Battle of Hong Kong in the context of "Internment of Japanese Canadians"

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Situated on China's southern coast just south of Shenzhen, it consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. With 7.5 million residents in a 1,114-square-kilometre (430 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is the fourth-most densely populated region in the world.

Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing dynasty ceded Hong Kong Island in 1841–1842 as a consequence of losing the First Opium War. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and was further extended when the United Kingdom obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. Hong Kong was occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. The territory was handed over from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of one country, two systems.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the time, the U.S. was a neutral country in World War II. The air raid on Pearl Harbor, which was launched from aircraft carriers, resulted in the U.S. declaring war on Japan the next day. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was preceded by months of negotiations between the U.S. and Japan over the future of the Pacific. Japanese demands included that the U.S. end its sanctions against Japan, cease aiding China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and allow Japan to access the resources of the Dutch East Indies. Japan sent out its naval attack group on November 26, 1941, just prior to receiving the Hull note, which stated the U.S. desire that Japan withdraw from China and French Indochina. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, planned the attack as a pre-emptive strike on the Pacific Fleet, based at Pearl Harbor since 1940 in order to prevent it from interfering with Japan's planned actions in Southeast Asia. Yamamoto hoped that the strike would enable Japan to make quick territorial gains and negotiate peace. In addition to Pearl Harbor, over seven hours Japan launched coordinated attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island; and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theater, was the theater of World War II fought between the Japan and the Allies in East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the Pacific Ocean theater, the South West Pacific theater, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the brief Soviet–Japanese War, and included some of the largest naval battles in history. War between Japan and the Republic of China had begun in 1937, with hostilities dating back to Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, but the Pacific War is more widely accepted to have begun in 1941, when the United States and United Kingdom were brought into the war, after being attacked by Japan.

Japan invaded French Indochina in 1940, and extended its control over the entire territory in July 1941. On 7–8 December 1941, Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii; the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island; and the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, followed by a Japanese declaration of war. The Japanese achieved great success over the next 6 months, allying with Thailand and capturing the listed territories (except for Hawaii) in addition to Borneo, New Britain, the Dutch East Indies, Burma, the Solomon and Gilbert Islands, and parts of New Guinea. In May 1942, Japanese and Allied aircraft carriers fought at the Battle of Coral Sea, resulting in the retreat of a Japanese invasion force headed for Port Moresby. In June, Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, and in the central Pacific was defeated at the Battle of Midway, considered a key turning point in the war. After this point, the Japanese experienced great difficulty replacing their losses in ships and aircraft as the U.S. produced ever increasing numbers of both.

The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the governor of Hong Kong, Mark Aitchison Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. His surrender occurred after 18 days of fierce fighting against the Japanese forces that invaded the territory. The occupation lasted for three years and eight months until Japan surrendered at the end of the Second World War. The length of the period (三年零八個月, lit. 'three years and eight months') later became a metonym of the occupation.

In mid-1940, Nazi Germany rapidly defeated the French Third Republic, and the colonial administration of French Indochina (modern-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) passed to the French State (Vichy France). Many concessions were granted to the Empire of Japan, such as the use of ports, airfields, and railroads. Japanese troops first entered parts of Indochina in September 1940, and by July 1941 Japan had extended its control over the whole of French Indochina. The United States, concerned by Japanese expansion, started putting embargoes on exports of steel and oil to Japan from July 1940. The desire to escape these embargoes and to become self-sufficient in resources ultimately contributed to Japan's decision to attack on December 7, 1941, the British Empire (in Hong Kong and Malaya) and simultaneously the United States (in the Philippines and at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii). This led to the United States declaring war against Japan on December 8, 1941. The United States then joined the side of the British Empire, at war with Germany since 1939, and its existing allies in the fight against the Axis powers.

Indochinese communists had set up a covert headquarters in Cao Bằng Province in 1941, but most of the Vietnamese resistance to Japan, France, or both, including both communist and non-communist groups, remained based over the border, in China. As part of their opposition to Japanese expansion, the Chinese had fostered the formation of a Vietnamese nationalist resistance movement, the Dong Minh Hoi (DMH), in Nanking in 1935/1936; this included communists, but was not controlled by them. This did not provide the desired results, so the Chinese Communist Party sent Ho Chi Minh to Vietnam in 1941 to lead an underground centered on the communist Viet Minh. Ho was the senior Comintern agent in Southeast Asia, and was in China as an advisor to the Chinese communist armed forces. This mission was assisted by European intelligence agencies, and later the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Free French intelligence also tried to affect developments in the Vichy-Japanese collaboration.

Sir Mark Aitchison Young GCMG KStJ (Chinese: 楊慕琦; 30 June 1886 – 12 May 1974) was a British colonial administrator, who is best remembered for his service as the Governor of Hong Kong at the time of the Japanese invasion of the territory in 1941.

Born in British India, the son and grandson of senior members of the Indian Civil Service, Young followed in the steps of his two elder brothers and became a colonial administrator, serving in Ceylon, Sierra Leone, Palestine, before becoming governor of Barbados and of Tanganyika. Young assumed the governorship of Hong Kong in 1941, three months before the outbreak of the Pacific War. During the Battle of Hong Kong, Young refused to capitulate on numerous occasions, before surrendering on Christmas Day, 1941 in order to avoid further bloodshed. Young then became a Japanese prisoner-of-war until 1945.

The Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers) (RHKR(V)) (Chinese: 皇家香港軍團(義勇軍)), formed in May 1854, was the only locally raised military unit in British Hong Kong. It was a Crown regiment established by Royal Warrant under the Royal Hong Kong Regiment Ordinance. While funded and locally administered by the Government of Hong Kong, it remained under the command of the Commander British Forces in Hong Kong, and its officers held Queen’s Commissions. From the early 1960s, the Regiment was affiliated to the Royal Armoured Corps and, from 1970, was formally incorporated into its order of battle under subsidiary regulations (L.N. 190 of 1970).

During the Imperial era, home defence units were raised in various British colonies to enable regular army units to be deployed elsewhere. These colonial forces were generally organised along British Army lines. The first locally raised militia in Hong Kong was the Hong Kong Volunteers, a forerunner of what became the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers). Members of this unit fought during the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941, suffering 289 killed or missing in action.

Remembrance Day (Chinese: 和平紀念日; Cantonese Yale: wòh pìhng géi nihm yaht; lit. 'Peace remembering day') is an anniversary in Hong Kong initially celebrating the end of World War I, and was later expanded to commemorate the lives lost in the Battle of Hong Kong and World War II. The anniversary was initially celebrated annually on November 10, and is now celebrated on the second Sunday of November. On Remembrance Day, memorial ceremonies take place at the Cenotaph in Central.