Savage Christmas Tragedy

On the 25th of December 1941, Sir Mark Aitchison Young, the governor of Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army. This fall was because of the underestimation of the Japanese, inadequate amount of training and experience of the men and bad estimation of when and where the Japanese would come from. This fall was simply horrendous and cannot be committed by us again.

First of all, I think that the Minister of Defence must appoint a new person to replace General Christopher M.Maltby to prevent any other further defendable invasions of Hong Kong. He was appointed to form the army which would defend Hong Kong; however, according to the “Veterans Affairs Canada” he only formed a 6,600 men army consisting: 900 Royal Scots, 900 Middlesex Regiments, 1000 Winnipeg Grenadiers, 1000 Royal Rifles of Canada and surprisingly 1000 Hong Kong volunteer Corps. I think that the formation
According to a reenactment of this tragedy, “Savage Christmas” – The Valour and the Horror, the Canadians only arrived in Hong Kong a few weeks before the invasion. In such a short period of time, how are they supposed to get used to even the geography of Hong Kong, let alone not even knowing Hong Kong Island? Furthermore, virtually all the soldiers sent to Hong Kong had very little or even no experience to battle. According to the Veterans Affairs Canada (which is a very accurate source as it is written by war veterans who fought in this war), most of the well-trained and experienced officers were sent to Europe, however, the men sent to Hong Kong were mostly either sick from Malaria or had little experience. Only 900 properly trained Middlesex Regiments were fit to for battle. The remaining Rajputs, Punjabis, Royal Rifles of Canada and Hong Kong Volunteer Corps were also very inexperienced and young. How do you expect 900 men to defeat the 50,000 men Japanese Imperial