Battle of Hong Kong - December 8, 1941
For this battle, Canadians were asked to send two battalions, The Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, to Hong Kong. On December 8th, Japan launched their attack against them and hand-to-hand combat broke out because of Canada's and the Allied countries' lack of air and naval defenses, Seventeen and a half days later, on December 25, they were advised to surrender, and did. In this battle, 290 Canadian soldiers were killed, 493 were injured and the majority who survived, became Prisoners of War. Two hundred and sixty-four more men died due to starvation and poor living conditions.
Significance: I think that this battle is the least significant to Canada's growing independence and therefore I ranked it as 8 out of 8. |