Pacific · British Commonwealth vs Japan
Battle of Hong Kong
8 December 1941 – 25 December 1941
The Japanese 38th Division attacked the colony from Guangdong on the first morning of the Pacific war. The mainland defences were abandoned within five days and the island fell after a week of fighting. The garrison of British, Indian, Canadian and Hong Kong troops surrendered on Christmas Day.
Explore Battle of Hong Kong on the interactive map · Wikipedia
Day by day
— The border
Japanese aircraft destroy the five RAF machines at Kai Tak on the ground at 08:00 and the 38th Division crosses the Sham Chun river the same morning. Three battalions of the Mainland Brigade fall back on the Gin Drinkers Line, demolishing the roads and bridges behind them.
— Shing Mun
A company of the 228th Regiment takes the Shing Mun Redoubt in a night attack on the 9th with about thirty men, and the whole Gin Drinkers Line goes with it. Maltby orders the mainland given up on the 11th. The Punjabis hold the Devil's Peak ridge to cover the ferries.
— The island alone
The last troops leave Kowloon before dawn on the 13th and the Devil's Peak positions are given up. A launch comes across under a white flag with a demand to surrender; Sir Mark Young refuses it, and again on the 17th. For five days the Japanese shell and bomb the north shore.
— The landings
Three regiments cross the harbour after dark on the north-east shore between North Point and Lyemun and are into the hills by morning. The Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Scots fight all day of the 19th for Wong Nai Chung Gap, the junction of every road on the island, and lose it; Brigadier Lawson is killed at his headquarters there.
— Christmas Day
The island has been cut in two since the 20th, the West Brigade shut into Victoria and the East Brigade into the Stanley peninsula, and the reservoirs are in Japanese hands. Massacres of prisoners and staff take place at the Salesian Mission and at St Stephen's College. Young and Maltby cross to the Peninsula Hotel in the afternoon and surrender; 1,500 of the garrison are dead and the rest go into camps where many more will die.
