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Kitchen Table Kibitzing Friday: fall of Hong Kong and the Gin Drinker's Line [1]

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Date: 2022-10-07

Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well.

As you might have noticed, I’ve been doing midnight stories on the Ukrainian Invasion, simply culling the least disinforming reports about the war from MSM and the web. Russian failures have been more interesting and below I came across some other wartime defeats because I have been interested in how layered or sedimented some capitalist historical memories have become. This resembles the various claims for what an “original” sovereign Ukraine might be relative to Russian imperialism and the more compelling reasons for invasion.

In the WWII cases of the Fall of Hong Kong in 1941 and the Fall of Singapore in 1942, there was an underestimating of the strength of Japanese combat power as well as scarcer British colonial resources including air support. In Hong Kong they believed they had an “eastern Maginot Line” (東方馬奇諾防線) which really is more like a gin-drinkers’ line. Somehow in Singapore two months of preparation wasn’t enough to prevent their capitulation.

It is in this context of increased popular interest and availability of historical sources about the Battle that a team led by the author conceived the Spatial History project “Hong Kong 1941”, which uses geographic information systems (GIS) to build an interactive web map about the Battle of Hong Kong and a database about the Battle. It aims to cater for researchers, educators, tourists, and conservation professionals to approach different aspects of the Battle and put them in the same space, in this case, an interactive map. The research team has been working on the military history of Hong Kong during the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941. It has also been collecting primary sources from the United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong. These primary sources include various official reports such as war diaries of units that participated in the Battle from both sides, personal reports and accounts produced during the war, post-war memoirs, oral history records, and photographs taken during the war. The web map contains the following layers of data:

Unit disposition: the map divides the Battle of Hong Kong campaign into 51 “time-steps”, each showing the positions and status of the units on both sides. The data granularity is down to platoon/squad/individual artillery pieces.

The location of various military structures: coastal defence batteries, anti-aircraft batteries, pillboxes, headquarters, shelters, medical posts, communication lines, demolition points, pre-arranged artillery targets etc. The data granularity is up to individual buildings (such as individual pillboxes).

Faces of War: the stories of those who had experienced the Battle.

Objects of War: objects and artefacts related to the Battle, such as weapons, vehicles, military aircraft, vessels, personal equipment and others.

Images of War: photos taken during the period.

Units: information about the units on both sides participating in the Battle.

A list of Hong Kong combatants: personal information on more than 2,100 Hong Kong residents from different ethnic groups and backgrounds who participated in the Battle.

The reasons for approaching the Battle from the spatial and temporal relationship are severalfold. First, it allows researchers to critically assess the numerous and sometimes conflicting accounts on many sides. Previous studies on the Battle often focus on a single side of the conflict, be it the British/Allied or Japanese sides. An interactive map showing the spatial and temporal data, extracted from primary sources on both sides, can help researchers clarify and contextualize unclear accounts and provide opportunities to better understand and explain the Battle. This exercise helps scholars reinterpret some of the operational and tactical aspects of the Battle. The interactive map also allows us to put the military structures that still exist in Hong Kong in their proper contexts. As of 2022, more than a hundred of these structures could still be found in different parts of Hong Kong, especially in the Kowloon Hills (along the Gin Drinker’s Line) and Hong Kong Island. Giving these structures a collective story can better reflect their historical importance and thus assist conservation efforts.

cil.nus.edu.sg/...

digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/…

The Gin Drinkers Line, or Gin Drinkers' Line, was a British military defensive line against the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941, part of the Pacific War.

The concept came from France's Maginot Line, built after World War I. The British believed the line could protect the colony from Japanese invasion for at least six months and even called it the "Oriental Maginot Line" (Chinese: 東方馬奇諾防線). The Japanese generals also believed the line would stop their advance until the scouts found out the line was very weak. For example, only 30 soldiers defended Shing Mun Redoubt in the Battle of Hong Kong. It had a capacity of 120 men.

The Gin Drinkers Line was and still is considered to be a complete failure. The line and the whole of Kowloon were abandoned by the British troops in just two days. There can be said to be three main reasons:

Insufficient troops: although their weaponry was sound, there were not enough British soldiers to maximise the Line's potential. For example, the Shing Mun Redoubt could have garrisoned over 120 men, but was garrisoned by just 30 troops, because many of the troops suffered from malaria, since the area around the redoubt was known to contain a lot of mosquitos. Underestimation of the Japanese: the British assumed that the Japanese did not wage night battles and relaxed their guard. They were also overconfident in the Line's capabilities and believed that the Japanese could be easily repulsed.

en.wikipedia.org/…

1. Try Gin in Cocktails, Preferably a Martini

2. Maybe You Want to Go with a Gin & Tonic or Even Gin & Coke.

3. When Making Gin Cocktails, Complement and Contrast

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Drink Gin Neat

5. Play with the Temperature

6. Once You’ve Become a Gin Geek, Sip Vintage Gins

www.liquor.com/…

Lucile Brockway has shown that control of cinchona – and thus quinine – was key to the expansion of European colonial powers during the nineteenth century in Asia and Africa. By mid-century, the cinchona-producing areas of South America had become independent republics. Cinchona, grown as wild stocks harvested by native communities, offered an important commodity for their economic development. In 1860 alone, South America exported around two million pounds of cinchona bark to Britain and the United States. European powers, namely the British and the Dutch, feared a South American monopoly on the product raised prices, so they smuggled the plant’s seeds back to Europe, created hybrid strains, and transferred cinchona to plantations in Asian colonies like Ceylon and Java. By century’s end, the Dutch controlled most of the cinchona trade.

Without a reliable, cheap source of quinine, European dominance during the nineteenth century would have been less likely in areas such as South Asia and Africa prone to malaria. Quinine, then, was an ingredient central to not only the gin and tonic, but also the growth of European imperialism. As a British surgeon noted in 1897, “to England, with her numerous and extensive Colonial possessions, [the cinchona bark] is simply priceless; and it is not too much to say, that if portions of her tropical empire are upheld by the bayonet, the arm that wields the weapon would be nerveless but for Cinchona bark and its active principles.”

activehistory.ca/...

Worlds of Fun is a time capsule of an earlier era. Despite the gains made in expanding social consciousness throughout the 1960s, the theme park remains trapped in 1973 amber which fully reveals just what had not yet been addressed in American society. Worlds of Fun makes apparent just what kind of cultural stereotyping was acceptable back then—and is perhaps still acceptable today. Bamboozler opened in 1977 as Singapore Sling. The ride moved to the Americana area in 1980 (where it was known as Whirligig), and then four years later returned to its current location in Orient as Bamboozler. www.themerica.org/...

The disposition of Allied ground forces in Singapore in early February 1942, prior to the Battle of Singapore. (From Lionel Wigmore, Australia in the War of 1939–1945 Volume IV, Chapter 14 – The Japanese Thrust (1st edition, 1957), ; published by the Australian War Memorial)

The Fall of Singapore, also known as the Battle of Singapore,[c] took place in the South–East Asian theatre of the Pacific War. The Empire of Japan captured the British stronghold of Singapore, with fighting lasting from 8 to 15 February 1942. Singapore was the foremost British military base and economic port in South–East Asia and had been of great importance to British interwar defence strategy. The capture of Singapore resulted in the largest British surrender in its history.

In analysing the campaign, Clifford Kinvig, a senior lecturer at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, blamed the commander of the 27th Infantry Brigade, Brigadier Duncan Maxwell, for his defeatist attitude and not properly defending the sector between the Causeway and the Kranji River.[151][137] Elphick also claims that Australians made up the majority of stragglers.[152] According to another source, Taylor cracked under the pressure.[l] Thompson argues that the 22nd Australian Brigade was "so heavily outnumbered that defeat was inevitable" and Costello states that Percival's insistence on concentrating the 22nd Australian Brigade at the water's edge had been a serious mistake.[153][136] Yamashita, the Japanese commander, laid the blame on the British "underestimating Japanese military capabilities" and Percival's hesitancy in reinforcing the Australians on the western side of the island.[154]

A classified wartime report by Wavell released in 1992 blamed the Australians for the loss of Singapore.[28] According to John Coates, the report "lacked substance", for though there had undoubtedly been a lack of discipline in the final stages of the campaign—particularly among the poorly trained British, Indian and Australian reinforcements that were hurriedly dispatched as the crisis worsened—the 8th Australian Division had fought well and had gained the respect of the Japanese.[155] At Gemas, Bakri and Jemaluang, "they achieved the few outstanding tactical successes" of the campaign in Malaya and although the Australians made up 13 per cent of the British Empire's ground forces, they suffered 73 per cent of its battle deaths.[156][148] Coates argues that the real reason for the fall of Singapore was the failure of the Singapore strategy, to which Australian policy-makers had contributed in their acquiescence and the lack of military resources allocated to the fighting in Malaya.[155]

The Japanese had advanced 650 mi (1,050 km) from Singora, Thailand, to the southern coast of Singapore at an average rate of 9 mi (14 km) a day.[157] While impressed with Japan's quick succession of victories, Adolf Hitler reportedly had mixed views regarding Singapore's fall, seeing it as a setback for the "white race" but ultimately something that was in Germany's military interests. Hitler reportedly forbade Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop from issuing a congratulatory communique.[158] Churchill called the fall of Singapore to the Japanese "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history".[159][160] Churchill's personal physician Lord Moran wrote:

The fall of Singapore on February 15 stupefied the Prime Minister. How came 100,000 men (half of them of our own race) to hold up their hands to inferior numbers of Japanese? Though his mind had been gradually prepared for its fall, the surrender of the fortress stunned him. He felt it was a disgrace. It left a scar on his mind. One evening, months later, when he was sitting in his bathroom enveloped in a towel, he stopped drying himself and gloomily surveyed the floor: 'I cannot get over Singapore', he said sadly.[161]

en.wikipedia.org/...

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