Hong Kong: A Way of Life Dies

Hong Kong, born of opium and piracy, fat with a century's pleasure and profit, died last week in a blaze of glory.

Scrawled in blood across the tale of its death was the bitterly familiar tag line of Britain's World War II record: too little and too late. Only a few months ago had the British really begun to equip Hong Kong to meet a growing threat. They sent Canadian and British troops, new supplies and artillery. But when the Japanese struck, Hong Kong was still far from ready. Too many men were there to surrender without battle, too few to do more than add a brave and futile postscript to a colorful century of history.

For 100 years Hong Kong had stood handsomely for the Imperial Way of Life. The Happy Valley Race Course was smooth and fast. The cool gimlets and gin slings of the Hong Kong Club were as refreshing as the food of the great hotels was dull. Shops bore names that circled the rim of Empire: Kelly & Walsh sold Britons their books, Whiteaway & Laidlaw sold them practically everything else. The white monolithic skyscraper of the Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank dominated the island's waterfront as it dominated Britain's Pacific Empire, looking down upon the lesser establishments of Jardine, Matheson & Co., Butterfield and Swire, other British merchants and entrepreneurs.

To the end Hong Kong was a free port, unencumbered by tariffs, strictly governed by Englishmen, who kept its streets clean, its docks and shipyards humming, its swarming Chinese population busy. Even its last Governor, Sir Mark Young, was a man of the Imperial tradition: Cambridge-educated, a High Churchman, a cricketer and big-game hunter, a stubborn-hearted fighter.

On Dec. 8 a few thousand men--English, Scottish, Canadian, Chinese, and Indian troops, civilian volunteers--faced two full Japanese divisions (30,000 or more). The first Japanese attack pierced the mainland line within 24 hours. Within five days the Japanese penned the outnumbered British on the island, demanded surrender, were refused.

Japanese artillery lined the mainland shore, pumped streams of shell into island positions. One by one British batteries went silent, British searchlights winked out. In the first eight days 45 air raids pocked British positions with terrifying accuracy. On Dec. 18 the Japanese burst across to the island itself. The British fought on. As food, water and ammunition ran short, they charged Japanese positions to certain death from machine guns. The Japanese established themselves in the eastern corner of the island, pressed on. Soon they held three of Hong Kong's reservoirs. Under their bombardments the island's water system was breached, repaired, breached again.

By Dec. 23, there was only one day's supply of water left. On Christmas military authorities told the Government that no further effective resistance could be offered with the 6,000 exhausted troops still fighting. In the afternoon Sir Mark crossed the blue strait to the mainland, met the Japanese in the swank Peninsula Hotel, where he surrendered and remained prisoner under guard.

The fall of Hong Kong sealed the last great leak in the Japanese blockade of the China coast, but it gave the Japanese no great new advantage for the Singapore push which was not already theirs. To Allied commanders, Hong Kong had been only something to be yielded so that something more important might be held.

But to Sir Mark and the men who cherished the traditions of Empire, it was more. For the first time Britain had lost a Pacific outpost; and lost it to the dwarf-like men whom British guns had helped blast awake only 79 years ago. On Dec. 28, flushed with victory, the Japanese paraded in triumphal review through the colony before their proud commanders. With little comfort, in his guarded room, Sir Mark may have repeated:

Far called, our names melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire;

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.

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