The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-12-16

AANAAe NANA ASo AGAVAAcG 10 ySV VI NVAlN and 1t has all the maktngs of one of the epic battles of this or any other war. Hawaii, the Philippines Singapore all have @ chance. They have their own air defenSeS, their fleets, their strong garrisonS. To get at them, the Japs have to cross hundreds or thousands of miles oi sea, At Hong Kong, the Japs were less than 30 miles away in Canton Hong Kong, because of It's noun. tainouS terrainS has only one air- field. Its fleet Is negligible and vast ly inferior to whatever the Japs may care to bring against 1t, The Hong Kong garrison Is necessarily limited in size. There is no place for that garrison to retreat. Closest friendly territory is the Philippines, 700 miles away. And the orders of the British garrison ct Hong Kong are to defend 1t to the last man.
 HALF MILE
 FROM CHINA
 To get the real mental picture of what goes on at Hong Kong you must recall your geography. Hong Kong Is an island 10 miles long, three miles wide. It is solid rock, rise Ing sharply from the water line to Victoria peak, 1700 feet high, crowned with the British govern ment house. On the slopes Is the city of Victoria.
 Half mile to the north across channel straits Is the mainland of China. But hero the British hold under lease from the Chinese gov- ernment the famous Kowloon pen- insula, which with Cheung Chau and few Smalled islands to the west of Victoria, make up the Hong Kong crown colony.
 Kowloon peninsula is crossed by three ridges which form natural de- fensive barriers but beyond those ridges, just 90 miles from Victoria, Is q Japanese army as much bigger than the Hong Kong garrison aS the Japs may want to make it. This army has been there three years, in full control of the situation, amply prepared for It's assault on the luckless Hong Kong.
 Open on oil sides to attack and invasion by land, by sea and by air, Hong Kong holds up but does not twiddle it's thumbs and awaits It's fate. It has been like that for these three years that the Japs have been in Canton. Yet life on this powder keg has gone on, though It's destiny seemed sealed and the question was not what, but when. The populace Of two million, perhaps nine -tenths Orientals, has not been sitting idly by waiting for this inevitable gtrug- gle.
 Hong Kong harbor, one of the busiest iil the east and one of the most picturesque in the world, has been heavily mined. The hills hrIstle with coast defense guns, anti-air- craft batteries, machine guns. Barb- cd wire entangiementS line every possible landing point. civilian de. fenSe has been organized aS nos where else in the world. Every man haS job. The rocks are honey- combed with air raid shelters. AMERICAN
 LYNX
 Tn oil this period of defense pre-. paredness, Hong Kong has been the most direct link for communica tions between the Chinese and the United States. Pan American clippers and trans-Pacific steamships from the rest of the world have touched at Hong Kong and dropped their car. goes of passengers, mail and ex- press. By seq, Chinese smugglerS have run the Japanese blockade up the China coasts to obscure ports where contact was kept with the Chlang Kai.Shek forces in un-oc- cupied territory.
 By air, daredevil pilots, flying only at night, only in bad weather and entirely without the usual aids to navigation, have hopped over tie Japanese armies and made Chung king with unbelievable regularity and with only two planes shot dowE by Jap aViatoFS during four years Of the Chinese war. Even one of those was saved, repaired, and flown out under it's own power.
 That, briefly, is the setting for the battle of Hong Kong. And Hong Kong's defenders-the handful of British regulars, the contingents Of Allzacs, the native trops from India, the Chinese militia, the home guards, the few combat pilots, the crews of the small fiotilias Of gum boats and submarines-th men will go down in history as heroes among the heroic.
 By last reports, there were couple Of hundred Americans hang. ing around there, too.