In 1941, Hundreds of Canadian Soldiers Died in the Hopeless Battle for Hong Kong
In a misguided mission, almost 2,000 Canadians were sent to the Far East, arriving just prior to the outbreak of a hopeless battle.
Here s What You Need to Know: In Canada, no one ever really had to answer for the tragedy of Hong Kong.
By the 1930s the security Hong Kong had enjoyed since its acquisition by the British Empire in 1842 was a memory. The supremacy of the Royal Navy was seriously threatened by the rise of Japan as a world power in the region; the island was now within range of artillery from the mainland; and the threat of air attack now loomed as well. The British, realizing the precariousness of the colony’s position, wrote it off as an indefensible outpost of the Empire and maintained no large defense force there.