World Battlefronts: Hong Kong: A Way of Life Dies

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The fall of Hong Kong sealed the last great leak in the Japanese blockade of the China coast, but it gave the Japanese no great new advantage for the Singapore push which was not already theirs. To Allied commanders, Hong Kong had been only something to be yielded so that something more important might be held.

But to Sir Mark and the men who cherished the traditions of Empire, it was more. For the first time Britain had lost a Pacific outpost; and lost it to the dwarf-like men whom British guns had helped blast awake only 79 years ago. On Dec. 28, flushed with victory, the Japanese paraded in triumphal review through the colony before their proud commanders. With little comfort, in his guarded room, Sir Mark may have repeated:

Far called, our names melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire;

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.