No Surrender

Rain and bombs pelted the island of Hong Kong, from whose peak this picture was taken. Hong Kong (lower foreground) and Kowloon (across the water) are the ragged end of the thin red line of Empire. From their Victorian mansions on the hillside, Britons looked out, as their predecessors had for 100 years, on the red and grey hills in the distance beyond which lies China, and on the masts of the myriad ships that make Hong Kong the sixth greatest port on earth.

Between air raids last week they could hear the roll of artillery, the rattling patter of rifles and machine guns from across the narrow waters. As they watched the hills they hoped beyond any expression in stiff British communiques that soon Chinese troops might be coming over the weather-worn humps on the horizon to raise the Japanese siege. Striking from behind the ridge of hills where for three years they had lined the colony's border, Japanese troops, two divisions strong, had burst through British territory to the waterfront of Kowloon (center of picture). The Japanese presented the British with an ultimatum to surrender. The British refused. At week's end the Japanese announced the opening of an all-out attack on the island fortress itself.

Hong Kong's defenses are passing fair: minefields, anti-aircraft guns, gun batteries (some 12-inchers, some said to be 18-inchers) cut into the hills' rocks, British, Canadian, Indian and native troops. The colony's only good airfield is on the Kowloon side, was seized by the Japanese. Hong Kong's defenders always planned to hold until relief could reach them from Singapore. But this citadel, too, was under attack, for its existence.

Chief worry of Hong Kong's commanders was the jampacked Chinese population swelled by refugees to an estimated 2,000,000. Although there were large rice stocks on hand and water was stored in hillside reservoirs, how long these might last was anyone's guess.

Chief hope of Hong Kong was the Chinese army. Early reports had stated that Chiang Kai-shek himself was leading crack troops to the relief of the encircled islanders. This was unlikely but Chungking announced later that one of China's toughest war heroes, General Tsai Ting-kai, who had slugged the Japanese to a standstill in the 1932 Shanghai war, was among the commanders of relieving forces. Chinese troops were already reported battling in the Japanese rear at Tamshui, 28 miles north of the colony's border. The Chinese Air Force was in action over Canton, 80 miles up the Pearl River. These might be Chiang's carefully hoarded U.S. volunteers and their P-4Os, fighting for the first time. But Chiang's best troops and equipment were probably earmarked for the defense of the Burma Road, which is far more important than Hong Kong in Allied grand strategy. General Tsai's forces, which probably lacked artillery, were like men trying to chew their way through a tough steak with toothless gums. If Hong Kong's defenses held long enough, China might mass enough infantrymen to besiege the Japanese from the rear. But that depended partly on how many days Hong Kong could live and feed itself.

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