The Interwar Period, 1919–1941

Abstract

The fourth chapter focuses on the experience of the Hong Kong soldiers and ratings during the interwar period (1919–39) until the battle of Hong Kong in 1941. It starts with a discussion of the experience of Hong Kong servicemen during the interwar period when serving in the military was seen as a stable career that offered learning opportunities for the working-class Hongkongers. Meanwhile, volunteer military service in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps was seen as a means for middle-class Hongkongers to gain respectability, especially for the Portuguese and the Eurasians who were sometimes seen as outsiders in pre-war Hong Kong society. The chapter then covers the British attempt to recruit more locals for the defence of Hong Kong from 1936. The training and organisation of the various local units are discussed. It challenges the myth that the Chinese in Hong Kong were not mobilised because of the racist prejudices held by the British decision-makers. It suggests that Chinese propagandists first engineered the myth in 1942 in an attempt to undermine British prestige in China after the fall of Hong Kong, as the Nationalist government was planning to pressure the British to give up Hong Kong after the war. The myth found a second life after the signing of the Sino–British Joint Declaration in 1984 because of the changing political situation.