'Lasting honour': Battle for Hong Kong ended on Christmas Day 1941 and Capt. John Reid was among the Canadians there
THERE WAS A VETERAN OF HONG KONG WHO WAS A MEMBER OF MY PARENTS NORWOOD BRANCH 149 OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN LEGION YEG
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“C” Force arrives in Hong Kong on November 16, 1941.
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On Christmas Day, 1941, Hong Kong surrendered to invading Japanese forces. The Canadian death toll was 290, and some 1,700 were taken prisoner. Among the PoWs was John Reid, a young Canadian doctor who volunteered for the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps after his medical training. He survived the war, but finding a peace of his own took 10 tumultuous years, with casualties of a different sort. This excerpt from the new book The Captain Was a Doctor describes Reid’s experience through the last three days of the battle for Hong Kong.
By December 22, Mount Cameron, several miles north of Reid’s Regimental Aid Post, had become the linchpin of West Brigade’s defensive line as the Japanese forced their way from the east. The position was held by only 100 Winnipeg Grenadiers, reinforced by a platoon of British Royal Engineers — all that could be spared. After raining Mount Cameron’s defenders with artillery and mortar fire, the Japanese attacked during the evening with 1,000 troops. The Grenadiers and Royal Engineers fought back ferociously, but a Japanese breakthrough on their right flank threatened to encircle their position and forced their withdrawal northward to Wan Chai Gap. In his postwar debriefing in October 1945, Reid recalls the confusion of this night:
(We were) still at Aberdeen Reservoir. This hill (where we had our aid post) continued to Wan Chai Gap. That part was held by the British and Canadians on our left flank. During the night we heard a lot of firing on this hill. We phoned (Grenadier Headquarters, northwest of Mount Cameron) to find out what was going on. They said, absolutely nothing — everything’s under control and quiet. In about ten minutes we got a call (from Grenadier Headquarters) in a great hurry and as soon as the phone was off (the hook) someone said the Japs are coming, we’re falling back on Mt. Gough, northwesterly, and for us to get up (to Mount Gough) any way we could … we would try to make a last stand there, then they banged down the phone. We picked it up again to ask, what’s this all about? Nobody was there.
Mount Cameron fell to the Japanese in the early hours of December 23. Except for Stanley Peninsula, where Canada’s Royal Rifles and the rest of East Brigade were cut off but still holding out, the Japanese now controlled the whole eastern half of Hong Kong Island, including the north-south corridor down the centre to Repulse Bay. West Brigade’s entire defence line from Leighton Hill in the north of the island to Bennet’s Hill in the south was under intense attack. On this day, another telegram was sent to Governor Mark Young by Prime Minister Winston Churchill:
There must be no thought of surrender. Every part of the island must be fought and the enemy resisted with the utmost stubbornness. The enemy should be compelled to expend the utmost life and equipment. There must be vigorous fighting in the inner defences and, if need be, from house to house. Every day that you are able to maintain your resistance you help the Allied cause all over the world, and by a prolonged resistance you and your men can win the lasting honour which we are sure will be your due.
On Christmas Day, 1941, Hong Kong surrendered to invading Japanese forces. The Canadian death toll was 290, and some 1,700 were taken prisoner. Among the PoWs was John Reid, a young Canadian doctor who volunteered for the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps after his medical training. He survived the war, but finding a peace of his own took 10 tumultuous years, with casualties of a different sort. This excerpt from the new book The Captain Was a Doctor describes Reid’s experience through the last three days of the battle for Hong Kong.
By December 22, Mount Cameron, several miles north of Reid’s Regimental Aid Post, had become the linchpin of West Brigade’s defensive line as the Japanese forced their way from the east. The position was held by only 100 Winnipeg Grenadiers, reinforced by a platoon of British Royal Engineers — all that could be spared. After raining Mount Cameron’s defenders with artillery and mortar fire, the Japanese attacked during the evening with 1,000 troops. The Grenadiers and Royal Engineers fought back ferociously, but a Japanese breakthrough on their right flank threatened to encircle their position and forced their withdrawal northward to Wan Chai Gap. In his postwar debriefing in October 1945, Reid recalls the confusion of this night:
(We were) still at Aberdeen Reservoir. This hill (where we had our aid post) continued to Wan Chai Gap. That part was held by the British and Canadians on our left flank. During the night we heard a lot of firing on this hill. We phoned (Grenadier Headquarters, northwest of Mount Cameron) to find out what was going on. They said, absolutely nothing — everything’s under control and quiet. In about ten minutes we got a call (from Grenadier Headquarters) in a great hurry and as soon as the phone was off (the hook) someone said the Japs are coming, we’re falling back on Mt. Gough, northwesterly, and for us to get up (to Mount Gough) any way we could … we would try to make a last stand there, then they banged down the phone. We picked it up again to ask, what’s this all about? Nobody was there.
Mount Cameron fell to the Japanese in the early hours of December 23. Except for Stanley Peninsula, where Canada’s Royal Rifles and the rest of East Brigade were cut off but still holding out, the Japanese now controlled the whole eastern half of Hong Kong Island, including the north-south corridor down the centre to Repulse Bay. West Brigade’s entire defence line from Leighton Hill in the north of the island to Bennet’s Hill in the south was under intense attack. On this day, another telegram was sent to Governor Mark Young by Prime Minister Winston Churchill:
There must be no thought of surrender. Every part of the island must be fought and the enemy resisted with the utmost stubbornness. The enemy should be compelled to expend the utmost life and equipment. There must be vigorous fighting in the inner defences and, if need be, from house to house. Every day that you are able to maintain your resistance you help the Allied cause all over the world, and by a prolonged resistance you and your men can win the lasting honour which we are sure will be your due.
© Courtesy of The Captain was a Doctor Captain John Reid.
With Mount Cameron overrun by the enemy, the Winnipeg Grenadiers north of the Aberdeen Reservoir, now dangerously exposed, were ordered to pull back to Aberdeen Village on the coast, Reid’s medical unit with them. On the morning of Tuesday, December 23, Reid deposited his wounded at the Aberdeen Naval Hospital and took stock of what he should do next.
At the beginning of hostilities, all of the garrison’s field ambulances, including the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, were reorganized as the Combined Field Ambulance led by Lieutenant-Colonel Lindsay Ride of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, with the Winnipeg Grenadiers’ Major John Crawford as second-in-command. During the last three days of fighting, the Combined Field Ambulance Headquarters had been on the move and was out of touch with many of its medical units. When Reid finally made contact late on Tuesday afternoon, he was ordered to Pok Fu Lam on the west coast of the island. As he describes in his postwar debriefing, believing his short-lived military career was about to end, he persuaded the Field Ambulance Headquarters otherwise:
I hadn’t been in the army a very long time and I asked the British Colonel if I could be assigned somewhere else. I had just got into the army and here I was in Hong Kong only a few days and the war was almost done and I asked him if there wasn’t something I could be doing. There wasn’t anything to do at Pok Fu Lam and there wasn’t going to be. He phoned back (and) said, okay, you go to the War Memorial Hospital. That was on the Peak. So I went over there and gave anaesthetics for a day.
The Casualty Clearing Station at War Memorial Hospital was dealing with civilian wounded as well as a stream of British, Canadian, and Indian military casualties. Shortly after the invasion of the island, the hospital’s water supply and electrical system had been knocked out, although engineers from a scuttled British ship managed to rig a small dynamo to produce power for the operating room. Reid was a welcome addition to the medical team. Dr. Annie Sydenham, the hospital’s chief anaesthetist, later reported: “We benefited from the assistance of (Captain Reid) as he knew his own men and was able to give them confidence and cheer.”
Reid remembers the night of December 24 as the oddest of Christmas Eves:
In the basement of the hospital, whose floors above lay ravaged by shell fire, by the flickering lamps in the darkness gathered a varied group: nurses and volunteer nurses, the few daughters of the well-placed who had clung to Hong Kong despite the signs that the “balloon” was really going aloft this time, patched wounded, medical orderlies, officers, and the odds and sods drifting in from the hills — to all came the sudden realization of Christmas Eve. Pots of jam were brought out, loaves of bread, tins of plums, strong hot tea, and — almost surreptitiously — a song: “Silent night, holy night,” rising stronger, louder, fuller till every voice took it up. For an hour all the old sweet airs (were sung), faces gleaming, smiling, tear-dropped but buoyed by the general British “thumbs-up,” till finally fading, most slumped left or right in exhausted sleep.
By dawn of Christmas Day, the remaining elements of West Brigade were hemmed into the western third of the island, while those of East Brigade were trapped on Stanley Peninsula in the southeast. In Victoria that morning, the South China Morning Post, somehow still operating amid the battle, published its penultimate wartime edition with the headline: “Hong Kong Is Observing the Strangest and Most Sober Christmas in Its Century-Old History.” Governor Mark Young broadcast a Christmas message to the colony: “In pride and admiration I send my greeting this Christmas Day to all who are fighting and all who are working so nobly and so well to sustain Hong Kong against the assaults of the enemy. Fight on. Hold fast for King and Empire. God bless you all in this your finest hour. Let this day be historical in the grand annals of our empire. The Order of the Day is to hold fast.”
Practically the last action of the Battle of Hong Kong was a suicidal attack ordered on Christmas morning by Brigadier Wallis, British commander of East Brigade, to retake Stanley Village, a position at the top of Stanley Peninsula recently overrun by the Japanese. The unit chosen for the mission was “D” Company of the Royal Rifles, a force by now reduced through casualties to 120 men. Although Wallis promised artillery support for the attack, none materialized, and at 1:00 p.m. on Christmas Day, Company Sergeant Major George MacDonell and two other platoon leaders led the Canadians across open ground in a wild charge that by its sheer fierceness succeeded in evicting the larger enemy force from parts of Stanley Village while inflicting heavy casualties. But greatly outnumbered by Japanese reinforcements, who began to encircle them, and targeted by a sustained artillery barrage, the Rifles were soon ordered to retreat by Major Maurice Parker, “D” Company’s commanding officer, a tricky withdrawal by two’s and three’s, while MacDonell and Sergeant Lance Ross provided covering fire with their Bren guns before barely escaping themselves. Twenty-six Royal Rifles died during the action. With the 75 who were wounded, “D” Company suffered 84 percent casualties in the attack on Stanley Village. For all the men’s heroics, nothing was gained.
On the west side of the island, General Maltby, the garrison commander, had reached the same conclusion: holding Hong Kong was hopeless; fighting on only meant pointless loss of life, followed by inevitable defeat. Maltby’s final dispatch to London ended: “At 3:15 p.m. (Christmas Day) I advised his Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief that no further useful military resistance was possible and I then ordered all Commanding Officers to break off the fighting and to capitulate to the nearest Japanese Commander, as and when the enemy advanced and the opportunity offered.”
The official surrender of Hong Kong to the Japanese took place at 4:30 on Christmas afternoon. Reid heard the news and its after-effect half an hour later:
The white flag went up about four in the afternoon. Now isolated pockets (of resistance) only, snarling hedge-hogs, but separate. About 5 p.m. the NOISE faded away, little and lesser noises, fewer and farther and, finally, still, still silence, even movement suspended from that hour.
With the silence (came) a bee-hive of thoughts buzzing in the brain: Hong Kong — how strange; home — so far and unreal; only small boats left, and where to go?; friends lost, found, and unknown. Fundamentally, a sense of de-personalization, as though floating in a limbo and seeing, but not fully comprehending, reality.
The Captain Was a Doctor by Jonathon Reid, John Reid’s son, was published in October 2020 by Dundurn Press.
With Mount Cameron overrun by the enemy, the Winnipeg Grenadiers north of the Aberdeen Reservoir, now dangerously exposed, were ordered to pull back to Aberdeen Village on the coast, Reid’s medical unit with them. On the morning of Tuesday, December 23, Reid deposited his wounded at the Aberdeen Naval Hospital and took stock of what he should do next.
At the beginning of hostilities, all of the garrison’s field ambulances, including the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, were reorganized as the Combined Field Ambulance led by Lieutenant-Colonel Lindsay Ride of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, with the Winnipeg Grenadiers’ Major John Crawford as second-in-command. During the last three days of fighting, the Combined Field Ambulance Headquarters had been on the move and was out of touch with many of its medical units. When Reid finally made contact late on Tuesday afternoon, he was ordered to Pok Fu Lam on the west coast of the island. As he describes in his postwar debriefing, believing his short-lived military career was about to end, he persuaded the Field Ambulance Headquarters otherwise:
I hadn’t been in the army a very long time and I asked the British Colonel if I could be assigned somewhere else. I had just got into the army and here I was in Hong Kong only a few days and the war was almost done and I asked him if there wasn’t something I could be doing. There wasn’t anything to do at Pok Fu Lam and there wasn’t going to be. He phoned back (and) said, okay, you go to the War Memorial Hospital. That was on the Peak. So I went over there and gave anaesthetics for a day.
The Casualty Clearing Station at War Memorial Hospital was dealing with civilian wounded as well as a stream of British, Canadian, and Indian military casualties. Shortly after the invasion of the island, the hospital’s water supply and electrical system had been knocked out, although engineers from a scuttled British ship managed to rig a small dynamo to produce power for the operating room. Reid was a welcome addition to the medical team. Dr. Annie Sydenham, the hospital’s chief anaesthetist, later reported: “We benefited from the assistance of (Captain Reid) as he knew his own men and was able to give them confidence and cheer.”
Reid remembers the night of December 24 as the oddest of Christmas Eves:
In the basement of the hospital, whose floors above lay ravaged by shell fire, by the flickering lamps in the darkness gathered a varied group: nurses and volunteer nurses, the few daughters of the well-placed who had clung to Hong Kong despite the signs that the “balloon” was really going aloft this time, patched wounded, medical orderlies, officers, and the odds and sods drifting in from the hills — to all came the sudden realization of Christmas Eve. Pots of jam were brought out, loaves of bread, tins of plums, strong hot tea, and — almost surreptitiously — a song: “Silent night, holy night,” rising stronger, louder, fuller till every voice took it up. For an hour all the old sweet airs (were sung), faces gleaming, smiling, tear-dropped but buoyed by the general British “thumbs-up,” till finally fading, most slumped left or right in exhausted sleep.
By dawn of Christmas Day, the remaining elements of West Brigade were hemmed into the western third of the island, while those of East Brigade were trapped on Stanley Peninsula in the southeast. In Victoria that morning, the South China Morning Post, somehow still operating amid the battle, published its penultimate wartime edition with the headline: “Hong Kong Is Observing the Strangest and Most Sober Christmas in Its Century-Old History.” Governor Mark Young broadcast a Christmas message to the colony: “In pride and admiration I send my greeting this Christmas Day to all who are fighting and all who are working so nobly and so well to sustain Hong Kong against the assaults of the enemy. Fight on. Hold fast for King and Empire. God bless you all in this your finest hour. Let this day be historical in the grand annals of our empire. The Order of the Day is to hold fast.”
Practically the last action of the Battle of Hong Kong was a suicidal attack ordered on Christmas morning by Brigadier Wallis, British commander of East Brigade, to retake Stanley Village, a position at the top of Stanley Peninsula recently overrun by the Japanese. The unit chosen for the mission was “D” Company of the Royal Rifles, a force by now reduced through casualties to 120 men. Although Wallis promised artillery support for the attack, none materialized, and at 1:00 p.m. on Christmas Day, Company Sergeant Major George MacDonell and two other platoon leaders led the Canadians across open ground in a wild charge that by its sheer fierceness succeeded in evicting the larger enemy force from parts of Stanley Village while inflicting heavy casualties. But greatly outnumbered by Japanese reinforcements, who began to encircle them, and targeted by a sustained artillery barrage, the Rifles were soon ordered to retreat by Major Maurice Parker, “D” Company’s commanding officer, a tricky withdrawal by two’s and three’s, while MacDonell and Sergeant Lance Ross provided covering fire with their Bren guns before barely escaping themselves. Twenty-six Royal Rifles died during the action. With the 75 who were wounded, “D” Company suffered 84 percent casualties in the attack on Stanley Village. For all the men’s heroics, nothing was gained.
On the west side of the island, General Maltby, the garrison commander, had reached the same conclusion: holding Hong Kong was hopeless; fighting on only meant pointless loss of life, followed by inevitable defeat. Maltby’s final dispatch to London ended: “At 3:15 p.m. (Christmas Day) I advised his Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief that no further useful military resistance was possible and I then ordered all Commanding Officers to break off the fighting and to capitulate to the nearest Japanese Commander, as and when the enemy advanced and the opportunity offered.”
The official surrender of Hong Kong to the Japanese took place at 4:30 on Christmas afternoon. Reid heard the news and its after-effect half an hour later:
The white flag went up about four in the afternoon. Now isolated pockets (of resistance) only, snarling hedge-hogs, but separate. About 5 p.m. the NOISE faded away, little and lesser noises, fewer and farther and, finally, still, still silence, even movement suspended from that hour.
With the silence (came) a bee-hive of thoughts buzzing in the brain: Hong Kong — how strange; home — so far and unreal; only small boats left, and where to go?; friends lost, found, and unknown. Fundamentally, a sense of de-personalization, as though floating in a limbo and seeing, but not fully comprehending, reality.
The Captain Was a Doctor by Jonathon Reid, John Reid’s son, was published in October 2020 by Dundurn Press.
