Could the British have been able to reinforce through their Pacific and Indian Ocean colonies, or was Hong Kong a lost cause?
Could the British have been able to reinforce through their Pacific and Indian Ocean colonies, or was Hong Kong a lost cause?
Could the British have been able to reinforce through their Pacific and Indian Ocean colonies, or was Hong Kong a lost cause?
Go to war with Japan over the Tientsin Incident in 1939, after being snubbed by the US (When GB sought US support, the US was meh, we wont back European Imperialists in Asia against Japan.), cut a deal with the Russians for them to support Poland against Germany in return for a free hand in Manchuria and GB to provide the Naval Power in a combined Anglo-Russian effort against Japan. No war in Europe and Japan out the Asian mainland by 1943 - The Main Fleet to Singapore is home in time for tea and medals. Hoorah!What if the Anglo-Japanese crisis over the Tianjin incident escalates to Anglo-Japanese War by summer 1939?
"For years before the war everyone with knowledge of Far Eastern conditions knew that our position in Hong Kong was untenable and that we should lose it as soon as a major war started. This knowledge, however, was intolerable, and government after government continued to cling to Hong Kong instead of giving it back to the Chinese. Fresh troops were even pushed into it, with the certainty that they would be uselessly taken prisoner, a few weeks before the Japanese attack began. The war came, and Hong Kong promptly fell — as everyone had known all along that it would do."--George Orwell http://orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nose
Well, Britain got to enjoy a postwar Hong Kong miracle for 52 years after the war. Wouldn't have happened if they'd just given it to the Chinese in the interwar.
I don 't think anyone in the 1940's anticipated the Hong Kong boom. And if you had told people "(1) there will be a strong China, (2) It will be Communist, (3) it will easily be able to take Hong Kong any time it wants to, but (4) It will leave it alone for a half century" you would be thought crazy. Not that (1) (2) and (3) weren't plausible, but if they came true, (4) would certainly seem unlikely....
Oh agreed - my argument is dependent on hindsight. However Britain was not in the business of yielding its own territory without a fight to weak, undeveloped countries at the time. Also, Hong Kong made for an awesome thorn in Japans side and transshipment point for aid to the KMT for as long as the Japanese tolerated British rule there. Had it been handed back to China prewar it would have been lost to Japanese withCanton.
You could call it a Japanese loss, if some of the initial landings on Hong Kong Island had been repulsed. By concentrating his forces Maltby might have pulled off a miracle and smashed a couple of the landings, say the Japanese 230th Regt landing of 2 battalions at North Point, and the 228th Regt 2 battalion landings at Braemar Point. Realistically we couldn't hope they would have repulsed all three Regiments, and the 229th at Aldrich Bay would have to be considered a successful landing, but the loss of four battalions makes taking the island a much bigger ask, and although ultimately Hong Kong would fall, the knock on repercussions would be a major blow for Japan. the 38th Infantry Division went on to invade Java as part of the 16th Army, now with the 4 battalions written off, and the other five having taken higher casualties due to the need to work harder for the victory, I doubt this division could participate in the campaign.
My suggestion as to its replacement would be the recently raised 56th Infantry Division, earmarked for the Malayan Campaign with the 25th Army, but not taken of needed. This of course knocks on as to who goes to Burma instead of the 56th, now employed in Java, and if it follows the historical path of the 38th Division, Rabaul and Guadalcanal.
That sounds like a possible POD there Fatboy Coxy! Three or four books of reading, some time, and an epic last stand. Unfortunately accompanied by the obligatory IJA atrocities, but that is the history from those days.
I think it would have been much better if those troops and assets could have been redeployed to Burma. They may not have prevented the loss of Burma but they would have delayed it and likely have prevented the OTL rout. This may have avoided the resulting panic in India that contributed to the Bengal Famine. Also the surviving soldiers fighting in Burma could have retreated instead of being trapped and captured.
Hong Kong was hopeless. The only sensible thing to do in OTL would have been to evacuate as many troops as possible shortly before the Pacific War started instead of the futile and wasteful reinforcement with Canadian troops. When the war started declare an open city to hopefully avoid pointless damage and civilian deaths from the IJA.
I don't see how aid to the KMT could be shipped inland from Hong Kong. When did the Japanese Army fully surround the Colony?