大象传媒

The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Ronald Parker and Father
Major Maurice Albert Parker:

On December 9th in a cable from Hong Kong the situation was described. "All defenses of the mainland are being successfully maintained. Artillery fire brought enemy parties to an abrupt halt. Desultory air raids occurred during the day but there were no serious casualties. At least one plane was badly crippled. Air attacks were made on British warships which retaliated with gunfire, beating off the attackers. No ships were lost".

In the words of Rifleman John Beebe, of No.18 Platoon of the Royal Rifles of Canada, "First we got the report of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 8th. and when the first Jap planes came over between 8:30 and 9:00 on the following day we were all at our posts, alerted and ready for them. There were about 40 fighters and bombers in the first batch and just a few British planes to oppose them. But they went up and managed to down a couple of Japs." In fact, no RAF aircraft took to the air that day. Any Japanese aircraft shot over the next few days were brought down by anti-aircraft fire from the guns of The Hong Kong Singapore Royal Artillery, the first Volunteers to see action.
Rifleman Beebe. "A lot of damage was done by the Jap air raid and by the British 9.2 guns at Stanley opened up the same day, firing at the mainland where the Royal Scots were meeting the Japs head-on. The boys were on constant guard, with road blocks set up and under orders to stop everyone without credentials".
While the air raid and the artillery bombardment of December 8 were heavy they left the Canadian troops pretty much unscathed, but the island's infrastructure was a mess. There were water shortages, power failures, and telephone disruptions that made communications difficult. The military were using the telephone lines as a part of its communications network. The Japanese had tapped into the telephone lines and were using them to listen in on what the British were up to, and to pop in false information to further confuse an already off-balance enemy. The constant interruption of service annoyed both the British and the Japanese.
The Japanese had easily slipped hundreds of infiltrators onto the island in many disguises. They were up to the second on English counter measures, troops locations, ammo dumps, vehicle compounds, fuel supplies, artillery gun positions ... the Japanese knew everything worth knowing. The 5th. column did as much physical damage as they could as well. Even some Chinese who didn't like the British disrupted whatever they could. In one case the Japanese infiltrator offered to guide a truck driven by two Canadians to its destination. The Canadians were killed and the cargo destroyed.
The confusion kept the defenders off balance, caused them to lose sleep, miss meals, and make unnecessary movement of troops. Tired and disoriented the units kept on toiling. The Japanese were not about to let them get any rest.

Continued...
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