An online lecture by Dr. Chi Man Kwong on the operations and tactics in 1941 Battle of Hong Kong.

This talk summarizes the speaker’s recent experience of revisiting the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941 through a Spatial History project based on critical reading of primary sources from Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan. The Spatial History approach allows the speaker to propose new observations about the operational and tactical dimensions of the battle, the performance of the Japanese forces, and the reasons for the battle’s outcome, which was seemingly a foregone conclusion. This talk also introduces the interactive web map and a WWII-war ruins database created by the speaker about the Battle, discusses some possible future research directions on the topic, and outlines how these new directions help with the commemoration of the battle in Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

The Speaker

Dr Chi Man KWONG was born and raised in Hong Kong and had completed his doctorate degree in Cambridge, United Kingdom. His interest lies in military history in East Asia.

Chi Man KWONG is the author of Old Soldiers Never Die (老兵不死:香港華籍英兵), Road to Liberation (重光之路:日據香港與太平洋戰爭), and the co-author of Eastern Fortress, among many other of his publications. His latest work, a monograph about the history of the Hongkongers serving in the British armed forces during the 19th and 20th centuries, will be published by Oxford University Press in late 2021/early 2022. He is now the Associate Professor at the Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Venue: Online on Zoom

Admission: No charge, please register your attendance in advance

Booking: Please email membership@royalasiaticsociety.org.hk in advance to register your attendance