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Christmas Eve
A Report from Reuters,
December 24, 1941
Reports received from other sources said that even civilians and
British administrative officers were fighting with the arms they
could find and holding some isolated points. According to a last
communique issued in the morning of December 24th and received
at London by Reuters:
"The enemy made some progress during the early part of the
night, despite losses in the East point area. Heavy fighting is
in progress in the direction of Happy Valley, with our troops
disputing every foot of Japanese advance. Under strong enemy
pressure, we successfully evacuated our forces from Repulse Bay.
A further battle is in progress for possession for the Stanley
Peninsula."
By midnight of the 24th, the Royal Rifles were surrounded with
their backs to the sea. The following words about sum it up. Rfm.
Beebe from the Royal Rifles: "They came back again on the 24th
and we suffered heavy casualties on both days. There was no
eating or sleeping: it was fight, fight, fight! We knew the jig
was up but we were fighting mad and prepared to stand up to the
last man."
“It was the morning of December 25, 1941, in Hong Kong. The sun
shone bright and warm. Along the road bordered with blood-red
flowers strolled a Canadian soldier, steel helmet perched on the
back of his head and singing at the top of his voice. Fellow
soldiers taking cover in the basement of a house shouted at him,
"Take cover - get off the road!" The Canadian shouted back,
"It's a lovely day and it's Christmas morning." Then he picked
up his song and continued to stroll along the road, to disappear
forever.
Above is an
artist's rendition of a shell-shocked and wounded Canadian soldier, singing as he
marches down a street in Hong Kong, oblivious of the madness and
mayhem around him. He was never seen again. Printed in the
Toronto Star Weekly, December 21, 1961. "Who he was, where he
came from and what eventually happened to him, the survivors of
the Winnipeg Grenadiers who had shouted out to him never did
learn. But the unreality of this occasion - the casual, singing
soldier strolling along, oblivious to the earth-shaking
explosions or the hills of Hong Kong which at that moment were a
mass of roaring flames - did not unduly amaze them. It was, so
they thought, merely an appropriate part of the greater
unreality which was the battle of Hong Kong itself. This does
not mean that there was anything unreal about the savage
fighting that had gone on for 18 days as 14,000 Canadian,
British and Indian troops attempted to hold off 60,000
experienced, superbly trained Japanese troops."
The mind can never really prepare for the horrors of war.
Nothing in a soldier's experience, nothing in training, can
prepare a soldier for the insanity which is war. The men of the
Royal Rifles of Canada were "Townshippers", from Quebec. The
Winnipeg Grenadiers were prairie boys, from Manitoba. They had
never fired a shot in anger, let alone with the intent to kill.
They certainly had never been shot at.
The sharp snap of a rifle
bullet overhead, the thump of an incoming mortar round, or the
earth shattering blast of an artillery round that falls nearby
are not the sounds for which one can prepare. The smell of
cordite, of burning fuel, burning rubber. The screams of the
wounded, the dying. A dead friend, alive a second ago, is
dismembered now. The coppery smell of hot blood that flows from
your own body is not something a soldier can be prepared for in
training.
To be under attack is to be in hell, an experience no normal
mind can really comprehend. To some it is unendurable. To endure
under attack is not just a matter of personal courage, it is to
know the instinct for survival intimately. To retreat into the
mind is not an act of cowardice. It, too, is an act of survival,
or a prelude to a death unchallenged, perhaps welcomed.
Their Finest Hour: "D" Company, the Royal
Rifles of Canada
The Royal Rifles of Canada had been pushed back down to the tip
of the Stanley Peninsula to Stanley Barracks. Some of the men
from "A" Company had just started to arrive to join "B", "C";
and "D" Companies for what was clearly the final battle. The new
front was a narrow line from the western to the eastern beaches,
near Stanley Village.
Like the men of The Light Brigade, there was water to the West
of them, water to the East of them, water at their backs.
Japanese artillery volleyed and thundered. No hope for victory,
no chance of rescue or relief, no place to go, just a burning
rage fuelled by frustration and the memories of butchered
comrades kept them going.
Under the powerful pressure of the constant bombardment the line
broke at its West end and sagged to the South, and East, and the
main body of "A" Company of the Royal Rifles was cut off at
Repulse Bay. The remaining defenders were squeezed into a thin
line along the East shore of the peninsula. And ... still they
did not give up.
The officers and men of "D" Company of the Royal Rifles of
Canada consider Christmas Day, 1941, to be their "finest hour".
They were to attack the Japanese in Stanley Village.
Major Parker Recounts:
"On the morning of December 25th .. I was called to Brigade
Headquarters at Stanley Barracks and met with Brigadier Wallis,
Colonel Home and Major Price who outlined the plans for an
attack on the Japanese troops concentrated in the Stanley
Village area. I was given a guide to conduct me and my Company
to the Stanley Prison, the start line of my attack. I was to
make a frontal advance to occupy the Ridge beyond the cemetery
and to retake the Indian Quarters on the right".
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