Podcasts about Kowloon

Last time we spoke about the beginning of the Battle of Hong kong. Japan's rise as a threat to British interests accelerated through the 1920s and intensified after invading China. Britain's response remained contradictory—diplomatically conciliatory yet militarily apprehensive. While Singapore and Malaya received substantial reinforcements, Hong Kong was acknowledged indefensible, yet the 1936 Defence Scheme attempted to fortify it as an island fortress. Governor Northcote urgently advocated evacuation, recognizing the futility of defense. London rejected this, fearing it would demoralize China and forfeit sovereignty claims. Reinforcement requests from commanders like Grasett fell on deaf ears until Grasett independently lobbied Canadian leaders. This persistence finally convinced Churchill to dispatch two additional battalions. On December 8, 1941, Japanese forces attacked across three fronts with overwhelming force. Within hours, the RAF was destroyed on the ground, demolitions proved ineffective, and British units rapidly retreated toward the Gin Drinkers Line, facing an enemy that outnumbered and outmaneuvered them from the opening moments.   #217 The Battle of Hong Kong Part 2: the Island Aflame Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Around 1500 hours on 9 December, Colonel Doi of the 228th Regiment arrived at Needle Hill, just north of the Gin Drinkers Line, ahead of his main force. For two hours he studied the British defensive positions through binoculars, noting trenches and bunkers—and to his surprise, washing lines fluttering with white clothes. The sight spoke volumes about the 2 Royal Scots' lax discipline. Then fog descended, reducing visibility to barely twenty meters, and heavy rain obscured the landscape. Doi sensed a fleeting advantage but lost radio contact with his battalions. Worse still, the Shing Mun Redoubt lay outside his regimental boundary, making an unauthorized attack a serious breach of protocol. When his units finally arrived, supporting artillery remained unavailable, held up by demolished roads. Doi chose to attack anyway. Doi ordered the 2nd Battalion to scout the eastern approach while the 3rd Battalion spearheaded the main assault. Major Nishiyana commanded the 3rd, sending Lieutenant Wakabayashi and Kasugai with 150 volunteers to lead. The Shing Mun Redoubt itself comprised five concrete pillboxes and an artillery observation post, connected by underground tunnels named after London landmarks—Piccadilly, Haymarket, and others. The whole complex sat on small rises above Jubilee Dam, then the British Empire's tallest. Defending the redoubt was A Company, 2 Royal Scots, under Captain Jones—just three officers and 39 men. One platoon of 25 soldiers under 2nd Lieutenant Thompson held the forward positions. Against this stood 150 Japanese attackers, with another 1,500 troops in reserve. Battalion orders forbade using the concrete works as fighting positions; they were meant for the Vickers machine-gun team and artillery protection. No mines could spare the redoubt's perimeter. On the night of the 9th, roughly half the defenders sheltered in the observation post while the remainder manned pillboxes 401b and 402. At 2000 hours, Thompson led a nine-man patrol northward to check Needle Hill and Shing Mun Valley. Despite two and a half hours in the field, the patrol returned at 2220 hours without detecting the Japanese force massing just 500 meters away. By that time, Lieutenant Kasugai's assault group had crossed Jubilee Dam undetected, bypassed unmanned Post X, and assembled below Pillbox 401b. At 2200 hours, Japanese sappers cut through two lines of wire. At 2300—H-Hour—Lance Corporal Laird heard movement in the bushes and opened fire. The Japanese answered with grenades and rushed the pillbox lines. One team entered the tunnel system; another hurled grenades through the air vents. Corporal Campbell swung his Vickers toward Pillbox 401, catching Japanese headquarters personnel in the open. Sergeant Robb mustered a counter-attack force of thirteen men. Five fell as casualties—Laird, Basnett, Coyle, Casey, and Jardine. Casey was killed; only Jardine escaped. The alert triggered gunfire from the observation post's defenders, and Forward Observer Wilcox called down 4.5-inch and 6-inch artillery fire. Without strong reinforcement and leadership, four Royal Scots and an Indian sentry abandoned the northern positions and withdrew to the observation post. Captain Jones received orders from Brigade to counter-attack, but delegated the task to Thompson. As Thompson attempted to leave the observation post, he found the gate locked from outside. This calamity had a backstory: just before the attack, Thompson had admitted a civilian at the request of Force 163 (SOE's sabotage unit in Singapore). Private Wylie had taken the observation post key from Lance Naik Kishan Singh and, upon exit, locked the gate behind him. The three officers were now literally locked out of the battle. Second Lieutenant Mochizuki and his platoon infiltrated through open trenches and began attacking the observation post from above, attempting to breach the hatches. The defenders held for three hours before Japanese sappers forced explosives down the air vents. At 0230 hours, the blast killed two Indian signallers inside. Thompson sustained a severe eye wound from grenade shrapnel; Jones and Warrant Officer Mead were both wounded. The remaining fifteen defenders surrendered; eleven became casualties. Meanwhile, a Rajput patrol engaging Japanese forces in the river valley managed to drive them back toward the redoubt. One final pillbox endured for another eleven hours before suffering the same sapper treatment. By 0400 hours on 10 December, the entire redoubt was lost. For just two killed, the Japanese had achieved a decisive victory—the breakthrough that would shift the entire campaign's trajectory. By dawn, a Japanese flag flew triumphantly from Point 255.   Major-General Maltby's assessment was stark: "This was calamitous, for Shing Mun was the key to the whole of the left position." Yet the Japanese perspective differed sharply. Having achieved a breakthrough, Colonel Doi received astonishing orders to withdraw—his success had transgressed into the 230th Regiment's sector and violated the meticulously prepared war plan. Doi refused. After heated confrontation with Major-General Ito and Lieutenant-General Sakai, his insubordination was later censured, though a divisional staff officer, Oyadomani, bore the scapegoat's burden of rebuke for failing to restrain Doi's initiative. With Shing Mun secured, Doi methodically fed reinforcements into the position. Throughout December 10th, the Japanese remained uncertain of their advantage and adopted a cautious strategy, probing British lines to exploit the evident disorder. Brigadier Wallis ordered the Royal Scots to mount an immediate dawn counterattack supported by the Rajputs and artillery. Lieutenant-Colonel White demurred; his battalion lacked any reasonable prospect of success. The resulting counterattack proved half-hearted at best. At first light on December 11th, the Japanese pressed Golden Hill forcefully, only to be repulsed by Captain Newton's Rajputs and gunfire from HMS Cicala. White positioned D Company in shallow shell scrapes and rusted wire—inadequate defenses against Japanese assault. Captain Pinkerton led a desperate bayonet charge that morning, temporarily clearing the Japanese and enabling the evacuation of wounded. Yet B, C, and D Companies absorbed devastating losses; Captains Rose and Richardson fell commanding their positions. With the Royal Scots collapsing, X Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and armored support rushed westward to seal the widening gap along Castle Peak Road. Meanwhile, Maltby grappled with alarming reports: Japanese landings on Lantau Island southwest of Hong Kong. Heavy artillery drove them back. A second probe at Aberdeen, where Special Naval Landing Forces approached within 300 yards of the naval base, was repelled by Canadian machine-gun fire. In hindsight, these were mere feints—never intended as the primary thrust. The stratagem succeeded. Maltby retained his island reserves—the Middlesex and two Canadian battalions—precisely where they would be needed. Had Wallis executed a forceful counterattack on December 10th with the Royal Scots and brigade reserves, the Rajputs might have retaken Shing Mun while the Japanese remained disorganized. Instead, Colonel Doi faced a furious Sakai, who had flown down from 38th Division headquarters at Taipo for what amounted to a pre-court-martial examination. The moment passed. After only 48 hours of combat, Maltby concluded the mainland was indefensible. The three battalions would withdraw intact to Hong Kong Island to assume their fortress defense roles. The naval commodore objected—demolitions, supply transfers, and troop ferrying required more time. The evacuation order was deferred 24 hours until noon on December 11th. At that hour, the decision was finalized: the mainland would be abandoned under cover of darkness. Further demolitions followed—the China Light and Power Station, the cement works on Tsing Yi Island, the docks. Yet Brigadier Wallis believed this merely a precautionary measure; he anticipated holding the mainland for at least another week. The withdrawal avoided Kowloon's congested streets, where street fighting and fifth columnists might have entrapped the British—a calculation that proved prescient, as an IJA advance column of 350 men from the 3/230th infiltrated Kowloon on the morning of December 12th to cut off the retreating garrison. The Royal Scots and Canadians retired south to Shamshuipo Barracks and Jordan Road Pier in western Kowloon; the Rajputs and supporting gunners withdrew eastward to Ma Lau Tong, which anchored the fortified Devil's Peak Peninsula. Maltby intended to hold this commanding position permanently—it was easily supplied across the narrow Lyemun Strait. The evacuation proceeded largely as planned. The Canadians and Royal Scots embarked on the afternoon and evening of December 11th under Punjabi covering fire. The Punjabis faced a harder journey—a moonlit scramble along steep Kowloon hills laden with supplies but critically short of mules. One group lost its way at a crucial junction, splitting into two columns. One proceeded toward Devil's Peak as planned; Battalion Headquarters descended into Kai Tak Airport, threaded through Kowloon City, and was evacuated by Star Ferry at Tsim Sha Tsui, fighting until the final moment as the last man boarded. The Rajputs' commander, unable to reach his Punjabi counterpart, abandoned Ma Lau Tong for the closer Hai Wan line near Devil's Peak. By 0400 hours on December 12th, the Punjabis and one Rajput company, accompanied by the gunners of the 25th Medium Battery, crossed Lyemun Strait to Hong Kong Island. Morning evacuations continued with minimal Japanese interference—a surprising restraint. Naval support proved crucial. The withdrawal completed by the morning of December 13th, though 170 mules were lost to the desertion of Chinese laborers—a deprivation that would haunt the subsequent campaign. During this passage, the IJN attempted shore bombardment. The Japanese cruiser and supporting vessels found themselves outranged by the defenders' 9.2-inch guns. The damage inflicted proved sufficient to discourage future naval adventures; for the remainder of the battle, the IJN maintained a cautious distance and played only a peripheral role. The speed and execution of the withdrawal apparently caught the Japanese unprepared. Their most probable expectation had been a full-scale assault on Devil's Peak accompanied by heavy bombardment—a day earlier, an assault without artillery preparation had been driven back with severe losses. The British appeared stronger than anticipated. The defense of the mainland had lasted only five days. With the mainland secured, the Japanese pivoted toward Hong Kong Island. The first move was diplomatic rather than military. At 0900 hours on December 13th, a small boat bearing a white flag crossed the harbor. It carried Colonel Toda, Lieutenant Mizuno, Mr. Othsu Dak, and two European women—the prominent and heavily pregnant Mrs. Macdonald and Mrs. C. R. Lee, wife of the Governor's secretary, accompanied by her two dachshunds. The surrender terms were flatly rejected. Major Boxer delivered the written refusal personally. Mrs. Macdonald remained in Hong Kong to give birth; Mrs. Lee and her dogs returned to Kowloon. The Japanese commenced systematic shelling of selected targets. On December 13th, a 9.2-inch gun on Mt. Davis was silenced; Belcher's Fort sustained damage. The following day, a 3-inch mount on Mt. Davis was hit, killing Chinese gunners and triggering morale collapse; some deserted. On December 15th, the barrage shifted to the northern shoreline, deliberately targeting pillboxes. At 2100 hours that night, approximately three Japanese companies attempted crossing the harbor in rubber rafts toward Pakshawan but were driven off by machine-gun fire. Fifth columnists intensified their operations—signaling with mirrors, sniping from concealed positions, spreading propaganda to encourage Chinese desertion. Their impact might have been catastrophic had not Rear-Admiral Chan and Colonel Yee, armed with tommy guns and grenades, systematically eliminated many of these saboteurs. By December 16th, half the pillboxes between the racecourse and Lyemun Strait lay destroyed. The intended crossing site was unmistakable. On December 17th, the Japanese dispatched a second peace mission—Colonel Toda's team now accompanied by Mrs. Lee with her dachshunds and a pregnant Russian woman. Again, the overtures were rebuffed. On December 18th, the bombardment reached new intensity. Oil storage tanks ignited, sending dense black smoke cascading across the northeast corner of the island—perfect concealment for what was to come. All signs pointed to imminent assault.  I want to note something here, you sometimes hear about how race played a role in the Pacific War and indeed it did. Racist attitudes were found on both the western and Japanese side of the war. There is a fantastic book dedicated to this by the way called, War without Mercy by John Dower, highly recommend it. What is interesting is how these racial attitudes actually affected decision making during the war. Take General Sakai's night amphibious assault for example. Western soldiers such as the Canadians in Hong Kong reported they were told by their commanders that quote "Don't worry about the Japanese, they can't see at night, they all wear glasses" another Canadian soldier wrote in a diary "They don't see well, especially at night we knew this as a matter of fact." Indeed the week before the outbreak of the battle of Hong Kong, Canadian officers attending a briefing by a British officer were informed that "Japan's aircraft were mostly obsolete, its air force had little practice in night flying, and its pilots were myopic and thus unable to carry out dive-bombing attacks". You might be asking yourself, why did they think the Japanese were myopic? The scientific explanation of the day was this "That the Japanese suffered widespread inner-ear damage. What caused this? Japanese motherhood, the practice of strapping babies to their mothers backs, it was explained caused their heads to bounce about, like when they harvested rice and permanently impaired their sense of balance". I particularly love this quote, one of my professors dedicated an entire class to the bizarre racial attitudes before and after the pacific war. There was a belief the Japanese could not see well at night, many western air force commanders actually believed there were times of day like at dawn or dusk where Japanese pilots would not operate because of this hindrance. American military commentator Fletcher Pratt in 1939 analyzed Japan's military strengths and explained it had four major weaknesses. The first was scarcity of resources such as iron, and steel. The second was that the Japanese "can neither make good airplanes nor fly them well" as a result of " the Japanese as a race have defects of the tubes of the inner ear, just as they are generally myopic. This gives them a defective sense of balance, the one physical sense in which an aviator is not permitted to be deficient.". The third was that the Japanese were short-tempered and were inclined to waste men unnecessarily when operations did not go well. The fourth was that the Japanese would simply never date to provoke a war with the US. Again Mr Pratt was an American military commentator whose information came from multiple accounts given by high ranking military officials! The British military maintained that the Japanese avoided night operations on land because they were simply incapable of caring them out well, while they avoided nighttime aerial attacks, as well as dive-bombing for the same reasons Pratt said quote "their pilots were poor and their aircraft inferior.". So take this all to mind when I talk about how certain ranking officers go about making their decisions. By the evening of 14 December, evacuated mainland units had regrouped on Hong Kong Island. The defensive structure was restructured into two brigades: Brigadier Wallis commanded the East Brigade from Taitam Gap, while Brigadier Lawson headed the West Brigade from Wongneichong Gap. This reorganization placed the 5/7 Rajputs across the north-east perimeter, defending over 3,500 metres of coastline with B Company positioned on the hills behind Taikoo Docks. The Royal Rifles of Canada held the north-east corner from Stanley to points south, with reserve positions at Lyemun. Two HKVDC companies supported from Taitam Valley and Pottinger Gap, while the veteran Hughsiliers manned the North Point power station. British and Canadian artillery provided fire support across the northern approaches. The West Brigade held the north-western and south-western shores. The 2/14 Punjab stretched from Causeway Bay to Belcher's Point, protecting Government House and General Maltby's headquarters, with battalion headquarters at Mid-Level. The Winnipeg Grenadiers covered the south-west from Wanchai Gap, with one company detached to the brigade headquarters at Wongneichong Gap. The 2 Royal Scots, severely mauled at Shing Mun, were held in reserve with fresh replacements from the HKVDC. The Middlesex Regiment's companies were dispersed along 72 pillboxes encircling the entire shoreline, while an improvised Z Company of clerks, musicians and cooks defended battalion headquarters at Leighton Hill. Supporting artillery included 9.2-inch and 6-inch guns on Mt Davis and 4.7-inch guns at Belcher's Point. As darkness fell on 17 December, Japanese reconnaissance swimmers reached Taikoo, confirming the crossing site despite detection. Reinforcements arrived: 18 additional heavy bombers from Guangzhou and 26 fighters from Taiwan joined the aerial assault. The crescendo of artillery fire on the 18th, combined with masses of small craft gathering across the harbour, signalled the imminent invasion. Japanese divisional headquarters shifted to Ma Tau Wei near Kai Tak Airport; the 23rd Army moved to Taipo. The invasion force disposed itself with the right flank embarking from east and west of Kai Tak, the left from Devil's Hill area. At 1800 hours, the invasion order was issued; by 1930 hours Sakai himself arrived in Kowloon to oversee the crossing. At precisely 2000 hours, the 2/228th Regiment silently paddled their collapsible craft toward Taikoo Docks and the nearby sugar factory as artillery support commenced. Colonel Doi embarked with 80 headquarters personnel aboard a large barge, leading the second wave. The conditions favoured the invaders—a moonless night, sporadic showers, and thick black smoke from burning oil tanks obscured their movement. They reached the midpoint undetected before searchlights and machine-gun fire scattered the small boats, separating commanders from their units. Despite this chaos, the assault pressed forward. At 2140 hours the artillery shifted to deeper targets; at 2145 hours the first wave of 3/230th landed at North Point, followed minutes later by 2/228th and then 2/229th. Three red flares signalled a successful landing. All six Japanese battalions were ashore by midnight, though wire fencing delayed their advance and Bren carriers added to the confusion on the beach. General Sano arrived at Taikoo one hour later. The 5/7 Rajputs bore the initial brunt of the assault. Despite days of preliminary shelling, the Rajputs mounted a stubborn defence; Japanese casualties mounted rapidly. The anti-tank company suffered so grievously that only a single gun remained operational. The Japanese plan was tactical rather than frontal—bypass isolated positions for later elimination and push rapidly toward high ground. Overwhelmed by numerical superiority and losing most of their officers, Rajput resistance gradually crumbled. Contradicting all evidence, Maltby remained convinced the main Japanese assault would strike directly at Victoria from Kowloon. He therefore withheld the counter-attack, instead dispatching a platoon of Middlesex troops, Royal Marines, naval personnel, and the Rajputs' reserve company—supported by artillery—to establish a defensive line blocking the Japanese advance toward Central District. Three HKVDC armoured cars were sent to protect East Brigade headquarters; two more reinforced the Middlesex battalion headquarters. It was manifestly inadequate against six Japanese battalions. In post-war dispatches, Maltby conceded his grave miscalculation: he believed he faced at most two battalions, not a full division. As the 3/230th broke through D Company of the 5/7 Rajputs, the 2/230th came ashore nearby and wheeled westward toward Victoria. Their advance halted abruptly at the North Point power station, held by an extraordinary force: four officers and 36 men of the HKVDC Hughsiliers Platoon—alongside 39 civilian volunteers from China Light & Power and Hong Kong Electric, including the station manager Vincent Sorby—plus eight Free French soldiers commanded by Captain Jacques Egal, a Shanghai businessman turned soldier. Without exception, these men were World War I veterans, many aged 55 or older. Some had fought in the Boer War. Major J. J. Patterson, the Hughsiliers' commander, had served with Allenby's Camel Corps and been mentioned in dispatches six times; he was chairman of Jardine Matheson and a legislative councillor. Private Sir Edward Des Voeux, 8th Baronet, a millionaire bullion trader and secretary of the Hong Kong Club, had enlisted as a private when deemed too old for mobilization. Private T. A. Pearce, 67 years old, was chairman of J. D. Hutchison & Company and secretary of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Captain Bruch, the second-in-command, aged 60, chaired a major trading house. The list extended through Hong Kong's business elite, each choosing to fight rather than flee. These old men held an entire regiment at bay. When Patterson called for aid, Maltby dispatched an HKVDC armoured car with a platoon from Z Company, 1 Middlesex, but the reinforcement was ambushed before reaching the station; only nine soldiers, including 2nd Lieutenant Caruthers, broke through. Unable to dislodge the defenders by assault, the Japanese resorted to bombardment. By 0145 hours on 19 December, surrounded and ammunition exhausted, the defenders withdrew to King's Road behind a disabled bus. The Japanese deployed three machine guns, killing or mortally wounding all but Private Geoghan. A Japanese officer, believing all dead, cautiously approached—only to have Geoghan, despite his wounds, surge from cover and charge. He killed the officer and four soldiers before collapsing from wounds. Somehow Geoghan survived. Those old men—civilians and reservists, businessmen and veterans—held the entire western Japanese advance for 18 hours, buying Maltby precious time to withdraw forces and establish a new defensive line. Their stand at North Point became one of the campaign's most improbable acts of defiance. As the 2/229th Regiment advanced southward toward Mt Parker, the 3/229th landed at Aldrich Bay and turned eastward toward Lyemun, where they seized an HKVDC 6-inch gun. Major Bishop of the Royal Rifles of Canada, unaware of the landings, dispatched 15 Platoon under Lieutenant Scott to check on A Company of the Rajputs. Unexpectedly, they encountered armed men in civilian clothes at Lyemun's gate—the first indication of the Japanese presence on the island. Yet senior officers dismissed initial reports of landings and lost positions as exaggerated, a critical miscalculation that proved catastrophic. At Lyemun Fort, the 5th Anti-aircraft Battery of the HKVDC was caught completely unaware and surrendered after minimal resistance. The Japanese then committed one of many atrocities that would characterize the battle, bayoneting 29 survivors. Alerted by 15 Platoon's report, Bishop attempted a counter-attack with two platoons to retake the fort, but the defenders could not scale the six-meter wall and withdrew with nine men killed. As the 2/229th pressed southward toward Mt Parker, they overran the Salesian Mission, which had been converted into an Advance Dressing Station. No. 8 Company of the 2/229th systematized a massacre of medical personnel and the wounded—an atrocity that would later become pivotal evidence at Colonel Tanaka's war crimes trial. Yet amid the chaos, several medical staff and wounded survived to testify: Gunners Y. K. Chan and Martin H. C. Tso of the 5th Battery, Captain Osler Thomas of the HKVDC, Captain Martin Banfill of the Royal Canadian Medical Corps, and Corporal Norman Leath of the Royal Army Medical Corps. C Company of the Royal Rifles, reinforced with captured Japanese machine guns abandoned by fleeing Rajputs, inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers, with one Japanese company suffering over 65 percent losses. Yet overwhelmed by superior numbers and suffering nearly two platoons worth of casualties themselves, the Canadians were forced to withdraw, leaving only a reinforcement platoon under Lieutenant Blaver on Mt Parker. When Captain Clerke arrived at dawn with 16 Platoon to reinforce the position, he found over 100 Japanese already entrenched. With no artillery support and only two platoons available, Clerke had no choice but to withdraw, abandoning Mt Parker to the enemy. By dawn on the 19th, the East Brigade faced catastrophe. Infantry strength had been halved, and losses of artillery were equally devastating. A series of misunderstandings and misinterpreted orders led coastal gun crews at Capes D'Aguilar and Collinson to destroy their own guns in confusion or lose them to the advancing Japanese. Of the entire artillery complement, only one 18-pounder and two 3.7-inch field guns remained operational. Wongneichong—literally "yellow muddy creek" in Chinese—occupies the center of Hong Kong Island, a valley separating the eastern hills (Mt Parker, Mt Butler, Jardine's Lookout) from the western massif (Mt Nicholson, Mt Cameron, Victoria Peak). This narrow gap formed the critical artery linking northern and southern Hong Kong, making Brigadier Lawson's decision to place West Brigade Headquarters there strategically sound yet tactically vulnerable. Recognizing the exposed position after the landings, Major Lyndon had located an alternative site south of Mt Nicholson, scheduled to open the following day. In response to the Japanese landings, Lawson dispatched three platoons of Winnipeg Grenadiers to block the advance. Lieutenant C. D. French took 18 Platoon to Mt Butler, Lieutenant G. A. Birkett's 17 Platoon moved to Jardine's Lookout, and Lieutenant L. B. Corrigan's platoon took the north-west approach to the Gap. As on Mt Parker, both French and Birkett were killed almost immediately, their small forces overwhelmed by battalion-strength enemy forces with artillery support. By morning on the 19th, two battalions each of the 230th and 228th Regiments were pushing for the high ground. The 2/230th rapidly occupied Jardine's Lookout while the 3/230th moved to Mt Nicholson and the 2/228th advanced toward the Gap itself. No. 3 Company of the HKVDC under Major E. Stewart held pillboxes around Jardine's Lookout, while No. 1 Company under Captain Penn defended Taitam Valley with forward positions at Quarry Gap. The pillboxes, despite heavy bombardment, held longer than anticipated—some for as long as 24 hours. Stewart maintained his company headquarters until the 22nd, four days of continuous fighting without adequate ammunition, food, or water. No. 3 Company suffered 80 percent casualties and ceased to exist as a cohesive unit. Realizing that the enemy had penetrated to Mt Butler, Brigadier Lawson decided counter-attack was essential. Major A. B. Gresham of A Company, Winnipeg Grenadiers, was ordered to retake Mt Butler and clear Jardine's Lookout. The Canadians initially succeeded, with Warrant Officer 2 J. R. Osborne leading a bayonet charge, but a strong counter-attack by three Japanese companies drove them back by 2200 hours. The Canadians held firm until 1500 hours, when Gresham attempted surrender despite waving a white flag—the Japanese shot him regardless. In the chaos that followed, a Canadian killed a Japanese officer in response, triggering a grenade barrage. Warrant Officer Osborne caught the grenades and hurled them back as fast as they came, but one landed in an impossible position. Without hesitation, Osborne threw himself on the grenade to save his comrades. This act of supreme self-sacrifice earned him a Victoria Cross—the first Canadian VC of World War II. At dawn on the 19th, Maltby dispatched A Company of the 2 Royal Scots under Captain K. J. Campbell to reinforce the Gap, but they lost all their officers with only 15 men reaching Lawson's headquarters. A group of sailors under Commander A. L. Pears came from the south, but were ambushed en route; only a few reached the Postbridge—a house just south of the Gap—which became an isolated strongpoint. The 3/230th captured the police station perched on a mound at the southern point of the Gap, then swept eastward to seize the anti-aircraft guns of 7th Battery (barely 250 meters from brigade headquarters) and continued uphill toward Taitam Hill to capture additional 6-inch and 3.7-inch guns. Maltby's response was to call down final protective fire from the HKSRA in Happy Valley, inflicting massive casualties on the 3/230th. At 1000 hours on the 19th, Lawson reported that his headquarters was surrounded and he was about to "go outside and shoot it out." Captain H. A. Bush provided covering fire as Lawson and his entire staff, including Middlesex signallers, were cut down by machine-gun fire across the Gap. Lawson's body was discovered two days later halfway up the hill behind his headquarters, dead from a gunshot wound to the thigh. Lieutenant Kerfoot of the 2/14 Punjab with his three Bren carriers arrived minutes too late to save him. IJA who saw the fight made a note stating "he died heroically". At 1330 hours on the 19th, Maltby issued "Operation Order No. 6" calling for a massive counter-attack to commence 90 minutes later. The plan was ambitious: A and D Companies of the 2/14 Punjab were to attack east from Victoria to North Point to relieve the Hughsiliers, while HQ Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the 2 Royal Scots were to attack the Gap and Jardine's Lookout. Eight field guns were promised but never materialized. There was no reconnaissance, no proper orders, and minimal coordination. The Canadians were to rendezvous with the 2 Royal Scots at Middle Gap at 1530 hours, but the Scots were late; the Canadians advanced without them. Captain Pinkerton of D Company, 2 Royal Scots, was ordered at the last minute to attack up Wongneichong Gap Road—the same route A Company had taken only seven hours earlier and been decimated—because it was reported as "lightly held." Captain A. M. S. Slater-Brown led the advance with three Bren carriers and attached engineers, followed by D Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers. Just as the carriers reached the burnt-out trucks of A Company, they too were ambushed. Mortars and machine-gun fire rained down from Jardine's Lookout, where the Japanese occupied captured HKVDC pillboxes. Slater-Brown and 2nd Lieutenant Bell, the battalion intelligence officer, were killed instantly. The Royal Scots waited in the roadside ditches until 0200 hours before launching an attack on the police station, reaching the steps before Pinkerton was severely wounded. Captain Ford's composite company attack at 0300 hours also failed. Simultaneously, C Company under Lieutenant F. L. Stanier attacked Jardine's Lookout—also unsuccessfully. This series of piecemeal assaults cost the Royal Scots eight officers and 68 soldiers. Growing increasingly desperate, Maltby ordered Major Hodkinson, Officer Commanding HQ Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, to attack the Gap and proceed to Mt Parker. Requesting reinforcements from A Company and the Royal Scots, Hodkinson launched his assault with covering fire from Lieutenant Corrigan on Mt Nicholson. The Grenadiers managed to reach Mt Nicholson with only five unwounded men, though Corrigan's group advanced to within 300 meters of the Gap road. Then came an unexpected stroke of fortune: while skirting Mt Nicholson, Hodkinson's group stumbled upon approximately 500 Japanese—probably from the 3/230th—eating lunch without posting sentries. The Winnipeg Grenadiers unleashed devastating fire, inflicting heavy casualties. By 1745 hours, Hodkinson's force was only 100 meters from Repulse Bay Road. With four men and a 2-inch mortar, Hodkinson worked his way to the abandoned brigade headquarters, bringing 20 walking wounded with him. He established a foothold at the Gap, receiving orders to attack the police station at 2200 hours. Two HKVDC armoured cars with Vickers machine guns came in support, but accurate enemy fire disabled both. Like Pinkerton before him, Hodkinson reached near his objective before being severely wounded. For this action of determination and courage, Hodkinson was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. By the morning of the 20th, the Japanese had consolidated control of the Gap, but elements of D Company, Winnipeg Grenadiers, still held various pillboxes north of the position. Initially, 17 and 18 Platoons occupied forward positions with Company Headquarters and 16 Platoon in reserve, positioned across Wongneichong Road almost directly opposite brigade headquarters. Forward positions were rapidly overrun and cut off from the company. They fought without officers until withdrawal to battalion headquarters became necessary. With Captain A. S. Bowman killed and Captain R. W. Philips wounded, command fell to Lieutenant T. A. Blackwood. An attempt by B Company to relieve D Company on the evening of the 20th failed catastrophically, killing all officers and 29 men. With fewer than 50 men remaining—all wounded—Lieutenant Blackwood continued inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese until 22 December, when exhaustion and the complete absence of ammunition, food, and water forced surrender. D Company killed over 200 Japanese soldiers. Post-war Japanese reports refused to believe that a single company had held the Gap for so long. For their stubborn defense, Philips and Blackwood were awarded the Military Cross, and three enlisted men received the Military Medal. The battle of Wongneichong Gap was characterized by fragmented planning and poor coordination. On the night of the 19th-20th, no fewer than three separate companies attacked the police station, with another company assaulting Jardine's Lookout—all within five hours, all independently organized by local commanders. Had these disparate actions been coordinated into a single simultaneous assault, fortress headquarters' objectives might well have been achieved. By the end of the 20th, the British had lost the vital ground of Wongneichong, though Postbridge House remained as an isolated holdout. For the Japanese, Wongneichong became the single costliest engagement since the invasion began, with over 800 casualties and the regimental commander of the 3/230th seriously wounded. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.   Japanese landings on 18-19 December overwhelmed the East Brigade. Brigadier Lawson died defending the vital Gap. Desperate, uncoordinated counter-attacks by British and Canadian troops failed to dislodge the enemy. D Company Winnipeg Grenadiers held the position for four days against overwhelming odds before surrendering. The Japanese suffered 800 casualties but secured this critical strategic ground.

Last time we spoke about the reaction after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. After four years of fighting Japan almost alone, China's Chiang Kai-shek learned of Pearl Harbor with profound relief. Japan's attack, meant to neutralize American naval power, instead galvanized the entire Western world against Tokyo. Within hours, Chiang declared war on the Axis powers, transforming China from an isolated nation to a recognized Allied member. The strategic mathematics were clear to Chiang: America's industrial might would ultimately crush Japan. China simply needed to survive long enough. The United States quickly formalized this partnership, pledging military support through Lend-Lease and elevating Chiang to leadership of Allied forces in the China theater. Yet Pearl Harbor brought catastrophe for Western civilians in China. Americans and Britons, previously protected as neutral foreigners, were suddenly rounded up and interned in camps. For many, decades of presence in China ended in hasty evacuation, leaving behind lives built over generations.   #216 The Battle of Hong Kong Part 1: The Approaching Storm Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Japan emerged as a significant threat to British interests during the 1920s following the collapse of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. This concern intensified dramatically after Japan's invasion of China, with the ensuing Sino-Japanese War escalating tensions further. British assets in the region came under direct assault, including attacks on Western military and commercial vessels such as HMS Ladybird. Yet despite these provocations, the British Government maintained an inconsistent stance toward Japan, responding with only feeble diplomatic and military countermeasures. This contradiction characterized London's approach: while diplomatic channels remained conciliatory, military planners viewed Japan with genuine apprehension. During the 1930s, Singapore and Malaya represented Britain's most valuable and prosperous holdings in the Far East and consequently received substantial garrison reinforcements. By contrast, Hong Kong was widely acknowledged to be indefensible—a conclusion reached repeatedly by successive military studies. Despite this consensus, the British Government proceeded with the Hong Kong Defence Scheme in 1936, which aimed to transform Hong Kong Island into a fortified redoubt while establishing delaying positions in Kowloon and the New Territories. The Hong Kong Garrison's mandate was straightforward: repel external attacks and prevent enemy use of the harbour and dry dock. The underlying strategy relied on a simple principle: hold Hong Kong Island as an impregnable fortress and await relief from the Royal Navy. Consequently, protecting the harbour became the paramount objective. Japanese strategists were correctly identified as Hong Kong's primary threat, with military planners anticipating attack from the sea rather than overland. To counter such an offensive, the defence scheme incorporated five successive layers of protection: naval mines fitted with indicator nets and anti-submarine booms formed the first barrier; coastal artillery provided the second; beach installations featuring pillboxes, wire entanglements and mines constituted the third; infantry strongpoints positioned on commanding heights guarded against amphibious landings; and finally, a mobile reserve force stood ready to counterattack and eliminate any successful enemy incursion. The 1936 plan also mandated extensive fortification of Kowloon's bottleneck approaches through bunkers, trenches and blocked passages, with a principal defensive line—resembling a miniature Maginot Line—constructed across the mountains immediately north of Kowloon. The garrison structure comprised three infantry battalions plus the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC), a unit approximately regiment-strength equipped with armoured cars, engineers, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and infantry. These forces organized into three brigades: mainland, island, and garrison reserve. The air component was planned to be formidable: a reconnaissance squadron, a fighter-bomber squadron, two torpedo squadrons and a flight of auxiliary spotting aircraft operated by the HKVDC. Naval forces consisted of a modest destroyer contingent, an MTB flotilla, gunboats and patrol vessels. When Japan occupied Guangzhou, Hong Kong found itself effectively encircled. In response, limited conscription was implemented, though restricted to non-Chinese males for HKVDC service. Chinese personnel were largely confined to non-combat positions such as air-raid precautions and medical duties. The expanding Japanese threat prompted a substantial expansion of the Hong Kong Garrison to four regular infantry regiments—two British units (one specializing in medium machine-gun support) and two Indian regiments. Supporting forces included two coastal artillery regiments, a field artillery regiment-plus, and an anti-aircraft regiment. The Royal Navy expanded to include the 2nd MTB flotilla (eight 60-foot, 29-knot motor torpedo boats armed with twin torpedoes and eight Lewis guns each, plus two smaller 55-foot vessels), four shallow-draught river gunboats (HMS Cicala, Tern, Moth and Robin), four aging World War I S-class destroyers (HMS Thracian, Thanet, Scout and Tenedos—the last transferred to Singapore in 1939), HMS Cornflower sloop, and various auxiliary vessels including tugs, boom defence ships and minelayers. The Fleet Air Arm deployed three Supermarine Walruses—single-engine reconnaissance amphibians—at Kai Tak Airport. The Royal Air Force remained the weakest service, equipped with only four Vickers Wildebeest torpedo-bombers and a handful of HKVDC aircraft: one Avro Tutor, two Hornet Moths and two Cadet biplanes. When World War II erupted in Europe, Britain's focus necessarily shifted to national survival, inevitably leaving distant imperial outposts like Hong Kong neglected. Rather than receive reinforcements, Hong Kong actually lost capable personnel; many veteran troops were repatriated to Europe, leaving behind a less proficient garrison. Peacetime duties had proven a poor preparation for combat—officers and men had passed their time socializing rather than maintaining combat readiness. Governor Sir Geoffrey Northcote persistently urged London to adopt a firmer stance against relentless Japanese provocations: aircraft incursions, sinking of junks and fishing vessels, and infiltration by Taiwanese fifth columnists (Japan had colonized Taiwan in 1895). Recognizing the hopelessness of his position, Northcote recommended withdrawal in October 1940, arguing that defending the colony would inevitably result in mass civilian casualties and widespread destruction—a pragmatic assessment given Hong Kong's indefensible state. London categorically rejected this proposal, reasoning that withdrawal would demoralize China, embolden Japan and undermine American confidence in British resolve. Underlying this decision was an additional consideration: the long-standing dispute over Hong Kong's sovereignty. Since Britain acquired Hong Kong in 1841, the prospect of surrendering it, even temporarily, raised fears about reclaiming it afterward. Preserving the appearance of British determination was deemed crucial to demonstrating to Chiang Kai-shek, Nationalist China's leader, that Britain intended to retain the territory. Despite these political calculations, London consistently refused fresh troop deployments. Major-General A. E. Grasett, the China theatre commander, requested reinforcements only to face rejection—London offered only Indian or other colonial forces. Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, appointed British commander in the Far East in 1941, likewise pressed for garrison strengthening, to no avail. The situation shifted dramatically after Grasett, a retired Canadian who had recently left his China post, travelled to Britain via Canada. Upon arriving in Canada, he independently approached his former classmate Major-General Crerar, Chief of the Canadian General Staff, and advocated for reinforcement. Grasett argued persuasively that deploying two or more additional battalions would enable the Hong Kong garrison to withstand an extended siege. When Grasett reached London in early September 1941, he presented this case directly to the British Chiefs of Staff, simultaneously proposing that Canada could provide the extra units. His arguments proved persuasive; the Chiefs of Staff altered course and convinced a reluctant Churchill to reconsider. In light of accelerating Japanese pressure, Britain substantially enlarged the Malaysia/Singapore garrison from nine to 32 battalions and despatched two capital ships—HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse—to the region, reasoning that this show of force would deter Japanese aggression against British Far Eastern interests, including Hong Kong. The original defence strategy envisaged holding Hong Kong Island exclusively while denying the harbour to attackers. A single battalion (the Punjabis) would execute delaying actions across the New Territories, followed by a three-battalion defensive stand on the Gin Drinkers Line. This brief mainland resistance would allow time for demolishing stores, power installations, docks and wharves, clearing food stocks and removing vital matériel before withdrawing to Hong Kong Island for a protracted resistance awaiting relief from Singapore or American forces from the Philippines. The Gin Drinkers Line—styled after the French Maginot Line in miniature—ran approximately 18 kilometres south of the Sino-Hong Kong border. Beginning near Gin Drinkers Bay west of Kowloon, it extended 17 kilometres across the Kowloon Peninsula hills toward its eastern extremity. The strategic expectation was that this line would delay the Japanese assault for three weeks or longer, permitting battalion withdrawal to Hong Kong Island for sustained resistance while mainland forces completed evacuation procedures. The 1937 war plan stipulated that four battalions would be necessary for an effective delaying action and seven for an adequate Gin Drinkers Line defence—figures which excluded the aircraft and naval support essential to success. With only a single army brigade available and virtually no air capability, planners abandoned the mainland defence concept, leaving defensive works incomplete and deteriorating under tropical conditions. Chinese personnel were conspicuously absent from initial war preparations and strategic planning, only being incorporated late in the process. The largest Chinese component was the volunteer contingent serving with the HKVDC. On the regular army side, approximately 150 Chinese recruits were enlisted in mid-1941 for the 5th Anti-Aircraft Regiment. The Hong Kong Chinese Regiment, hastily constituted on 3 November 1941, comprised officers borrowed from British and Indian units alongside 52 Chinese junior NCOs and other ranks with minimal training. A Royal Engineers troop staffed entirely by Chinese soldiers saw service, and some Chinese personnel served with the Royal Navy and Dockyard Defence Corps. Chinese participation increased substantially in auxiliary services—air-raid precautions, auxiliary police, nursing, St John Ambulance and fire brigades. This reluctance to fully integrate Chinese forces likely reflected prevailing attitudes of the era. Pre-war British propaganda had frequently mocked Japanese military capability, portraying officers and soldiers as myopic and incompetent. Japanese combat prowess was systematically underestimated; their victories in China were attributed to facing inferior opposition rather than evidence of genuine military strength. Japanese weaponry was dismissed as inferior to European standards. Consequently, British confidence remained high that the colony could hold indefinitely if adequately reinforced. In September 1941, Hong Kong received heartening news: two additional Canadian battalions would be deployed to the garrison. Brigadier John Maltby promptly revived the pre-war plan for defending the Gin Drinkers Line, developing a strategy centred on three mainland battalions (2nd Royal Scots, 5/7 Rajputs and 2/14 Punjab) supported by HKVDC elements and four artillery troop detachments, while three island battalions (1st Middlesex, Royal Rifles of Canada and Winnipeg Grenadiers) bolstered by the bulk of the HKVDC would hold Hong Kong Island. Command responsibility was divided between two brigades: the Island Brigade (Hong Kong Infantry Brigade) under Brigadier Lawson, a recently arrived Canadian, and the mainland Kowloon Infantry Brigade under Brigadier Wallis. The Canadian regiments arrived on 16 November 1941. Maltby was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1911, and  saw extensive service across multiple campaigns: World War I, the Persian Gulf (1913–14), and the North-West Frontier (1923–24). His early promise earned him selection for accelerated advancement through prestigious staff colleges at Quetta and RAF Andover. By 1937, he was again serving on the North-West Frontier, and by 1939 commanded both the 3rd Jhelum Brigade (later the Calcutta Brigade) and the 19th Infantry Brigade in Deccan. In 1940, posted to China, Maltby orchestrated the closure of the North China Command by withdrawing two infantry battalions from Shanghai. Promoted to major-general as GOC China in August 1941, he had only three months to prepare the colony's defenses, a race against time he could not win.  The Gin Drinkers Line occupied a naturally dominant position atop mountains spanning northern Kowloon's breadth, yet possessed inherent weaknesses that would prove fatal. The line lacked defensive depth and remained vulnerable to flanking manoeuvres, with two sectors representing particular danger: Customs Pass and the gap between Golden Hill and Laichikok Peninsula near Gin Drinkers Bay. Given the extended front, each battalion arranged its forces in a string of platoon positions with gaps covered by daytime fire and nighttime patrols. One company per battalion could be held in reserve within prepared positions guarding the most dangerous sectors. The reserve company of the centre battalion (2/14 Punjab) initially advanced as forward troops, screening demolition operations and delaying the enemy's initial thrust. The hasty decision to establish mainland defences meant that essential support systems—communication networks, artillery registrations, mortar calibrations—remained incomplete when combat commenced. Ammunition shortages compounded the problem. For instance, the 2/14 Punjab conducted only a single 3-inch mortar practice session before the attack; adequate ammunition arrived only in November and totalled a mere 70 rounds per battalion for both training and combat. These mortars were registered for the first time in their battle positions, with combat beginning just 12 hours later. The 2-inch mortar situation was even more desperate: troops received live ammunition only as fighting started, making their baptism of fire an actual combat situation. Transportation deficiencies—trucks and animals in short supply—forced manual ammunition transport across Hong Kong's challenging terrain, imposing severe physical demands on already stretched personnel.   On 6 November 1941, Imperial Japanese Headquarters ordered its Commander-in-Chief in China to prepare plans for capturing Hong Kong. The 23rd Army, part of the China Southern Expeditionary Army Group and commanded by Lt. Gen. Sakai Takashi with Maj. Gen. Kuribayashi Tadamichi serving as Chief of Staff, would form the invasion's backbone. All preparations were to be completed by the end of November 1941. The operation, designated 'Operation C', sought to 'seize Hong Kong within ten days'. Takahashi was the son of a factory worker, and rose through the ranks to become a veteran of China campaigns. He was tasked with capturing Hong Kong using the 38th Division normally assigned to the Southern Expeditionary Army Group. Despite setbacks and humiliation over requests for additional resources—particularly following intelligence reports of tanks (actually Bren carriers) in Hong Kong—Sakai remained determined to succeed. He served as Governor of Hong Kong from 26 December 1941 to 20 February 1942. Kuribayashi, best remembered as the Japanese commander at Iwo Jima, graduated from the Army Academy in 1914 specializing in cavalry. He served as deputy military attaché to Washington and Canada and studied at Harvard University. In December 1941, he held the position of Chief of Staff to the 23rd Army during the Hong Kong operation. Operation C followed a straightforward strategic framework. A blocking force would prevent Chinese interference from the rear, while the main invasion force would spearhead the assault. The 23rd Army, comprising four divisions plus a mixed brigade and two infantry regiments, received the assignment to attack Hong Kong. Of these four divisions, only the 38th played a substantive role in the invasion itself. The attack employed a combined-arms approach. Naval forces would establish a blockade and deliver bombardment while aircraft targeted key installations. Ground forces from the 38th Division—specifically the 228th, 229th, and 230th Regiments—would execute the land invasion using a three-pronged strategy. The right column would sweep westward in a wide arc, clearing Castle Peak Road and targeting the western flank of the Gin Drinkers Line near Laichikok Peninsula. The centre force would press directly through the line's middle, while the left column would cross Tidal Cove (Tolo Harbour) toward Kai Tak Airport and eastward toward Devil Peak, a crucial defensive position. The objective was to annihilate British forces on the mainland and compel Hong Kong's surrender through sustained bombardment. Should British forces resist, the island phase of the campaign would commence. Securing the rear against the Chinese National Army of the 7th Military District and Communist guerrillas fell to the 66th Regiment, normally part of the 51st Division but attached to the 38th for this operation. The 66th would simultaneously occupy and secure rear areas throughout the New Territories and Kowloon while the three assault regiments engaged the main defensive forces. This rearguard operation was organised into columns named after their commanding officers: Kitazawa, Kobayashi, Sato, and Araki. The Japanese selected the narrowest approach between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, targeting the eastern coast near Lyemun Passage where only 410 metres of water separated the mainland from the island. Upon landing, forces would rapidly advance inland to seize the critical junction of Wongneichong Gap, then pivot westward and southward to capture Victoria City and the remainder of Hong Kong. The naval contingent divided into two groups: the Bombardment Group and the Attack Group. Approximately 300 personnel from the Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) were attached to the invasion force. Air support came from the First Air Brigade under Col. Habu Hideharu, which contributed 56 light bombers and fighters. Their mission was to neutralise the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, thereby securing aerial and maritime superiority for the ground campaign.   On the eve of war, the British garrison numbered 13,981 all ranks, including nursing staff and St John Ambulance personnel. Of these, 8,919 were British and Canadian, with 4,402 Indian and Chinese. The core infantry force comprised 5,422 regular soldiers, complemented by approximately 6,000 additional personnel across artillery, engineering, naval, and Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) units. By 1941, the Royal Navy had become a shadow of its former self as the once-dominant China Squadron. Of the three World War I destroyers present on 8 December, two had been sent to Singapore—the third undergoing repairs—by 1930. This redeployment stemmed partly from the futility of defending the colony and partly from a commitment by senior US Navy officers: Britain would reinforce Singapore with Hong Kong's fleet in exchange for four American destroyers at Singapore. This American guarantee, however, never materialized. The defensive infrastructure focused primarily on countering a seaborne attack: twenty-nine coastal guns (9.2in., 6in., 4.7in., and 4in. calibres), ten 18- and 2-pounder beach defense guns, and twenty-eight field guns (60-pounder, 6in., 4.5in., and 3.7in. calibres). The Hong Kong Garrison's infantry comprised four regular army battalions—two British and two Indian—bolstered by five HKVDC infantry companies, each averaging 100 men. The 1st Middlesex Regiment, deployed in August 1937, served as a machine-gun battalion equipped with forty-eight Vickers medium machine guns. Having been abroad since 1931, the regiment had deteriorated through protracted garrison service, Hong Kong being among the softest postings available. From September 1939 onward, all regiments—including the 5/7 Rajputs (arrived June 1937) and the 2/14 Punjab—experienced systematic loss of experienced officers and NCOs to other theaters. The Royal Scots proved particularly hard hit, suffering disciplinary problems and an unusually high court-martial rate. Units like the Hong Kong and Singapore Royal Artillery suffered critical leadership gaps that went unaddressed. By December 1941, many formations fielded inexperienced replacement troops, significantly undermining combat readiness. The Punjabis exemplified these deficiencies. Stationed in Hong Kong since November 1940, they received their vehicles and mortars only in August 1941—three months before combat. Compounding this, forty percent of their strength consisted of raw recruits arrived just in October. When war erupted, artillery regiments found themselves relying on junior officers in senior roles, with British commanders unfamiliar with Urdu directing Indian troops, a handicap that severely compromised effectiveness. Deficient equipment compounded leadership shortages. Shells dating from 1918 detonated prematurely upon discharge, while ammunition shortages crippled operations. On 8 December, all field guns deployed with merely 100 rounds apiece, with 200 rounds held in reserve for the entire campaign, and coastal guns received only 25 rounds each. Insufficient cross-training meant many infantrymen failed to understand the artillery "clock face" targeting system, causing them to miss their objectives. Malaria devastated European troops, particularly the Royal Scots. Of approximately 770 personnel, at least 180 suffered recurring malarial episodes from the Shing Mun Redoubt area's notoriously endemic conditions. Staff shortages forced nearly every unit to promote junior officers to positions beyond their rank, exacerbating structural weaknesses. Although the Canadians' arrival bolstered the garrison, significant handicaps undermined their effectiveness. Both battalions carried a C-class designation—deemed unfit for foreign service—having spent years in soft garrison postings without rigorous training. The deficit was stark: each Canadian soldier received only thirty-five rifle practice rounds. The two battalions incorporated 115 men with fewer than sixteen weeks' training, while sixty-two of seventy-five recruits joining the Winnipeg Grenadiers in June came directly from a training depot lacking even basic rifles. Twelve percent of the Canadian force remained untrained. Equipment deficiencies proved even more damaging. A standard 1941 Canadian infantry battalion required 102 motor vehicles—including twenty-two Universal Carriers, thirty-seven ¾-ton trucks, thirteen 1-ton trucks, thirty-one bicycles, and twenty-two Boys anti-tank rifles. When the Canadians landed, logistical failures left them with only six Bren carriers, two water tankers, twelve ¾-ton trucks, and a single Boys anti-tank rifle. Although they carried 3in. mortars, neither ammunition nor radios accompanied them. Canada possessed only 300 3-inch mortar bombs in its entire inventory at that time, making any allocation to Hong Kong impossible. A second vessel, the SS Don Jose, was dispatched with replacement vehicles and equipment but never reached Hong Kong before 8 December. The Japanese seized it en route to Manila. Despite these shortcomings, the force departed on 27 October with 1,975 men and arrived on 16 November. Intelligence estimates regarding Japanese available forces varied widely, ranging from two to four divisions. On 6 December evening, Chinese reports confirmed the previous day's arrival of three Japanese divisions at Buji township, located eight miles from the border in what is now Shenzhen. Earlier, around 1 November, a Japanese deserter provided intelligence of significant troop concentrations north of the frontier, including large-calibre artillery indicative of at least divisional strength.   The Hong Kong invasion force comprised three service branches: the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) deployed the 38th Infantry Division, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) committed the Second China Fleet, and the Imperial Japanese Air Force (IJAF) contributed the 1st Air Group. Command of the ground assault rested with Lieutenant-General Sano Tadayoshi of the 38th Division, supported by Major-General Ito Takeo heading the infantry group, while supporting arms including artillery, engineers, armor, and transport fell under Sano's authority. The main assault force consisted of three infantry regiments from the 38th Division, each led by a colonel: the 228th under Doi Teihichi, the 229th under Tanaka Ryosaburo, and the 230th under Shoji Toshishige. The 38th Division itself was a standard 1940s B-class infantry division of approximately 20,000 troops (ranging from 18,000–21,000 depending on operational requirements), organized into three regiments with three battalions each. Reflecting the Japanese army's reliance on animal and human transport, each regiment fielded roughly 3,800 troops supported by some 700 horses. Battalion strength averaged around 1,071 personnel, with companies numbering approximately 180 men. Japanese infantry battalions of this period featured a distinctive organization: rifle platoons consisted of four sections (three equipped with rifles and light machine guns, one with light mortars and rifles), complemented by an additional heavy machine-gun company fielding twelve Type 92 weapons and a troop of light artillery—likely Type 92 70mm infantry guns. The divisional field artillery regiment operated 75mm Type 41 mountain guns organized into three 688-man battalions, each with two troops of two guns. Mountain artillery units, numbering 36 guns total, carried additional personnel (3,400) and animals (1,400) to navigate the terrain complexities of Hong Kong operations. Recognizing the need for overwhelming firepower to compel Hong Kong's surrender, the IJA augmented the invasion force with heavy artillery—15cm and 24cm howitzers commanded by Major-General Kitashima Kineo. News of the Canadian reinforcements arriving in Hong Kong forced a reassessment. Commander-in-Chief Sakai Takashi of the 23rd Army informed his superiors that the original ten-day timeline was unrealistic and requested additional troops. Although most formations were already committed to other operations, Imperial Headquarters eventually authorized two depot regiments from Japan to support the campaign. Intended for second-line duties rather than frontline combat, these units were to be returned promptly after freeing experienced personnel for Hong Kong operations. This arrangement allowed the 19th and 20th mixed brigades—approximately 6,000 men organized in five infantry battalions, a field artillery battalion, and an engineer battalion—to be released for Hong Kong. However, Sakai's request for reinforcements met with disapproval from Imperial Headquarters, and he received an unmistakable message: a swift, decisive campaign was essential. His situation worsened when Japanese agents mistakenly identified British Bren carriers as tanks, forcing Sakai to improvise armor by raiding the 1st Reserve Tank Battalion and tankette units from infantry depot divisions. In attempting to secure additional armor from the 11th Army's 9th Reconnaissance Regiment, Sakai encountered resistance. General Hata Shunroku lodged sustained complaints with senior officials, and Sakai received a sharp rebuke—further requests would not be entertained, and his replacement would follow if necessary. Stung by this loss of face, Sakai abandoned all additional requests and became even more determined to achieve success. Vice-Admiral Niimi Masaichi, commanding the 2nd China Expeditionary Fleet, oversaw the entire naval element, divided into bombardment and attack groups. His flagship, the light cruiser Isuzu, carried Captain Ura Koichi, who simultaneously commanded the bombardment group. This naval force assembled ships from various China Expeditionary Fleet units, particularly from the Canton Special Base Force, 15 Squadron, and 11 Torpedo Boat Division at Guangzhou. Reflecting Niimi's lack of confidence in the army's air support capabilities, the seaplane tender IJN Kamikawa Maru joined the operation on his insistence, providing organic naval aviation against the threat posed by British Wildebeests. Niimi also petitioned for destroyers IJN Wakaba and Yugure to counter the three British destroyers, though this request was denied. The Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) were assigned to conduct diversionary attacks south of Hong Kong Island, intended to distract British forces from the main land invasion thrust. The IJAF's 1st Air Brigade, commanded by Colonel Habu Hideharu, centered on the 45th Air Regiment with 34 Kawasaki Ki-32 Type 98 'Mary' light bombers. This composite force drew aircraft and units from airfields across China and Manchuria—Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, and Qiqihar—all assembled at Baiyun Aerodrome in Guangzhou on 7 December 1941. Supporting the 1st Air Brigade were the 10th Independent Squadron under Captain Takatsuki Akira with 13 Nakajima Ki-27 Type 97 'Nate' fighters, 3 Mitsubishi Ki-15 Type 97 'Babs' command reconnaissance aircraft from the 18th Independent Reconnaissance Squadron, and the 44th Independent Squadron fielding 6 Tachikawa Ki-36 Type 98 'Ida' observation aircraft. Years before the invasion, the Japanese cultivated an extensive network of agents and sleeper operatives in Hong Kong, methodically gathering intelligence and mapping military installations. This sophisticated network proved remarkably effective: invasion maps carried by IJA officers were actually Hong Kong Government and British military maps, overprinted with Japanese annotations and interpretations. British officers later discovered in captivity that the Peninsula Hotel's regular barber was a Japanese Navy lieutenant-commander who had exploited the intimate setting to extract valuable information about British force dispositions. Intelligence operatives infiltrated every level of Hong Kong society—the garrison tailor and barber both served as spies. This groundwork enabled exceptional accuracy in artillery fire and bombing campaigns. The Japanese further leveraged criminal networks, recruiting gangsters throughout Hong Kong and Guangdong province with money and arms, turning them into irregular auxiliaries supporting the invasion.   On Sunday, 7 December, seven hundred members of the 2nd Royal Scots and Middlesex Regiment marched to St John's Cathedral for the morning service. As Major-General Maltby read a passage from Matthew, his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant I. MacGregor, delivered an urgent message that would change everything. Preparations for conflict had already begun. On 5 December, the HKVDC had mobilized fully, yet Hong Kong's broader population remained unmoved—the Happy Valley racetrack reported record attendance that very day. The contrast was stark: while one institution prepared for war, another celebrated as though nothing threatened. Japanese forces had been positioned advantageously since autumn 1941. The 23rd Army was already stationed west of Guangzhou, with contingents scattered across Foshan Town, Zhuhai, and other locations on the Pearl River delta. Upon orders for war on 1 December, they faced minimal distances to cover. The army regrouped at Humen, Shilong Town, and Guangzhou itself—staging areas for the invasion. The first visible signs arrived on 4–5 December when Japanese forces landed at Mirs Bay; the 228th Regiment moved into its staging area at Buji Town, now part of Shenzhen City. Maltby received these reports and immediately departed the cathedral service to issue urgent stand-to orders. Yet skepticism persisted within military circles. Some dismissed the threat, dismissing such intelligence as "astonishingly erroneous." Meanwhile, the Imperial Japanese Navy massed in the waters beyond Hong Kong's horizon. The Kowloon Infantry Brigade held a stretched defensive line: the 5/7 Rajputs anchored the centre, the 2/14 Punjab the east, and the 2nd Royal Scots the west. Forward positions extended far—C Company, 2/14 Punjab, under Major S. Burns ranged along Castle Peak Road toward Yuen Long. The brigade screen, C Company of the 2/14 Punjab, held Shueng Shui and Taipo Market with four Bren carriers and two armoured cars from the HKVDC, backed by engineers and the 22nd Fortress Company. The Hong Kong Infantry Brigade held Hong Kong Island itself. The Winnipeg Grenadiers occupied Victoria City on the north-west coast, while the Royal Rifles of Canada stretched along the north-east shores from Saukiwan to Lyemun. Brigadier Lawson commanded from his headquarters at Wongneichong Gap in the island's centre. At 0355 hours on 8 December, the code word "Blossom Blossom" was transmitted. Eleven minutes later, Lieutenant-General Sakai ordered the invasion to commence. Fifty minutes after that, at 0445 hours, Major Charles Boxer—a fluent Japanese speaker formerly of the Lincolnshire Regiment—was roused by Radio Tokyo announcing that war was imminent. Governor Young and Major-General Maltby were informed at once. By 0500 hours, the forward demolition points had been blown by Major Gray, OC of C Company 2/14 Punjab, and the HKVDC engineers under Major J. H. Bottomley. At 0645 hours, the garrison received formal notification: Britain and Japan were at war. Seventy-five minutes later, air-raid sirens wailed. Within moments, smoke billowed from Kai Tak Airport as Japanese aircraft destroyed virtually the entire air garrison. The Wildebeests, Walruses, HKVDC biplanes, and several civilian planes were engulfed in flames. Only two Ju-52s of the Eurasia Corporation and one CNAC T-32 Condor escaped destruction—dispersal bays had never been built due to lack of funds. The Japanese then turned to secondary targets, bombing Shamshuipo Camp and the neighbouring police station. The Canadians suffered few large-scale casualties in the initial strikes, though Sergeant Routledge and Signalman Fairley of the signal platoon were wounded—the first Canadian soldiers injured in World War II. Remarkably, Hong Kong Island's theatres, cinemas, and restaurants continued operating as though the island faced no peril. Japanese demolition efforts proved only minor obstacles. Bridges blown were quickly replaced. The invasion proceeded on three fronts: the 230th Regiment advanced westward along the northern route toward Yuen Long and Castle Peak, targeting the northern slope of Tai Mo Mountain. The 228th Regiment drove down the centre, following the Sheung Shui–Taipo–Kowloon road toward Grassy Hill north of the Shing Mun Redoubt. The 229th Regiment, crossing at Sha Tau Kok and by boat at Starling Inlet, proceeded via Taipo toward Tai Shui Hang and Ma On Mountain. Whenever confronted with strongly defended positions, the Japanese bypassed them entirely rather than engage. The first day brought scattered but spirited resistance. Around 1300 hours, the Punjabis inflicted the first serious check, drawing blood from advancing Japanese forces. At 1830 hours, they ambushed and decimated several Japanese platoons south of Taipo market town. The HKVDC's armoured cars and Bren carriers struck similar successes nearby. The 2 Royal Scots' reconnaissance platoon clashed with elements of the 229th Regiment around Yuen Long. Despite these minor victories, Japanese momentum continued. Armed with stolen British maps and guided by fifth columnists, they pushed forward relentlessly. By late afternoon on the 8th, the Punjabis withdrew toward Grassy Hill to avoid being outflanked. The artillerymen of the 12th Battery engaged an IJN destroyer and Japanese forces around Taipo, inflicting heavy casualties. Farther south near Shatin, on the Taipo–Kowloon highway, rapidly advancing Japanese troops surprised the defenders and severed the fuse at an HKVDC demolition point. Their triumph proved momentary; the engineers completed the backup circuit and detonated the bridge, destroying it along with the Japanese soldiers crossing it. By early morning on 9 December, orders came to withdraw all mainland units to the Gin Drinkers Line. The Punjabis, already at Shatin Wai overlooking Tide Cove, held their position under pressure and continuous shelling for the next two days. The HKVDC withdrew to Fotan, a village south of Shatin. Maltby ordered D Company, 5/7 Rajputs, under Captain H. R. Newtons to Smuggler's Ridge to close the gap between the 2 Royal Scots and 2/14 Punjab. HKVDC armoured cars and Bren carriers continued patrols along Castle Peak Road while HMS Cicala, having survived two air attacks, maintained station in Castle Peak Bay. Despite an IJN blockade, the destroyers HMS Thanet and Scout slipped anchor and escaped to Singapore around 2130 hours. The surviving CNAC and Eurasia aircraft took off with high-value evacuees: Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's widow and her two equally renowned sisters—the Soong sisters—along with Chinese Finance Minister H. H. Kung. Also departing was Lieutenant-Colonel H. Owen-Hughes of the HKVDC, who carried orders to coordinate with the Chinese Nationalist Army for a rear-guard attack on Japanese forces to relieve the pressure on Hong Kong. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. On 8 December 1941, Japan attacked Hong Kong with the 38th Division, supported by naval and air forces. Despite British defenses manned by undertrained, under-equipped troops, Japanese forces advanced rapidly across three fronts. Within hours, the RAF was destroyed, demolitions proved futile, and British units withdrew toward the Gin Drinkers Line facing overwhelming odds.

MAJOR WRESTLING FIGURE PODCAST #417 — LIVE FROM KOWLOON!

Kowloon Walled City fue una vez el lugar más poblado de la Tierra, abarrotado con 33,000 personas amontonadas en solo 6.4 acres en Hong Kong. Imagina un enorme laberinto de oscuros y estrechos callejones, con apartamentos apilados tan ajustadamente que apenas llegaba la luz del sol al suelo. Los edificios fueron construidos de manera caótica, con poca planificación, por lo que la ciudad se convirtió en un laberinto sin ley. A pesar de esto, la gente llevaba una vida normal: había escuelas, tiendas e incluso dentistas funcionando en diminutos y improvisados espacios. Fue demolido en 1994 para dar paso a un parque, pero su memoria sigue fascinando a las personas como símbolo de resiliencia y caos. Kowloon Walled City sigue siendo un ejemplo legendario de cómo los humanos se adaptan incluso a las condiciones de vida más extremas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(0:00) Joe Murray is joined by professional wrestler Brian Myers to talk all things TNA wrestling, the world of wrestling and his upcoming even this weekend at Kowloon in Saugus. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Puntata del 31/07/2026- La prova di Truxton Extreme- La prova di The Boba Teashop- La prova di Welcome to Kowloon- Le news della settimana- Gli annunci improbabili- La Kojima Inutility- La Resident Evil curiosityConsole Generation è la trasmissione radiofonica settimanale dedicata ai videogiochi, condotta da Andrea Facchinetti e Raffaele Cinquegrana. In diretta dal 2011 tutti i venerdì alle 22:30 su YouTube e Twitch e in podcast su tutte le piattafome.Su Console Generation trovi:* Le prove e le anteprime degli ultimi giochi in uscita* I commenti sulle principali news della settimana* Interviste e ospiti in diretta* Gli "Annunci improbabili", ovvero gli annunci dal vendo / compro / scambio più assurdi del web* La "Kojima Inutility", la rubrica inutile dedicata al maestro Kojima* La "Resident Evil Curiosity", una rubrica fissa dedicata al survival horror più famoso del mondo.Seguici su:* Sito internet: www.consolegeneration.it * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OBAlgJ948DFRPqlrFm803* Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/console-generation/id527727573?uo=4* Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/c9b878aa-9b23-43d1-9d3b-5c679ca744bf/console-generation* Spreaker: http://www.spreaker.com/show/lo_show_di_console_generation* Instagram: consolegeneration* Facebook: @consolegeneration* YouTube: ConsoleGenerationIT* Twitch: Console Generation* Twitter: ConsoleGenerati* Telegram: https://t.me/consolegeneration* Gruppo Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/OfXomETzwwIVeU9zObjDTw* Email: raffaele.cinquegrana@consolegeneration.it

This week's episode features Denshattack!, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, Farlands, Welcome to Kowloon, Amanda the Adventurer 3, and Quest Arrest.

WBZ's Jordan Rich talks with Marc Hurwitz, food/travel writer and founder of Boston's Hidden Restaurants and Boston Restaurant Talk, about the new Kowloon Tiki On The Beach in Revere, MA. Get all the news you need by listening to WBZ - Boston's News Radio! We're here for you, 24/7. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WBZ's Jordan Rich talks with Bobby Wong, owner of Kowloon Restaurant, about the new Kowloon Tiki On The Beach that brings the legendary Kowloon experience to Revere Beach with tropical cocktails, Asian-inspired favorites, and live entertainment. Get all the news you need by listening to WBZ - Boston's News Radio! We're here for you, 24/7. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jackson continues their Resident Evil journey as we play one of the least discussed numbered entries in the series. Is there a reason that's the case? Turns out, yeah!Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all your friends on whatever social media you call home that they should check us out. See you next month!Send us questions about our game clubs, other games, or gaming in general to abnormalmappingpodcast@gmail.com!If you would like to support us please visit patreon.com/abnormalmapping for exclusive podcasts!Things Discussed: games have never been more dead, Warframe, Persona 3 Reload, Kowloon's Gate, The Namco Museum Museum, Kingdom Hearts MelonMix, Chip & Ironicus Rebirth LP, Street Fighter 6, Granblue Fantasy Versus, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Resident Evil Zero, Next Month's Game Club: OFF (2008)Music this EpisodeWelcome to the Parade from Granblue Fantasy VersusZERO from Resident Evil 0R.E.D. (Zangief's Theme) from Street Fighter 6Want To Be Close -Reload- from Persona 3 Reload

This morning on the show, the conversation is all about the World Cup and the Tartan Army, Scotland's enthusiastic fans who are taking over Boston. The speaker shares some hilarious stories about the Scots' antics, from their love of Scottish soft drinks like Iron Brew to their impressive drinking habits. The show also touches on the upcoming Juneteenth holiday and the potential for a hurricane in the area.The episode is a fun and lighthearted discussion about the World Cup and the city of Boston. The speaker shares some entertaining stories about the Tartan Army's experiences in the city, including their love of local bars and restaurants. The conversation also covers some local news and events, including the upcoming Juneteenth holiday and the potential for a hurricane.The speaker also chats with a special guest, GEO, a popular influencer from Scotland who has been making waves in Boston. GEO shares some of his experiences in the city, including his visit to the Governor's office and his attempt to break a record for the most people drinking Iron Brew at once. The speaker also shares some recommendations for GEO's visit, including a trip to the harbor and a visit to the Kowloon restaurant.If you're looking for a fun and entertaining listen, this episode is a must-check out. The speaker's humor and enthusiasm are contagious, and the conversation is full of laughs and interesting stories. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy the show!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a night at the Kowloon restaurant, Leroy wanted to remind people how dumb it is for anyone to be racist. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm not going to take the easy joke and do a "the name's podcast, video game podcast" here. I'm not doing it. We Played... Euan continues running for loot in hell with Diablo 4 enters the Dark Pictures archives with Directive 8020 and begins Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. More to come from that. Calum caved and bought into the early access of Heroes of Might and Magic: The Olden Era. We all knew he would. We both discuss 007: First Light and if IO Interactive can really pull off a more directed single player game. Spoilers, they absolutely can. Timestamps 00:10:12 - Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred 00:19:21 - Directive 8020 00:29:06 - Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight 00:32:55 - HOMAM 00:50:52 - 007: First Light 01:09:48 - Bungie is releasing the last content update for Destiny 2 on June 9th, so we talk about the long history of the series, and what could happen next with the studio. 01:31:54 - Localization team Hilltop works are releasing a patch for incredibly niche PS1 title Kowloon's Gate, and it sounds like it was a nightmare to work on. 01:33:28 - Steam Deck prices are rising substantially, because AI is screwing us all over. 01:36:33 - Upcoming and Housekeeping Intro Music - There It Is - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Outro Music - Honey Bee - Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)News Sting - News Intro - Maximilien (soundbible.com)All Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Chaque semaine, chaque épisode, je présente mes aventures de lecteur manga !N'hésitez pas à partager sur les réseaux sociaux, à noter, à commenter et à vous abonner !Vous pouvez me retrouver sur l'ensemble de mes réseaux sociaux, à l'envers du manga !Mes lectures crows tome 6worst tomes 2, 3 et 4Kowloon generic romance tome 11blood and steel tome 7kagurabachi tome 8captain Tsubasa tome 6A bientôt !

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Prof. Steven J. DeKrey: Senior Advisor, Honorary Fellow & Professor Emeritus, HKUST Business School; Founding Director of the Kellogg–HKUST EMBA Program (Global #1 ranked by the Financial Times 12 times); former President & CEO of the Asian Institute of Management; ex-Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong; Vice Chairman, Rotary Club of Hong Kong; Past President, Rotary Club of Kowloon; member of the SKOLKOVO Academic Council; former Director of MBA Programs, University of Florida; former Assistant Dean & MBA Admissions Director, Kellogg School of Management; MBA, Kellogg ‘1985, PhD in School & Sports Psychology and Statistics, University of Iowa ‘1982戴啟思教授（Steven J. DeKrey）： 香港科技大學商學院資深顧問及榮休教授、美國西北大學凱洛格—科大行政人員工商管理碩士（Kellogg–HKUST EMBA）創辦主任（多次獲《金融時報》評為全球第一）、亞洲管理學院前總裁及行政總裁、香港美國商會前主席、香港扶輪社副主席、九龍扶輪社前社長、莫斯科管理學院 SKOLKOVO 學術委員會成員、佛羅里達大學 MBA 項目前主任、美國凱洛格商學院前助理院長、MBA招生處總監Interviewer: Wendy Chong Pui Wan 採訪者：蔣沛芸-Professor DeKrey is Senior Advisor to the Dean & Professor Emeritus at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Business School, where he teaches leadership and corporate governance. He is the Founding Director of the Kellogg–HKUST Executive MBA Program, ranked Global #1 EMBA twelve times by the Financial Times, and has founded the HKUST–Saudi Aramco MBA and HKUST–SKOLKOVO (Moscow School of Management) EMBA.

We're kicking off the weekend with a bang on the Billy and Lisa Morning Show! Today's episode is packed with exciting news and updates. We're talking about the latest entertainment news, including Olivia Rodrigo's upcoming show at the TD Garden and the highly anticipated movie Devil's Wears Prada 2. We're also catching up with our friend Bobby Wong from the Kowloon, who's got some big plans for his restaurant's summer concert series. Plus, we're giving away tickets to see Olivia Rodrigo, so be sure to listen in for your chance to win!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How can the Celtics fix their shooting woes in Game 6? Kowloon sold a $1M lottery ticket. Why did the Red Sox move on from Jason Varitek who has done so much for this city and team? What happens if the Bruins lose again at home in the playoffs?

In this episode, we talk about our first impressions of Kowloon Generic Romance.We would like to say thank you to our sponsor, Tokyo Treat. Treat yourself or a loved one! TokyoTreat makes the perfect gift for any occasion. Use code "OTAKIFY" for $5 off your first #TokyoTreat box through my link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://team.tokyotreat.com/otakifyanime⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Also, if you feel like supporting this podcast, feel free to use the following link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/otakify/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠It is greatly appreciated!If you guys are interested in contributing to a future podcast topic, make sure to contact us through IG or Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @otakify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or even feel free to email us a topic at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠otakifyreviews@gmail.com⁠

This week on Anime Pulse we got groundhog day romances, snagging hot merchandise, and anti-heroes. Up first Andrew is back from his Chinese New Year celebrating, and Joseph got some GamerSupps merch just in time to buy more. Then in the industry news a lewd artist got in hot water with the vtubing group VSPO. And finally the reviews wrap things up with Joseph living in a walled city watched over by Ramiel, and Andrew making a sci fi sandwich out of three singular episode anime.

The US women's hockey team wins the Olympic gold medal. The former Prince Andrew goes free after his arrest earlier in England. Kowloon gets approval to open a tiki bar on Revere Beach. Stay in "The Loop" with WBZ NewsRadio.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shari Small reports. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Get ready for Kowloon on the water in the North Shore and a street in Avon saw another crash on a very controversial street in the New England Nightly News.

We pivot from the Super Bowl momentarily to praise Brad Stevens for how he navigated the trade deadline for the Celtics. Getting under the luxury tax while adding a key piece was a win as discussed in tonight's Headlines. Then, Kowloon finds a new home on Revere Beach and another crash on a local Avon street in the New England Nightly News. And, Cam Newton only wants to get clicks for digging in on the Patriots and its clearly working.

WBZ NewsRadio's Jay Willett has more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2022: For years Tsang Tsou-choi daubed his eccentric demands around Hong Kong, and the authorities raced to cover them up. But as the city's protest movements bloomed, his words mysteriously reappeared Written and read by Louisa Lim. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Apply to work with me: https://www.michaelxcampion.com/Vivian Siu was born in Hong Kong. At age 6 she and her mother moved to New York in the hope of a better life. At age 16 she lost her mother, and dropped out of high-school in the USA, moving back to HK to avoid being put in foster care …She then dragged herself up by the bootstraps, hitting the books, and somehow getting into and graduating from Columbia University She went from bartending around HK and sleeping on friend's couches with a small suitcase just to survive… to a successful career in investment banking. As an escape from her harsh reality, she found joy in the underground video arcades of gritty Kowloon. She found community there and found that she was actually really good at the car racing games. Many years later, she used that muscle memory from the arcade…to unbelievably making history as the first female and first LGBTQ Formula 4 driver ever to finish the Macau Grand Prix. All with just 6 months of experience and 4 real races in an actual racing car, and whilst holding down a job in Investment Banking. Seriously incredible and the movie about her life so far will be shown on all Cathay Pacific flights starting in DecemberVivian's story is a reminder to all of us that when education and sport, meets a young person with drive… anything is possible.She was not born into money. There has been no silver spoon to feed her opportunities. And when you don't have opportunity fed to you on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives. She's taken every sliver of an opportunity shown to her and really made her own luck. The odds were completely stacked against her achieving any of these things. And yet, here she is. Record breaker. Ultimately, I've often said that “It's hard to beat the person that refuses to give up.”This woman has not, and will not give up. We all have something to learn from her.I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.Guest - Vivian Siu (https://www.instagram.com/viviansiu28/?hl=en)Connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelxcampion/Instagram: @michaelxcampionWatch the movie Zero to Macao (https://www.zerotomacao.com/) on all Cathay Pacific flights (00:00) Preview(00:41) Intro(04:41) Moving to New York as a kid(07:40) Losing her mum at 16(10:07) The arcade racing game that kept her sane(13:53) Rock bottom years(17:19) GED, community college, obsessive studying habits(20:57) Getting Into Columbia (25:42) Ivy League grind(30:33) Life After Columbia(31:33) Graduating alone(36:54) Survival mode mindset(40:24) From arcade to track(44:20) Mentors and momentum: the push that made it real(45:02) The Macau Grand Prix experience(47:38) Racing for her dad(51:28) Releasing years of bottled up pain(54:46) Zero to Macau(57:52) Who this story is for(01:00:01) Doing it for mum and dad vs doing it for yourself(01:03:21) Why every lap feels like a win(01:07:00) Inner game routines(01:08:32) What's next for Vivian(01:10:11) Outro

On Tap: Tom has some Thanksgiving complaints for Alice, the Kowloon gets some love and cleavage just isn't bringing the boys to the restaurants.The closing tune is performed by Allison Bishop - find her at https://www.allisonbishopmusic.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we talk about OxyContin, opium, and the British East India Company.We also discuss isotonitazene, fentanyl, and Perdue.Recommended Book: The Thinking Machine by Stephen WittTranscriptOpioids have been used as painkillers by humans since at least the Neolithic period; there's evidence that people living in the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas kept opium poppy seeds with them, and there's even more evidence that the Ancient Greeks were big fans of opium, using it to treat pain and as a sleep aid.Opium was the only available opioid for most of human history, and it was almost always considered to be a net-positive, despite its downsides. It was incorporated into a mixture called laudanum, which was a blend of opium and alcohol, in the 17th century, and that helped it spread globally as Europeans spread globally, though it was also in use locally, elsewhere, especially in regions where the opium poppy grew naturally.In India, for instance, opium was grown and often used for its painkilling properties, but when the British East India Company took over, they decided to double-down on the substance as a product they could monopolize and grow into a globe-spanning enterprise.They went to great lengths to expand production and prevent the rise of potential competitors, in India and elsewhere, and they created new markets for opium in China by forcing the product onto Chinese markets, initially via smuggling, and then eventually, after fighting a series of wars focused on whether or not the British should be allowed to sell opium on the Chinese market, the British defeated the Chinese. And among other severely unbalanced new treaties, including the ceding of the Kowloon peninsula to the British as part of Hong Kong, which they controlled as a trading port, and the legalization of Christians coming into the country, proselytizing, and owning property, the Chinese were forced to accept the opium trade. This led to generations of addicts, even more so than before, when opium was available only illicitly, and it became a major bone of contention between the two countries, and informed China's relationship with the world in general, especially other Europeans and the US, moving forward.A little bit later, in the early 1800s, a German pharmacist was able to isolate a substance called morphine from opium. He published a paper on this process in 1817, and in addition to this being the first alkaloid, the first organic compound of this kind to be isolated from a medicinal plant, which was a milestone in the development of modern drug discovery, it also marked the arrival of a new seeming wonder drug, that could ease pain, but also help control cold-related symptoms like coughing and gut issues, like diarrhea. Like many such substances back in the day, it was also often used to treat women who were demonstrating ‘nervous character,' which was code for ‘behaving in ways men didn't like or understand.'Initially, it was thought that, unlike with opium, morphine wasn't addictive. And this thinking was premised on the novel application method often used for morphine, the hypermedia needle, which arrived a half-century after that early 1800s isolation of morphine from opium, but which became a major driver of the new drug's success and utility. Such drugs, derived scientifically rather than just processing a plant, could be administered at specific, controllable doses. So surely, it was thought, this would alleviate those pesky addictive symptoms that many people experienced when using opioids in a more natural, less science-y way.That, of course, turned out not to be the case. But it didn't stop the progression of this drug type, and the further development of more derivations of it, including powerful synthetic opioids, which first hit the scene in the mid-20th century.What I'd like to talk about today is the recent wave of opioid addictions, especially but not exclusively in the US, and the newest concern in this space, which is massively more powerful than anything that's come before.—As I mentioned, there have been surges in opioid use, latent and externally forced, throughout modern human history.The Chinese saw an intense wave of opioid addiction after the British forced opium onto their markets, to the point that there was a commonly held belief that the British were trying to overthrow and enslave the Chinese by weighing them down with so many addicts who were incapable of doing much of anything; which, while not backed by the documentation we have from the era—it seems like they were just chasing profits—is not impossible, given what the Brits were up to around the world at that point in history.That said, there was a huge influx in opioid use in the late-1980s, when a US-based company called Purdue Pharma began producing and pushing a time-released opioid medication, which really hit the big-time in 1995, when they released a version of the drug called OxyContin.OxyContin flooded the market, in part because it promised to help prevent addiction and accidental overdose, and in part because Purdue was just really, really good at marketing it; among other questionable and outright illegal things it did as part of that marketing push, it gave kickbacks to doctors who prescribed it, and some doctors did so, a lot, even when patients didn't need it, or were clearly becoming addicted.By the early 2000s, Purdue, and the Sackler family that owned the company, was spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to push this drug, and they were making billions a year in sales.Eventually the nature of Purdue's efforts came to light, there were a bunch of trials and other legal hearings, some investigative journalists exposed Purdue's foreknowledge of their drug's flaws, and there was a big government investigation and some major lawsuits that caused the collapse of the company in 2019—though they rebranded in 2021, becoming Knoa Pharma.All of which is interesting because much like the forced legalization of opium on Chinese markets led to their opioid crisis a long time ago, the arrival of this incredibly, artificially popular drug on the US market led to the US's opioid crisis.The current bogeyman in the world of opioids—and I say current because this is a fast-moving space, with new, increasingly powerful or in some cases just a lot cheaper drugs arriving on the scene all the time—is fentanyl, which is a synthetic opioid that's about 30-50 times more potent than heroin, and about 100 times as potent as morphine. It has been traditionally used in the treatment of cancer patients and as a sedative, and because of how powerful it is, a very small amount serves to achieve the desired, painkilling effect.But just like other opioids, its administration can lead to addiction, people who use it can become dependent and need more and more of it to get the same effects, and people who have too much of it can experience adverse effects, including, eventually, death.This drug has been in use since the 1960s, but illicit use of fentanyl began back in the mid-1970s, initially as its own thing, but eventually to be mixed in with other drugs, like heroin, especially low-quality versions of those drugs, because a very small amount of fentanyl can have an incredibly large and potent effect, making those other drugs seem higher quality than they are.That utility is also this drug's major issue, though: it's so potent that a small amount of it can kill, and even people with high opioid tolerances can see those tolerances pushed up and up and up until they eventually take a too-large, killing dose.There have been numerous efforts to control the flow of fentanyl into the US, and beginning in the mid-20-teens, there were high-profile seizures of the illicitly produced stuff around the country. As of mid-2025, China seems to be the primary source of most illicit fentanyl around the world, the drug precursor produced in China, shipped to Mexico where it's finalized and made ready for market, and then smuggled into the US.There have been efforts to shut down this supply chain, including recent tariffs put on Chinese goods, ostensibly, in part at least, to get China to handle those precursor suppliers.Even if that effort eventually bears fruit, though, India seems to have recently become an alternative source of those precursors for Mexican drug cartels, and for several years they've been creating new markets for their output in other countries, like Nigeria, Indonesia, and the Netherlands, as well.Amidst all that, a new synthetic drug, which is 40-times as potent as fentanyl, is starting to arrive in the US, Europe, and Australia, and has already been blamed for thousands of deaths—and it's thought that that number might be a significant undercount, because of how difficult it can be to attribute cause with these sorts of drugs.Nitazenes were originally synthesized back in the 1950s in Austria, and they were never sold as painkillers because they were known, from the get-go, to be too addictive, and to have a bad tradeoff ratio: a little bit of benefit, but a high likelihood of respiratory depression, which is a common cause of death for opioid addicts, or those who accidentally overdose on an opioid.One nitazene, called isotonitazene, first showed up on US drug enforcement agency radars back in 2019, when a shipment was intercepted in the Midwest. Other agencies noted the same across the US and Europe in subsequent years, and this class of drugs has now become widespread in these areas, and in Australia.It's thought that nitazenes might be seeing a surge in popularity with illicit drugmakers because their potency can be amped up so far, way, way higher than even fentanyl, and because their effects are similar in many ways to heroin.They can also use them they way they use fentanyl, a tiny bit blended into lower-quality versions of other drugs, like cocaine, which can save money while also getting their customers, who may not know what they're buying, hooked, faster. For context, a fifth of a grain of nitazene salt can be enough to kill a person, so it doesn't take much, less than that, if they want to keep their customers alive, to achieve the high they're looking for. A little bit goes a long, long way.This class of drugs is also difficult to detect, which might be part of the appeal for drug makers, right now. Tests that detect morphine, heroin, and fentanyl do not detect natazines, and the precursors for this type of drug, and the drugs themselves, are less likely to be closely watched, or even legally controlled at the levels of more popular opioids, which is also likely appealing to groups looking to get around existing clampdown efforts.Right now, drug agencies are in the process of updating their enforcement and detection infrastructure, and word is slowly getting out about nitazenes and the risk they potentially pose. But it took years for sluggish government agencies to start working on the issue of fentanyl, which still hasn't been handled, so it's anyone's guess as to when and if the influx of nitazenes will be addressed on scale.Show Noteshttps://www.wired.com/story/a-new-type-of-opioid-is-killing-people-in-the-us-europe-and-australia/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02161116https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(24)00024-0/fulltexthttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/03/nitazenes-synthetic-opioid-drug-500-times-stronger-than-heroin-fatalhttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03280-5https://theconversation.com/10-times-stronger-than-fentanyl-nitazenes-are-the-latest-deadly-development-in-the-synthetic-opioid-crisis-265882https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-nitazenes-why-drug-war-keeps-making-danger-worsehttps://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/fentanyl-and-us-opioid-epidemichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharmahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodonehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanylhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitazeneshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioidhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_opioid_epidemichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_epidemic This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Boston on the cheap — does it even exist? To answer that rich question, we're joined by Emily Schario (aka Emily.In.Boston) of The B-Side, Boston Globe's newsletter for hidden gems, exciting deals, and things-to-do. She shares her ideal budget date night, the best neighborhoods for affordable fun, and commiserates over the local happy hour ban. Want to learn more about the cost of living issues we discuss in this episode? Check out conversations on local NIMBYs, $600,000 liquor licenses, and why Boston restaurants suck. Pain.  HipHop returns. Kowloon atrocity.  Voyage of the Mimi Explain Boston to Me: Head of the Charles Have feedback on this episode or ideas for upcoming topics? DM me on Instagram, email me, or send a voice memo. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!The Plans to Tear Down and Revamp the iconic Kowloon in Saugus that's been a staple on RT 1 for 75 years! Not everyone happy about it… Guest: James Rojas – WBZ NewsRadio Reporter The 22nd annual 100 Innings of Baseball- Saturday and Sunday (Oct 11th & 12th) at Adams Field in Quincy, MA ! Raising money for ALS research to benefit The Angel Fund for ALS Research. Guest: Walter Bentson - organizer of the event and the head umpire & also lives with ALS Former Red Sox left fielder Mike Greenwell dies at 62 after cancer diagnosis. Guest: Tim Healey – Boston Globe Sports Reporter Boston nor'easter weather forecast calls for strong wind gusts, heavy rain for part of holiday weekend.Guest: AccuWeather Meteorologist Matt Benz  

GBH's Adam Reilly and The Bay State Banner's Ron Mitchell join for Press Play media analysis. They talk about Pete Hegseth's effort to muzzle press Pentagon access, Trump's claim that flag burning no longer falls under first amendment-protected speech, Bari Weiss at CBS News, and other media headlines.NBC Boston's Sue O'Connell on the O'Keefe family's wrongful death lawsuit against Karen Read, plans for a refresh of the Kowloon, and Amazon's Melania Trump documentary coming to theaters in January.Boston Medical Center's Dr. Katherine Gergen Barnett reacts to a Washington Post op-ed by six former U.S. surgeons general arguing RFK Jr. is putting American's health at risk.Boston Baroque performs for Live Music Friday. We talk with Sarah Radcliffe Marrs and Christina Day-Martinson, plus guest conductor Christian Curnyn (who The Guardian has called “The Bad Boy of Baroque").

Craig Breslow and Sam Kennedy stated a desire to keep adding on aggressively, but the numbers right now still label the Red Sox as a cheap franchise. How should fans feel about that and is the hesitancy to deal away young pitchers another excuse for Breslow? Then, the iconic Massachusetts restaurant Kowloon is going under some big changes as discussed in the New England Nightly News. And, the Bills fan who ran off with the football during the Pats-Bills game gave everyone an update.

A beloved restaurant has begun the process of moving from their iconic location in tonight's New England Nightly News.

There was chaos in the Boston Common yesterday when a pro-Palestinian protest left multiple police officers injured. Air traffic controllers are not showing up for work because of the government shut down. The new Kowloon project has finally been revealed yesterday. The Bruins play in DC tonight for their season opener. Ed Sheeran has announced a new Netflix project with the director from the show Adolescence.  

Sit down and enjoy a Jimmy story, then we chat about the Kowloon.

Today I am recording (almost) live from Hong Kong, China. . . After sharing some fascinating and moving clips of a sermon Voddie Baucham preached here in Kowloon last year, we follow a thread that connects Voddie’s critique of LeBron James in his book “Fault Lines” with the NBA’s hypocrisy and its unholy relationship with China. And last but not least, I had time to talk through the Pray for China cities of the week, including one I will be seeing here in the next few days! Welcome to China Compass on the Fight Laugh Feast Network! I'm your China travel guide, Missionary Ben. Follow me on X (@chinaadventures) where I post new China city prayer profiles every single day. Also, you can email me at (bfwesten at gmail dot com) and find everything else, including my books, at PrayGiveGo.us! Voddie Bauchum at Kowloon International Baptist Church (Jan 7, 2024) https://youtu.be/aQ3Ne8ipWOA?si=o7k06TwFHnErEnaT Here are the time stamps for the clips I played in the original Youtube video: Cruising from Singapore to Hong Kong, Greetings (00:09-2:27) The “forbidden” #4 and intro to Revelation (3:10-4:36) Kids remember our promises, and God holds the future (29:00-31:00) Christ is worthy because He conquered the grave (31:00-33:10) The death rate is one per person. We all die. (33:10-34:30) He’s the Ruler of Kings on earth: “Bow down you worthless worm!” (34:30-37:40) Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement & Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/fault-lines-the-social-justice-movement-and-evangelicalisms-looming-catastrophe/ The NBA, LeBron James, and China https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27847951/daryl-morey-was-misinformed-sending-tweet-china-hong-kong https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27846109/sources-adam-silver-had-tense-meeting-lakers-nets-players-china https://www.venetianmacao.com/entertainment/NBA-china-game-2025.html Persecution of Uyghurs in China https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights Pray for China places of the week (See @chinaadventures for daily updates) https://chinacall.substack.com/p/pray-for-china-sep-29-oct-5-2025 Subscribe to China Compass and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. Follow us on X (@chinaadventures), and find much more @ PrayGiveGo.us. Luke 10, verse 2, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Talk again soon!

Today I am recording (almost) live from Hong Kong, China. . . After sharing some fascinating and moving clips of a sermon Voddie Baucham preached here in Kowloon last year, we follow a thread that connects Voddie’s critique of LeBron James in his book “Fault Lines” with the NBA’s hypocrisy and its unholy relationship with China. And last but not least, I had time to talk through the Pray for China cities of the week, including one I will be seeing here in the next few days! Welcome to China Compass on the Fight Laugh Feast Network! I'm your China travel guide, Missionary Ben. Follow me on X (@chinaadventures) where I post new China city prayer profiles every single day. Also, you can email me at (bfwesten at gmail dot com) and find everything else, including my books, at PrayGiveGo.us! Voddie Bauchum at Kowloon International Baptist Church (Jan 7, 2024) https://youtu.be/aQ3Ne8ipWOA?si=o7k06TwFHnErEnaT Here are the time stamps for the clips I played in the original Youtube video: Cruising from Singapore to Hong Kong, Greetings (00:09-2:27) The “forbidden” #4 and intro to Revelation (3:10-4:36) Kids remember our promises, and God holds the future (29:00-31:00) Christ is worthy because He conquered the grave (31:00-33:10) The death rate is one per person. We all die. (33:10-34:30) He’s the Ruler of Kings on earth: “Bow down you worthless worm!” (34:30-37:40) Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement & Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/fault-lines-the-social-justice-movement-and-evangelicalisms-looming-catastrophe/ The NBA, LeBron James, and China https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27847951/daryl-morey-was-misinformed-sending-tweet-china-hong-kong https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27846109/sources-adam-silver-had-tense-meeting-lakers-nets-players-china https://www.venetianmacao.com/entertainment/NBA-china-game-2025.html Persecution of Uyghurs in China https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights Pray for China places of the week (See @chinaadventures for daily updates) https://chinacall.substack.com/p/pray-for-china-sep-29-oct-5-2025 Subscribe to China Compass and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. Follow us on X (@chinaadventures), and find much more @ PrayGiveGo.us. Luke 10, verse 2, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Talk again soon!

(00:00) We start talking about Kowloon, but we quickly shift gears to Joe Murray’s knowledge of food! (18:54) Are the Boston Red legit or are they pretenders? Joe and Roche debate! (32:48) Looks like Bill Belichick is selling some of his real estate on Nantucket. (PLEASE be aware timecodes may shift up to a few minutes due to inserted ads) CONNECT WITH TOUCHER & HARDY: linktr.ee/ToucherandHardy For the latest updates, visit the show page on 985thesportshub.com. Follow 98.5 The Sports Hub on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Watch the show every morning on YouTube, and subscribe to stay up-to-date with all the best moments from Boston’s home for sports!

James Stewart talked to Raven and film director Geordie Day about their documentary "Nevermore: The Raven Effect" showing on Saturday, August 23rd at 8pm - Tickets available at www.Lexingtonvenue.com Raven will also be making an appearance at Kowloon on Sunday, August 24th at 1pm as part of Matt Cardona's "Big Ass, Extreme Bash" They talked about the film project and some of Raven's career moments.

The one and only Bobby Wong came in to talk all things Kowloon

That's a lot of Saugus wings!

Watch the full podcast here! https://chinauncensored.tv/programs/podcast-302 Get *The Anaconda in the Chandelier* https://www.amazon.com/Anaconda-Chandelier-Writings-China/dp/1589881982 Joining us today is Perry Link, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at Princeton University and former Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines at the University of California at Riverside. Professor Link co-edited the Tiananmen Papers, and his latest book is called The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Writings on China. And check out our other channel, China Uncensored: https://www.youtube.com/ChinaUncensored Our social media: X: https://www.x.com/ChinaUncensored Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChinaUncensored Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ChinaUncensored #China

The blistering sun is upon us, but before we bask in the suns glory, lets take a step back, as Cozette & Pete talk about out all the great, and not so great anime that wrapped up last spring. SPOILER ARERT FOR THE SHOWS WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. USE THE TIMESTAMPSSocials/Discord - https://linktr.ee/whatdoyousayanime0:00 - Intro2:40 - Apothecary Diaries S210:00 - Apocalypse Hotel19:43 - Mono29:55 - Food For the Soul36:09 - Zatsu Tabi44:23 - Catch Me at the Ballpark50:34 - Ninkoro57:00 - Kowloon Generic Romance1:02:05 - Rest of Cozette's Shows/Drops 1:12:07 - Rest of Pete's Shows/Drops1:18:16 - Rock is a Ladies Modesty

In the late '90s in Hong Kong, Fan Man-yee was doing everything she could to move forward. She was caring for her young son, battling addiction, and trying to build a better life for her son and herself after a very painful past. But when a man who once paid for her time decided she owed him more, everything she was working to protect started to fall apart. What followed was a living hell that would drag on for a month behind closed doors.Connect with Paige:Instagram: instagram.com/reverietruecrime TikTok: tiktok.com/@paige.elmore Facebook: facebook.com/reverietruecrime Twitter/X: twitter.com/reveriecrimepod BlueSky: reverietruecrime.bsky.social Tumblr: reverietruecrimepodcast.tumblr.com Intro and Outro by Jahred Gomes: https://www.instagram.com/jahredgomes_officialSources:https://www.newspapers.com/image/331482258https://www.newspapers.com/image/331482261https://www.newspapers.com/image/504652910https://www.newspapers.com/image/511527474https://www.newspapers.com/image/504654411https://www.newspapers.com/image/496380372https://www.newspapers.com/image/1086831930https://www.newspapers.com/image/996717885https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81992&page=1https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/12/09/hello-kitty-murder-case-horrifies-hong-kong/bafa4ff1-bbf6-4d28-b0cc-2eea9bef43d0/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Kitty_murder_casehttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/210591797/fan-man-yeehttps://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2020/09/12/recounting-the-horror-of-the-hello-kitty-mermaid-doll-murderhttps://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/articles/hello-kitty-murder-hong-kongs-most-devastating-crimehttps://www.thescarechamber.com/hello-kitty-murder/https://thoughtnova.com/the-hello-kitty-murderhttps://www.xaluannews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3223517https://www.grimoireofhorror.com/the-yurei/hello-kitty-murder-fan-man-yee/#google_vignettehttps://allthatsinteresting.com/hello-kitty-murder-casehttps://www.goalcast.com/hello-kitty-murder/https://the-line-up.com/hello-kitty-murderhttps://curioustic.com/hello-kitty-murder-death-of-fan-man-yee/https://www.thereviewgeek.com/where-are-the-hello-kitty-killers-now/https://www.ranker.com/list/hello-kitty-murder-facts/cat-mcauliffehttps://moonmausoleum.com/the-ghost-of-the-hello-kitty-murder/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reverie-true-crime--4442888/support.

James, Jacki, and Lynzee look at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards and that Solo Leveling sweep.

We come in peace, weirdos!! But do THEY?!?!!   TW: aliens, psychosis & delusions, death by statue   Welcome to Keep It Weird, the podcast for all things strange and unusual, extra & extraterrestrial, wiry & wooley and everything in between.  Everytime we get together we chat about something WEIRD!!    This week is a wild one so hold onto your butts (cheeks and cigs)    Ashley starts us off with BREAKING NEWS out of Buga Colombia where a strange metallic orb was not only filmed zipping through the sky but also crash landed and was collected by witnesses in the area and turned into our buddy JAIME MAUSSAN and if this is not a hoax it's a BFDY (Big Freaking Deal, Yo)  According to the scientists studying the sphere- it is cold to the touch, it's WEIGHT FLUCTUATES & it's covered in inscriptions and you won't believe what AI has to say about the meaning behind them.   And speaking of AI we have a quick TERRIFYING TECHNOLOGY to counteract how pumped we were to be friends with ChatGPT last time around.  Ashley tells us about a new phenomenon people are calling "ChatGPT Induced Psychosis" wherein users of AI Chat Bots are losing their grip on reality, falling into spiritual rabbit holes, and destroying all the human relationships they have left.   Lauren takes us into a segment we call WHERE IN THE WORLD where we travel to just outside of Hong Kong to a city that used to exist called KOWLOON where over 33,000 residents lived in only 350 buildings covering only .01 miles of space........... HOW?!   Then we finish off with a very special DECLASSIFIED where Ashley takes us through the CIA  DOC_0005517761 - Declassified back in 2000, this report describes a 250 page KGB file that contains photos, drawings and witness testimonies about a run in that soviet soldiers had with a UFO back in 1990 wherein 23 men were TURNED TO STONE.   You heard me.  I told you to hold on to your butts.     Check out some LINKS below if you want to read up about any of today's topics.   FOLLOW US on social media @keepitweirdcast SUBSCRIBE to our channel youtube.com/keepitweirdpodcast JOIN OUR PATREON www.patreon.com/keepitweirdpodcast BUY OUR MERCH www.keepitweirdpodcast.com/merch BUGA BUGA (SPHERE) https://www.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/1klukvi/material_science_engineer_alejandro_fonseca_mar%C3%ADn/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14687737/spherical-UFO-discovered-alien-technology-colombia.html   AI DESTRUCTION BEGINS AT HOME https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1kalae8/chatgpt_induced_psychosis/   STRAY CITY https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/kowloon-walled-city https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/kowloon-walled-city-history   STONE SOLDIERS https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005517761.pdf https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/declassified-cia-file-claims-aliens-attacked-soviet-soldiers-sparks-buzz-8175002        

James and Lynzee are back to get you caught up on the maze-like developments in Kowloon Generic Romance and Gundam GQuuuuuux! Machu can't handle Nyaan piloting the mobile suit, and Reiko puts Kudo to the test when she threatens to leave Kowloon.

(00:00) J-Stew and the Kowloon Krew are heading to LAS VEGAS for Wrestlemania. He share details with Felger during the very edgy Off Air Show. (20:06) It’s time for the segment everyone’s talking about—The Email Bit! Send an email to anyone on the show with the link below, and stay tuned as we dive into missed stories with The Stack! CONNECT WITH TOUCHER & HARDY: linktr.ee/ToucherandHardy For the latest updates, visit the show page on 985thesportshub.com. Follow 98.5 The Sports Hub on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Watch the show every morning on YouTube, and subscribe to stay up-to-date with all the best moments from Boston’s home for sports!

In May 1999, Hong Kong police found the scattered remains of a young mother in a flat in the city's Kowloon district. The crime scene was like nothing anyone had seen before: unimaginable brutality set against a backdrop of Hello Kitty memorabilia. Investigators eventually pieced together a harrowing tale of abduction, torture, and immense suffering. But one question remained at trial: did a murder occur? Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at serialkillerstories@spotify.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices