could have been gained by trying to hold out in HK. There was no way the Brits could reinforce or resupply & to do so would have drawn resources from more crucial operations. Further, it wasn't like holding out on HK could or would have any impact on the Japanese advance elsewhere. The forces needed for the siege could be drawn from forces in China anyway. Unlike the Germans in France in 1944 or the British at Kohima/Imphal (for example), holding on in HK would simply have gotten a bunch more people killed than was necessary. This doesn't require any great act of hindsight, as was clear to many at the time.
 
This being said, it makes the decision to reinforce even harder to understand. Churchill was a great leader in many ways, but he treated Commonwealth nations with something close to contempt at times. Sending Canadians to HK would appear to be one such decision.
 
For those interested on an Australian perspective on Churchill, here is one. He lied to us about the preparedness of Singapore, got a lot of Australians captured & killed in Greece, made it as hard as possible for Australia to remove its troops from Nth Africa when we faced invasion & then he actually re-directed them to Burma (our PM went over his head - to Roosevelt - and we got most of them back to fight in New Guinea). Many Australians still see him as a hero, and he was. Unfortunately there was another side too.
 
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Godofgamblers       9/17/2009 7:52:35 AM
Agree with your points, BF. but just because the odds are stacked against you is no reason to fight poorly. the brits had no strategy as far as i can see. they fumbled all their opportunities. you're right that inflicting losses, even massive losses, on the japs wouldn't have changed the outcome but it's no reason for the brits to roll over and give up.
 
if i were the brit commander, i would have manned the gin drinker wall but left part of it virtually open, allowing the japanese to take it and move into a pre-prepared killing zone i had set up. keep moving back orderly, making the japs pay for every yard, steering them into minefields and entrenched positions. when they finally reached the built up urban areas of HK, the odds would be looking more favorable to the brits.
 
if i attack someone at night with a white knife, which will be the knife that kills my opponent? the white knife in my right hand or the black knife in my right? odds are, the black knife. that is strategy, making the enemy do what you want. appear weak where you want him to move. after reading and re-reading the events of the battle of HK, i can't see that the british commander had any plan at all. sorry i keep harping on this, but i am trying to put myself in the place of the people of the time and it just doesn't add up. if you knew that defeat would mean becoming a prisoner of the japanese with all that entailed, wouldn't you fight to the last round, employing every single astuce and trick in the book to mow down and whittle down every possible enemy soldier? i certainly would....
 
your points on churchill are well taken.
 
Noordin Top just killed by the way!!!!
 
great news....
 
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bigfella       9/17/2009 8:57:08 AM

Agree with your points, BF. but just because the odds are stacked against you is no reason to fight poorly. the brits had no strategy as far as i can see. they fumbled all their opportunities. you're right that inflicting losses, even massive losses, on the japs wouldn't have changed the outcome but it's no reason for the brits to roll over and give up.

 

if i were the brit commander, i would have manned the gin drinker wall but left part of it virtually open, allowing the japanese to take it and move into a pre-prepared killing zone i had set up. keep moving back orderly, making the japs pay for every yard, steering them into minefields and entrenched positions. when they finally reached the built up urban areas of HK, the odds would be looking more favorable to the brits.

 

if i attack someone at night with a white knife, which will be the knife that kills my opponent? the white knife in my right hand or the black knife in my right? odds are, the black knife. that is strategy, making the enemy do what you want. appear weak where you want him to move. after reading and re-reading the events of the battle of HK, i can't see that the british commander had any plan at all. sorry i keep harping on this, but i am trying to put myself in the place of the people of the time and it just doesn't add up. if you knew that defeat would mean becoming a prisoner of the japanese with all that entailed, wouldn't you fight to the last round, employing every single astuce and trick in the book to mow down and whittle down every possible enemy soldier? i certainly would....

 

your points on churchill are well taken.

 

Noordin Top just killed by the way!!!!

 

great news....


First, agreed on Top. Good news.
 
Second, yes, if you are actually going to fight then do it properly. There may have been very good reasons for what was done, or the guy in charge may just hsve been like quite a few senior officers in the Far East - mediocre & out of their depth.
 
Third point, Japanese treatment of prisoners wasn't widely known at the time (AFAIK). Remember that HK was attacked when everything else was, not after. I don't know when the stories began to get out about what the Japanese wer doing, but at that point there were virtually no Allied POWs to learn about. So the decision to surrender or not might not seem as clearcut as you think.
 
Fourth, if you have no chance of evacuation or resupply & your sacrifice can achieve nothing for the greater effort, is it better to fight to the last or take your chances as a POW? One thing for sure, if you die in the battle you don't even get a chance at surviving the incarceration.
 
I don't know what the commander knew about his chances of evac or resupply & when he knew it. For me, the moment he knew he was alone the only moral thing to do was surrender. If that moment was the start of the battle the so be it. I see no honour in pointless sacrifice. 

 
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albywan       9/17/2009 8:06:46 PM
HK could have been defended/fought for, if Churchill really did believe in holding together the british empire.
 
Supply overland to the Chinese forces to fight the japanese - like the US did once they entered the pacific thearte, but on a larger scale... opening up a greater land conflict with the japanese forces...
 
Maybe even linking up with the freedom fighters in Vietnam
 
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Godofgamblers       9/17/2009 10:09:27 PM
Im sure churchill wished to keep the empire together; however, British assets and influence in Asia were not effective due to neglect. As well, there was no significant air power or navy. Logistics and supply were almost nil. Singapore was first told they could count on reinforcements within 2 months, then it was 3 then they promised 6 months and then close to the invasion of Singapore they were informed that it was unknown when reinforcements could be sent. The message was clear. Britain could not or would not afford to focus on the Far East. Europe was more pressing at the time.
 
Churchill merely wished to show the Chinese that the UK still had the will to fight and for that reason sent 5,000 Canadians to certain death/impisonment to make a political statement.
 
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cwDeici       9/18/2009 12:47:05 AM
I am a Hong Konger and we could have held out longer and soaked up more resources, but yes, avoiding eventual defeat would have required a first-grade miracle of some sort. As Korean and Japanese troops went around raping and killing people anyway I think we did our job.
 
British troops at the Peak fought till death.
 
Regardless, you know more than me.
 
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