This page concerns the Battle for Hong Kong, which began on 8 December 1941 with the Japanese crossing the border of the New Territories, and ended in the early hours of December 26th when the Christmas Day order to surrender finally reached remoter areas.
Not The Slightest Chance
is a text book, published originally by Hong Kong University Press and the University Press of British Columbia, in 2003. It is currently (2009) in its third paperback edition. The most balanced review of the book is probably from The Canadian Military Journal.
This book details the fighting in daily and hourly summaries, recreating the feel of a war diary, and allowing the reader to follow the action at a tactical level - tracing the movements of, and engagements between, small units as the battle becomes more and more fragmented. Each death of a member of the Garrison has been individually researched, and each is listed on the day that he (or she) died.
The work includes an annotated bibliography of all previous works on the topic that were available at the time that it was written.
The remainder of this page contains four sections describing the story behind this research, the 1941 battle itself, what remains to be seen today, and - added in early 2006, updated in late 2023 - a photographic description of the Wong Nai Chung Gap Trail.
Studying the Battle
Star Ferry Clock Tower
The story of the battle of Hong Kong was the story that could never really be written. More than 10% of its defenders had been killed in battle; a further 20% died in captivity. Those who survived the fighting and 3 years 8 months in brutal POW camps seldom spoke about their experiences. Many died young. Anything written down during the fighting was burnt during the painful years of occupation, and the little 'primary' material that we have was written in-camp from memory, or years after the event. No wonder these records are contradictory, fragmented, and confused.
I knew nothing of this when I moved permanently to Hong Kong in 1989, but within months of arriving I had been given a book, The Lasting Honour by Oliver Lindsay. I didn't know it then, but I couldn't have found a better book to spark my interest. I read it overnight, and the next day being a Sunday, visited one of the battlefields mentioned Wong Nai Chung Gap. Less than five minutes after arriving I found a 6.5mm cartridge from a Japanese Arisaka rifle hanging out of an earth bank near the old police station.
From James Ford MC
A new type of History What made the battle of Hong Kong unique was the scale. This was no battle of Berlin with millions of men involved; instead just 14,000 defended Hong Kong. But, in an isolated location like this, those 14,000 formed a microcosm of Imperial Forces of the time. Navy, air force, army, and every supporting unit was represented. Inside this force was a microcosm within a microcosm, the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC). They too had everything from an air unit t o a navy (the Hong Kong Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve), to an army with all its units.
It occurred to me that it might just be possible to write a new type of history - a history based on the individual - all the individuals, rather than the Big Battalions so beloved of Napoleon and traditional historians.
I set to work. First, I put together a basic chronology of the fighting here. On top of that, I overlaid the records of the Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC) for Hong Kong (including civilian records, and the hard-to-separate naval records). This immediately highlighted fatalities without incidents and incidents without fatalities. The detective work had begun.
The next step was to identify all published (and whenever possible, unpublished) accounts, diaries, and records of the fighting, and correlate them with the data already assembled. This involved processing some 180 works - and almost immediately highlighted a problem. Diarists, in particular, habitually make reference to individuals by surname or nickname without any other particulars. Who was 'Gow', for example? Why was he in that place at that time? What else did that tell us?
From Wong Nai Chung Gap
There was no option but to compile a database of the entire garrison's personnel. The Hong Kong Public Records Office had reasonably complete hospital records from the fighting (almost the only records to have survived from the time), and a partial list of POWs compiled in January 1941. All went into the computer, and suddenly I knew who I was dealing with. In fact, by looking for groupings of wounded in particular units on certain dates, I was even able to do primary research from within my own research records.
I now had a map of an entire colonial garrison of the mid-twentieth century. It soon became apparent that historians up till now had completely ignored some less-fashionable units, and others had received more than their fair share of attention. I determined that I should take the opportunity to write the first comprehensive and balanced account of the fighting, giving fair coverage to each unit involved.
From dusty archives to modern communications
And then it started to get interesting. The scene shifted from a back-room historian sifting through dusty papers in the archives, to the world of modern communications and face-to-face dialogue with veterans.
My first contact with veterans came as early as 1991 when, through the kindness of the then adjutant of the Volunteers, Captain Albert Lam, I was invited to the 50th anniversary memorial service at Sai Wan military cemetery. There I met two survivors of the Middlesex Regiment, both wounded at Stanley, ('there was no option, there was so much stuff flying around'), survivors of the Lisbon Maru, and also the late Terry Leonard (one of the 3 Coy HKVDC heroes) along with many others. But it was too early in my research to make full use of these contacts.
For the next few years, whenever time allowed, I continued doing my homework. Finally I felt I had a good understanding of events, and needed some way to calibrate what I had done so far. It was time to enlist the help of the veterans.
The 1991 Reunion
God is in the details
A breakthrough came in 1999 when I discovered a website set up by Dick Hide, the son of a naval stoker Mentioned in Dispatches for his escape from Hong Kong. Through Dick's website - and later my own - I started to build a worldwide network of contacts with similar interests - including the veterans themselves.
By now I had learned how to interview these survivors. It is no use asking: 'what did you do in the war, daddy?' when that war happened sixty years ago. At best, you will receive a muddled response. But if you have done your homework, worked out where the interviewee was and when, and what incidents he or she might have been involved in, then you can ask very precise questions. Suddenly the years are stripped away and shockingly precise recollections replace the muddle.
After these interviews (face-to-face, or via letter, e-mail, fax and phone) many details were falling into place. Days spent walking the ground, picking up shrapnel and bullets and working out how units moved from one place to another filled in many more.
'God is in the details', as the saying goes. As my enquiries became more and more specific God, in a manner of speaking, did enter the picture – through a man named Eric Moreton. For ten years all I had known about Eric Moreton was that he’d died twice; firstly on December 25th 1941 as an Assistant Chaplain, and secondly on the 26th as a civilian Methodist Minister. I hit dead end after dead end trying to find out more, then one day by pure chance I heard that the records of the Methodist Missions had been archived at the school of Oriental and African studies. I emailed them, and within 24 hours the problem was solved. Then there was the case of the British nurse whose death was mentioned in four different books, and in one hospital record, yet whose name appears on neither memorial nor official records. Both stories, and more, are covered in the War Diary!
The search intensifies But perhaps the most evocative story concerned the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Hong Kong’s major newspaper. One day at the Foreign Correspondents' Club I asked an old friend for help. This gentleman, half Iroquois Indian, had taken a dollar off Al Capone as a youngster and had fought the Japanese all over the Pacific while in the US Marines, before becoming involved in the intelligence community. I asked him directly: Could he find me copies of the SCMP from December 8th to 26th 1941?
Two days later he presented me with a brown bundle of faded papers wrapped in copies of the first SCMP to be published after liberation. I had just 24 hours to copy them before he returned them to their source - which I still don't know!
There were many other experiences, happy and sad. Once I tried to explain to my then three year old that our dinner guest (a survivor of one of the more notorious massacres) was older than daddy, mummy and him put together. His look of disappointment when our guest arrived was a picture; he'd been expecting a dinosaur. On another occasion I sat down to lunch with a veteran and within ten minutes had set aside my list of carefully prepared questions and simply luxuriated in his tales of Hong Kong life in the thirties.
On a less enjoyable occasion, I received an email from the son of an officer I was particularly interested in. I emailed back a list of questions for him to ask his father next time they met. Several weeks later I received a reply saying that he'd met his father, but he was now senile and the only result of their conversation was the he though the war was on again.
In the last two years, many children of the veterans have become involved in the project. In many ways it is their project. After all, to me it has been largely 'data', but to them it is flesh and blood. If I have furthered the science of history in some small way, that is good. If I have help relatives come to terms with the experiences of their fathers and grandfathers, then that is surely better.
Stanley Cemetary
Not the Slightest Chance (The above article first appeared in Battlefields Review Issue 16, 2001).
The book of Hong Kong War Diary, now entitled: 'Not The Slightest Chance - The Defence of Hong Kong 1941' is currently available from Hong Kong University Press, and from Amazon.com in the US, UK, Canada and, interestingly, Japan.
The Japanese crossed the border from China into the New Territories just as the news of Pearl Harbour was reaching the outside world.
Warned by good intelligence, Hong Kong’s defenders were all in position.
Waiting for the Japanese on the Mainland that December 8th were the Mainland Brigade, consisting of three of the four most experienced infantry battalions available to the garrison, the 2nd Royal Scots, the 5/7th Rajputs, and the 2/14th Punjabis. Supporting them were No. 1 Company Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC), mobile guns of the Hong Kong Singapore Royal Artillery (HKSRA), and elements of all units necessary to support an army in the line. All came under the command of Brigadier Wallis.
The main weight of the defenders manned the Gin Drinkers Line (the one, weakly prepared, defensive line across the Mainland). It had not even been intended to defend this line until the unexpected arrival of two Canadian battalions (the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada) just three weeks before. These two battalions, in conjunction with the 1st Middlesex (arguably the best prepared of all the infantry battalions) made up the Island Brigade under Brigadier Lawson.
Forward of the Gin Drinkers Line, C Company Punjabis and elements of the Royal Engineers had already started fighting a delaying rearguard action, blowing up bridges and tunnels in front of the advancing Japanese.
Battlefield Debris
The Loss of the Gin Drinkers Line
These pre-dawn activities were out of sight and out of mind as far as Hong Kong’s citizens were concerned, but the 08:00 bombing attack on Kai Tak Airfield, Sham Shui Po Barracks, and Kowloon changed all that. The Colony and its people now knew that war had arrived.
The key strongpoint of the Gin Drinkers Line – expected to hold out for at least a week – was the Shing Mun Redoubt. In the area of the line held by the Royal Scots, it was manned by A Company’s HQ and number 8 Platoon, and elements of 1 Mountain Battery HKSRA. The senior officer was A Company’s commander, Captain ‘Potato’ Jones.
Two hours after nightfall on December 9th, Japanese attacked the Redoubt from Needle Hill just to its north. ‘Redoubt’ is a poor term for a few pillboxes joined by concrete tunnels, surrounded by wire and manned by around 43 personnel. By early morning of the 10th, the Japanese held the position having killed 3, captured 27, and let 13 escape.
The Royal Scots fell back to the next high ground – Golden Hill. There were no defensive positions here, apart from a few scrapes, and the ground was as hard as rock. Early on December 11th the Japanese attacked – initially with mortars which inflicted horrific casualties as they burst on earth that was more like concrete.
The majority of the Royal Scots fell back in extreme disorder as a Japanese infantry attack followed, but D Company struck back and re-took the position. However, by this time it was clear that the Gin Drinkers Line had been irreconcilably compromised, and leaving 28 dead behind the Royal Scots were pulled off the hill.
An Unknown Victim
Evacuation
Maltby, the GOC, had decided to evacuate all troops from the Mainland. Those holding the western part of the line were to fall back via the ferries of Tsim Sha Tsui, while those holding the east were to fall back via Devil’s Peak.
The evacuation proceeded smoothly, apart from a party of Punjabis who became lost and ended up forming a defensive barricade around the Star Ferry in Kowloon, holding off the Japanese while the last ferries left, and the Hong Kong Mule Company who had to leave most of their mules on the Mainland due to a lack of lighters to take them off.
By early on December 13th, the evacuation was over. In delaying the Japanese by five days, Maltby had lost just 66 dead from a total force of 14,000.
The Siege
South China Morning Post, Dec 17
Reorganisation
From December 13th, all that lay between the Japanese and Hong Kong Island was a narrow stretch of water. Armed with good intelligence, they took the opportunity to destroy much of the Island’s military infrastructure with shells and bombs. It became a war of counter-battery fire as the batteries on the Island fired back – though many were destroyed in the process.
With all forces back on the Island, there was a reorganization. Two new brigades were formed, East Brigade under Wallis and West Brigade under Lawson; the dividing line ran due south from the east side of Causeway Bay. East Brigade consisted of the Rajputs on the waterfront with the Royal Rifles and 1, 2, and 3, Coy HKVDC behind them, and West Brigade consisted of the Punjabis on the waterfront and the Winnipeg Grenadiers and 4, 5, and 7 Coy HKVDC behind them, with the Royal Scots forming a bridge between the two Indian battalions and 6 Coy HKVDC in a number of locations. The Middlesex manned the majority of the pillboxes defending the Island and therefore reported into both Brigades.
Near West Brigade HQ
Bombs and Shells
The scale of the shelling and bombing has long been underestimated. The whole north shore of the Island – from The Peak down to the waterfront – came under intense fire. Military areas were hit – Mount Davis Fort, Belchers, Pinewoods, troop concentrations, the pillboxes; institutions were hit – Central Police Station (two killed), Bowen Road Hospital (over 100 hits), the Royal Naval Hospital in Wanchai (over 100 hits), the Bank; and residential areas – rich and poor – were struck with great loss of life.
However, the biggest single explosion came not from enemy action but from a simple mistake. On the night of December 12th, the barge Jeanette, laden with tons of dynamite from Green Island, was accidentally fired on by Z Company Middlesex from pillbox 63. The resulting double explosion killed everyone on board and blew in most windows of Central district.
Twice the Japanese asked formally for surrender and were rejected. At least once they probed the north shore of the Island as a preparation for the invasion. Then, in a lucky strike (the smoke clearly visible in some aerial cine-film taken at the time) they set a paint factory and oil tanks in North Point ablaze.
West Brigade HQ
Where Will They Come From?
By December 18th, the Island was a mess. Maltby had lost a further 54 dead, many of the pillboxes were useless, and the infrastructure was so badly damaged that it was almost impossible for vehicles to proceed down some of the northern streets such as King’s Road.
Among both officers and men, the only question is where the Japanese invasion will fall. Will it be Central? Not the best place for a landing, but with good embarkation points in Tsim Sha Tsui. Or will in be North Point? The shortest sea crossing, but much further from Victoria.
By 19:30 on December 18th, the question would be answered.
Invasion
South China Morning Post, Dec 25
The Invasion
Well before midnight on December 18th the 5/7th Rajputs ceased to exist as a fighting unit. Killed, wounded, captured, or simply isolated, they had been torn apart as the Japanese assault troops charged through them and made for higher ground. By dawn their assault has paused in the west thanks to the refusal of the HKVDC Hugheseliers to let them pass, but their penetration to the south has reached Wong Nai Chung Gap.
The whole of December 19th is dominated by the fighting for the Gap. Initially defended simply by Lawson’s West Brigade HQ, 3 Coy HKVDC, elements of 5AA regiment, elements of the HKSRA, and the HQ of D Company Winnipeg Grenadiers, the battle sucks in A Coy Winnipeg Grenadiers, the entire 2nd battalion Royal Scots, Royal Engineers, and many odds and sods. The Japanese are soon effectively in control, but the day results in 451 fatalities amongst the defenders, the majority in this little valley.
To avoid being cut off, Wallis ordered all elements of East Brigade to re-form in the hills north of Stanley. This well-chosen position would leave him in touch with West Brigade, with the insurance of the Stanley Peninsular to his south should he need to fall back. Unfortunately he did not know that Lawson had been killed at 07:00 that morning and thus West Brigade was not under effective control.
Stones Mark Where Osborn, VC, Lost His Life
Counterattacks
On December 20th A Company Punjabis was told to relieve the Repulse Bay Hotel which had come under attack that morning. At the same time East Brigade struck West along the same road. The Punjabis got no further than Shouson Hill, whose commanding peak was already held by the Japanese. East Brigade penetrated as far as the hotel and castle Eucliffe (just to the hotel’s south west) before coming to a halt thanks to Japanese forces on Middle Spur and Violet Hill.
On December 21st East Brigade made an individual attack on the Japanese holding Wong Nai Chung Gap. The plan was to drive north to Tai Tam Gap, then head due west via Gauge Basin to the area that how houses Park View. However, this attack was halted by strong Japanese resistance in the Red Hill area. Some elements were redirected via the Repulse Bay Hotel and made it as far north as The Ridge.
Meanwhile, the all-important north-south line had been stabilised thanks to the Middlesex on Leighton Hill. The Japanese desire to charge due west along the waterfront and take Victoria had been thwarted, thus their strategy change to forming a bulge in the hills (Mount Nicholson, Mount Cameron) south of the racecourse. With (from the Japanese point of view) Leighton Hill being impassable, and the Stanley area a sideshow, the focus became the Middle Gap – Wanchai Gap – Magazine Gap line from which they would be able to descend into the capital.
The St Stephen's Massacre Memorial
Surrender
By December 23rd, as this bulge into West Brigade’s lines was being created, East Brigade had been squeezed into the Stanley Peninsular. While they would be able to take no more part in the battle for Hong Kong from this position, they were in arguably the best location for a long holdout.
Christmas Eve saw no great change. The street fighting in Wanchai intensified, and the defenders in the hills above Central were pushed further back. Casualties were mounting fast. Dawn the next day saw the Stanley defenders pushed back further than St. Stephen’s (scene of not the biggest, but certainly the most sadistic, massacre of the fighting), the defenders in the hills pushed further west than Wanchai Gap, and the Wanchai defenders pushed west of Mount Parish, almost to where the Hopewell Centre is today.
By 15:15 Governor Sir Mark Young, after consultation with Maltby who himself had consulted with those defending Victoria, ordered the surrender.
In Stanley, cut off from normal communications, the fighting continued until early next morning. By 02:30 all firing had ceased. Hong Kong had been captured. Of the 14,000 defenders, 1,500 lay dead. Almost twice that number would die in the three years and eight months of captivity and deprivation that were to follow.
The Battlefields Today
Life moves on, time moves forward
Hong Kong has witnessed frenetic development since 1941 but Tony Banham tells keen eyed visitors to the battlefields what they may still see today.
You could spend years in 21st century Hong Kong and never realize that a battle took place here, but in fact the remains are all around. Citizens commuting past the bronze lions outside the HSBC HQ will seldom look too closely. Perhaps a few will notice the shrapnel scars from the shelling of December 1941, but almost none will look closely enough to se the shrapnel still embedded in the eastern-most animal's rump.
The Shing Mun Redoubt and the North Shore
On the mainland a surprising number of the Gin Drinkers Line pillboxes remain – though the piece de resistance (in more ways than one) is the almost intact Shing Mun Redoubt. Further south, the Kowloon railway clock tower – around which Forsyth’s Punjabis made their epic defence as others escaped on the Star Ferry – is still there. It has born the honourable scars of war damage for sixty years, but last time I looked it was covered with scaffolding. Will it be repaired to its virginal history-free state like (on an admittedly vaster scale) Berlin’s Reichstag?
On the north shore of Hong Kong Island (the scene of the invasion of December 18th), little is left. The shoreline in general is a hundred metres further north, and forty years newer, than that which the Japanese stormed. Yet reminders remain. The Salesian mission of massacre fame is still there, as is the Lye Mun Redoubt (though it now houses the Museum of Coastal Defence). But all the north shore pillboxes are now gone, the last to be demolished being PB63, arguably the most significant historically as it was from this location that the shots were fired that destroyed the Jeanette and everyone on board.
Not much of the all-important line that prevented the Japanese breaking through to Victoria has escaped the developers. The Lee Theatre (a strongpoint then) was knocked down in the early 1990s, and today is the site of the Lee Theatre Plaza. Morrison hill – already half demolished in 1941 – has now been completely flattened. Only Leighton Hill is still there, though for the last twenty-four months a huge construction project has seen a multi-tower, multi-story block of flats being erected on its summit. What percentage of its future inhabitants will know that in 1941 its environs resembled the Somme, and its slopes were covered in Japanese dead?
Further west the Wanchai police station still stands, as does the badly-bombed police HQ in Central, with Flagstaff House and the Governor’s Residence in between. The ‘Legco’ building also still shows shrapnel scars.
The Wong Nai Chung Gap and Stanley
To the south, much of the Wong Nai Chung Gap battlefield is preserved. Wong Nai Chung Valley itself has disappeared, long since filled in and flattened to house a cricket pitch or two, and tennis courts. Bust the hillsides to the east and west still house 3 Coy HKVDC's pillboxes and Lawson's West Brigade HQ respectively. Battlefield debris lies just metres from the busy road that bisects the island today.
Stanley has grown since 1941, though the Police Station, St. Stephen's, and Bungalow C are all still there. The cemetery – through which Parker's D Company, Royal Rifles of Canada charged on Christmas day – is still much as it was, though enlarged post-war to accept the bodies of many killed in Stanley's defence, and civilians from the internment camp.
Almost all the coastal gun sites are as they were at the end of the war, except for Belcher's which is again today the site of a major new housing project. Mount Davis and Pinewoods are especially well preserved, and the eagle-eyed can still pick up pieces of shrapnel from the dust.
Finally, although they are not battlefields in the traditional sense, what of the POW camps? They've all gone. North Point, Argyle Street, Sham Shui Po, Mau Tau Chung, all were sited on prime building land. What would it feel like to live in a housing estate built on the misery of deprivation and dysentery, brutality and beri-beri? There would be no point in asking. The inhabitants would be unaware of the past, just as Londoners of Spitalfield's wouldn't know that they were living on the Hospital Fields in which thousands of their unfortunate forbears were buried. Life moves on, time moves forward; but there is always something about a battlefield.
Wong Nai Chung Gap Trail
Wong Nai Chung Gap Trail
At the beginning of 2006, Hong Kong’s first battlefield trail was established at Wong Nai Chung Gap. The starting point of the trail, which consists of ten stations in total, is opposite the Park View housing development at the south east corner of the gap. If reaction to the trail is positive, it is possible that others will be created over time, perhaps covering the fighting around Shing Mun on the mainland, and Stanley village in the south of the island.
The original signs were replaced in mid-2023 with designs better fitting the environment.
Station 1
The first station, at the small carpark opposite Park View and underneath the anti-aircraft position, introduces the walker to the invasion of Hong Kong. It describes how the Japanese crossed the border, and made their way south to the main defensive line north of Kowloon, before crossing the harbour on the night of December 18th 1941 to attack Hong Kong island itself.
Station 2
Station two is at the anti aircraft position that was the site of a major skirmish on the morning on December 19th 1941, as the Japanese fought to capture the two Vickers 3.7 inch mobile anti aircraft guns there. This battle left some 25 of the defenders dead, with many others (HKSRA, Winnipeg Grenadiers, and HKVDC) also losing their lives in the immediate vicinity.
The trail continues by the catchwater to the north.
Station 3
The third station is on the west side of the catchwater, with a view across Wong Nai Chung valley. It describes the valleys defensive force, and illustrates key landmarks such as the site of the Wong Nai Chung Gap Police Station, Lawson’s West Brigade Headquarters, and others. Another spot from which these sites can clearly be seen is a little further up the trail.
The Route
The trail is clearly signposted at all times, and is designed to be easy to walk. Aside from an optional visit to the Osborn Plaque on Jardine’s Lookout, and a handful of steps up to the upper pillbox (Station 4), there is no uphill. The walk is along mainly paved paths, or stone steps going down. Walked non stop it typically takes some 45 minutes, and with a guide discussing the battle, perhaps two hours.
Station 4
The fourth station is up a short flight of steps from the catchwater, and is next to the upper pillbox. This pillbox housed the platoon commander during the fighting, and battle damage is still visible to the exterior. Several times Japanese troops managed to swarm this position (attempting to drop grenades down the periscope shaft), until they were driven off by counter attacks from the lower pillbox.
Station 5
Station five is alongside the lower of the two defensive pillboxes manned by No. 3 (Machine Gun) Company, HKVDC (normally know as ‘Eurasian’). The pillbox is immediately behind it, though care should be taken as one walks onto the roof of the position, and there is a sheer drop on the far side.
Station 6
Straight down the concrete steps from the lower pillbox. Station six is one of two boards situated on the covered reservoir; it looks west into Wong Nai Chung Valley. This board describes the attempted relief of Lawson’s position and the eventual domination of the valley by the Japanese, who used it to force their way south to the coast, and west to the hills behind the city.
Station 7
Station seven, the second board on the covered reservoir, looks north to Wanchai, Causeway Bay, Admiralty, and Central. It covers the urban fighting in these areas as the Japanese attempted to head west along the coast towards Victoria and the centre of Government, their progress in that direction being held up by Middlesex, HKVDC, and mixed units.
Along the Way
Down hill from the reservoir, the trail turns south along Sir Cecil’s Ride.
Eagle-eyed walkers will notice other unmarked remnants of World War Two along the way, such as these concrete posts that once carried barbed wire entanglements. Although ordnance is uncovered on this path less often than it was, it does still appear. As always, these items are best left alone and reported to the authorities.
Station 8
The eighth station, alongside Sir Cecil’s Ride, describes the fighting along that path (and incorporates a very impressive photo giving good indication of the sheer number of Japanese attacking). It is worth remembering at this point that in 1941 the valley was far steeper, having been filled in post-war to make the present day sports clubs.
Station 9
After crossing Wong Nai Chung Gap Road, station nine is at the Lawson Bunker complex, next to the black stone Lawson’s Plaque. This complex was hidden under earth until excavations started in 2005. Today, in many places, the earth is back to 1941 ground levels or perhaps one metre higher. The D Company Winnipeg Grenadiers defensive positions opposite, however, were lost when the valley was filled in.
Station 10
The tenth, and final, station, is slightly further north along the same road. This describes the final stages of the battle, in Stanley as well as the urban areas, leading up to the surrender. Whilst the brigade shelter nearby is genuine, the signage and barbed wire date from relatively recent organized visits from veterans and their families.