Hong Kong is world widely known for being the world’s financial hub and for being the world’s richest city; most people don’t know that before being a financial city, it had a rich history behind it. It went through one of the greatest, harshest wars in history, the Second World War. There are many reasons why the Japanese were so successful in capturing Hong Kong; they invested most of their money into the Japanese Army. While they had latest guns and weapons, the local Hong Kong civilians only had out of date rusty rifles. While the Canadians were taught to survive, the Japanese wanted to honour their families and their emperor; so they were willing to sacrifice their lives for their nation and their emperor. It would be shameful to their families and their country if they did not win; they had high determination and morale. On December 8th, Japan invaded Hong Kong.
Winston Churchill quoted, “If Japan ever attacked Hong Kong, and Hong Kong would have no chance in defending it.” The others people said saving it was worth a try to save Hong Kong, so Winston Churchill told the Canadian troops to deal with it because the British thought that Hong Kong wouldn’t be attacked. The attack started at 07.30 on December 8th 1941. The Japanese air force destroyed what aircraft the British had at Kai Tak airport and engineering units quickly repaired destroyed bridges. The British underestimated the Japanese, telling their troops that the Japanese only had 5,000 troops when in fact the Japanese sent 50,000 soldiers, the British only had 6,000 soldiers. The British also estimated that it would only take a week for the Japanese to arrive but in fact it only took twelve hours to reach Hong Kong from China. It was recorded that the Japanese had been singing on their way to the border of Hong Kong.
The Coursework on Foreign Trade Britain British World
Page TOC o "1-3" h z u Introduction PAGEREF Toc 1837247 h 21. Economic development as a factor of external trade PAGEREF Toc 1837248 h 31. 1. Agriculture PAGEREF Toc 1837249 h 31.2. Manufacturing PAGEREF Toc 1837250 h 51. 3. The service sector PAGEREF Toc 1837251 h 61.4. Transportation PAGEREF Toc 1837252 h 82. Foreign trade PAGEREF Toc 1837253 h 122. 1.The foreign trade turnover, exports, imports ...
On November 16th 1941 Britain, sent Winnipeg (Canadian) soldiers arrived in Hong Kong as they were “unfit for combat.” They had never thrown a hand grenade or used a rifle in their entire lifetime. The Canadians only arrived in Hong Kong a few weeks before the invasion. In such a short period of time, they only a few weeks to prepare. How were they supposed to get used to even the geography of Hong Kong, let alone not even knowing Hong Kong Island? Many of the British armies expected that the Japanese would attack from the sea, so many of the defences were directed to south of Hong Kong Island. Even though the Japanese were parading their prisoners and all women were immediately turned into prostitutes in Kowloon, the British still stood their guard near the sea. They most certainly did not expect the Japanese to attack across the harbour.
In order for the Canadians to gain some confidence, the general told his troops that the Japanese would never come across the water at night, he told them that the Japanese were prone to sea sickness, and that they could not see well in the dark. According to an anonymous source, it was not difficult to find the Canadians; they had hung their underwear outside to dry. The Japanese could not believe how easy they were to find and thought the Canadians were stupid and the Japanese thought this was really funny. On Christmas day, 25th of December 09.00 the General tried to persuade the Governor and the Defence Council of the island that further resistance would lead to many unnecessary deaths. The Defence Council refused any talk of surrender. By mid-afternoon the Japanese had made major inroads into the positions held by the general’s men and he finally persuaded the Governor to surrender the island. The Japanese were very prepared as they had strong connections with a Triad leader in China who was working for the Japanese.
The majority of them were from Formosa (Taiwan).
Their role was to sabotage the Hong Kong defences, spread false rumours and report the position of the British guns and the pill-boxes. The next strategy the Japanese used was to say the line “Hey, it’s me Joe.” As Joe is a really common name in Canada and in Britain Joe was a really common name they used deceive the Canadians. They repeated and perfected this line until there was no trace of a foreign accent. The Japanese soldiers said this to the Canadian soldiers to mislead them into thinking that they were their countrymen, when the Canadian solider lowered their defences the Japanese attacked them. Overall I think that the British made very foolish mistakes that they underestimated their enemies and misjudged the seriousness of the battle. I think that the Japanese were strategically well prepared than the British in everything they did especially when the British were reluctant to defend Hong Kong. All the Japanese troops that were sent to Hong Kong had a lot experience in war and that the all Canadians had absolutely no experience in fighting made Japan win Hong Kong. They completely let down Hong Kong being unable to protect Hong Kong.
The Essay on Communism In Hong Kong
Why would a communist country want to have a capitalist country? Well I think it is because Hong Kong has a lot of money, because they are one of the major trade centers of the world. Another reason is that Hong Kong was a part of China until 1842 when the British defeated China in the first Opium War and took possession of Hong Kong. In this report I will be talking about how the Communist ...
