Liberating Hong Kong
When the news that Japan might accept the Potsdam Declaration reached the Allied powers before dawn on 11 August, British, Chinese (nationalist and communist) and American forces in China all raced to control Hong Kong. Rear-Admiral Cecil Harcourt sailed a British task force toward Hong Kong in support of an order to re-establish British rule. (Intelligence agents of the British Army Aid Group carried this order from the British Embassy at Chongqing through the neutral Portuguese colony of Macau and finally to Franklin Gimson, Hong Kong’s Colonial Secretary, who was interned in Stanley.) Meanwhile, General Wedemeyer, the C-in-C of the American forces in China, tried to fly to Hong Kong to arrange the surrender of the Japanese garrison. His plane, however, was interned at Canton by the Japanese, as they were unsure to whom they should surrender.
When the news that Japan might accept the Potsdam Declaration reached the Allied powers before dawn on 11 August, British, Chinese (nationalist and communist) and American forces in China all raced to control Hong Kong. Rear-Admiral Cecil Harcourt sailed a British task force toward Hong Kong in support of an order to re-establish British rule. (Intelligence agents of the British Army Aid Group carried this order from the British Embassy at Chungking through the neutral Portuguese colony of Macao and finally to Franklin Gimson, Hong Kong’s Colonial Secretary, who was interned in Stanley. Meanwhile, General Wedemeyer, the C-in-C of the American forces in China, tried to fly to Hong Kong to arrange the surrender of the Japanese garrison. His plane, however, was interned at Canton by the Japanese, as they were unsure to whom they should surrender.
The British and the Chinese Nationalist governments claimed the right to accept a Japanese surrender in Hong Kong, and both turned to U.S. President Harry S. Truman for support. Truman decided to support the British claim, as long as they would allow Chinese and American forces to use Hong Kong as a springboard to reach other parts of China. The issue of sovereignty would be addressed later. Chiang Kai-shek thus lost the diplomatic battle and the troops he sent to Hong Kong would arrive too late to make a difference on the ground.
When the Japanese emperor announced his acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration on 15 August, Japanese forces in Hong Kong were ordered to maintain public order and defend themselves. For more than a week, looting engulfed the city, while local Chinese leaders struggled to maintain order with the Japanese and the triads. Meanwhile, dozens of Chinese Communist guerrillas (the East River Column) attacked the Japanese outposts in the New Territories from 18 August, with the goal of controlling the area and seizing the arms of the Japanese forces. These attacks were repelled, but in one case the retaliating Japanese troops murdered a number of villagers in Lantau.
Back in Stanley, Gimson and other interned officials began to imagine the shape of a provisional government. After receiving the British government’s order from Macao on 23 August, he negotiated with the Japanese and was allowed to establish a headquarters at Central. By then, it was clear that Hong Kong would be surrendered to the British forces. Gimson, with the aid of other internees and POWs, maintained some essential services and public order before Harcourt’s fleet would arrive on 30 August.
Food was in dangerously short supply, even though the population had fallen by two-thirds, to 500,000–600,000. Britain was acutely aware of the problem and its South East Asia Command (SEAC) launched Operation Armour to ship troops, food and supplies to Hong Kong in mid-August. An RAF engineers unit and a commando brigade were diverted to Hong Kong. The former swiftly restored the essential services and communications and the latter took over the New Territories on 14 September. Harcourt’s fleet brought urgently needed coal and other supplies. The SEAC also arranged rice and food convoys from Burma, India, Thailand and Australia in the following months, saving the ex-colony from certain starvation.
On 16 September, the Japanese forces in Hong Kong surrendered to Harcourt. A week earlier (on 7 September, coincidentally the same date that the Nationalist troops arrived in Canton), David MacDougall returned to Hong Kong with the HKPU to establish a military administration. Together with the interned officials and the members of the British Army Aid Group, the unit re-established British rule and restored economic activities. This success helped secure Hong Kong’s position in international trade and industry in Asia in the coming decades, especially as other Chinese cities were in chaos. The Planning Unit considered many reform programs during the war, including political reforms to allow more Chinese participation. One consensus was that thepre-war laissez-faire style of governance had to be abandoned and the post-war government should respond quickly to citizens’ needs. This set the tone of the British rule in Hong Kong from 1945 to 1997, a period when the British control of the territory was never seriously contested.
Kwong Chi Man is Assistant Professor of History, Hong Kong Baptist University
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HMS Nelson enters Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, on August 30
Franklin Gimson, Hong Kong's Governor General
‘Rogerio’ Hyndman Lobo
Hong Kong harbor scene, 1945
A victory parade in the Central district in Hong Kong in 1945 after the Japanese army announced their surrender
Victory Day in Hong Kong
