Hong Kong was a lost cause – but the soldiers fought anyway. When Japanese forces launched a surprise invasion of the territory on December 8, 1941, just six hours after they bombed Pearl Harbor, British leaders already knew Hong Kong was indefensible. And yet 14,564 troops spent the next two weeks trying to hold back twice as many Japanese soldiers, first at the Gin Drinkers' Line, then at Devil's Peak, then at Quarry Bay, and then finally at Stanley.
“Nothing we did could have saved Hong Kong,” wrote a nurse after she was imprisoned in a Stanley concentration camp. “It was all wasted.”
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