Memorial Garden of the City Hall, Central Photo: HKGov
Everyone is invited to a service tomorrow (17/8) to commemorate the suffering and sacrifices of all communities during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from December 1941 to August 1945, according to Ronald Taylor, hon. president, Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers) Association. The remembrance service will be held in the Memorial Garden of the City Hall, Central, from 10:45 am.
It was 80 years ago on 16 August that Hong Kong learned the Second World War was over. The Imperial Japanese Army had surrendered to the Royal Navy after two atomic bombs convinced Emperor Hirohito and his generals that they had no choice. “. . .While killing many (the bombings) prevented the anticipated deaths of many more on both sides of the conflict had the fighting on land and sea continued,” Mr Taylor wrote in a letter to the SCMP.
Tomorrow’s service will be in remembrance of those who served in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps 80 years ago, and those who died in the fighting or in Japanese prison camps. It will also celebrate the 80th anniversary of freedom for Hong Kong.
On 16 September 1945 Rear Admiral Sir Cecil Halliday Jepson Harcourt oversaw proceedings as Vice Admiral Ruitaro Fujita signed the document of surrender. Earlier Franklin Gimson, pre-war Colonial Secretary, had left Stanley Internment Camp after the Japanese surrender and presented himself at Government House declaring he would be the acting Governor, restoring British Rule to Hong Kong, in face of American assertions that administration of the colony should be turned over to the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek.
General Takashi Sakai, who led the invasion of Hong Kong in December 194l and served as governor-general during the Japanese occupation, was executed as a war criminal.
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