Play as · WW2 1939 · L1 · British Crown Colony · About to Fall

Hong Kong - 1939

Hong Kong in 1939 is the British Crown Colony - Hong Kong Island ceded in perpetuity through the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the Kowloon Peninsula ceded in perpetuity through the 1860 Convention of Peking, and the New Territories leased for 99 years from 1898 - operating through the colonial-administrative framework under Governor Sir Geoffry Northcote. Population about 1.6M (substantially expanded from the pre-1937 levels through the substantial Chinese refugee outflow that the Sino-Japanese War has produced). The strategic identity is the British Crown Colony with the substantial Royal Navy China Station base architecture, the British Army Hong Kong garrison (the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, the Royal Scots, the Punjabi and Rajput regiments, the Royal Artillery batteries, and the broader colonial-defense framework), the looming Japanese invasion that will arrive on December 8, 1941 (alongside the broader Pearl Harbor-and-Malayan-Singapore-attack initiation), and the substantial economic-and-shipping commercial position that has made Hong Kong one of the principal British East Asian commercial hubs.

Starting position

Hong Kong's defense-architecture in 1939 includes about 12,000 British and British-imperial forces - the Royal Navy China Station with cruisers and gunboats, the Royal Air Force Detachment with limited aircraft, the British Army formations including British-and-Indian regiments, the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, and the Hong Kong Naval Defence Force. Equipment is mixed and substantially below the level required for the eventual Japanese invasion - the post-Tientsin-incident strategic environment has not produced the substantial defense-investment that the looming threat would require. The Gin Drinkers' Line - the planned defensive line across the New Territories - has been substantially constructed but not garrisoned at the required scale. The substantial Chinese refugee population has produced acute-housing-and-public-health pressures.

What turns the campaign

What Hong Kong in 1939 wants is the British colonial-administrative framework preserved at the level the post-1898 architecture has institutionalized, the Royal Navy China Station and broader British-imperial forces presence preserved at the operational scale the looming Japanese threat requires, the substantial economic-and-shipping commercial position maintained as the principal continuing economic foundation, and the Chinese refugee population integration managed without producing acute social-political crises. What Hong Kong fears is exactly the historical answer - Operation Sho on December 8, 1941, sees the Japanese 23rd Army initiate the invasion, the British and British-imperial defenders fight the 17-day Battle of Hong Kong (December 8-25), the December 25 surrender ("Black Christmas") inaugurates the Japanese occupation that will continue until August 1945, and the substantial post-1941 starvation-and-occupation casualties (the population will fall from 1.6M to about 600,000 through the war) will compress the colony's basic functional infrastructure.

Signature challenge