Air raids on the Hong Kong area (1942–1945)


The United States Army Air Forces and United States Navy conducted numerous air raids against Japanese-occupied Hong Kong and shipping near the city during World War II. The Royal Australian Air Force took part in efforts to lay naval mines in the Hong Kong area. These attacks began in 1942, and continued until shortly before the end of the war in 1945. British Pacific Fleet aircraft also attacked Japanese suicide boats at Hong Kong as part of the reoccupation of the colony in late August 1945.

Background

The British colony of Hong Kong had been captured by Japanese forces in December 1941, and became a significant naval and logistics base. Japanese forces bombed and shelled the urban areas during the invasion of Hong Kong, and 4,000 civilians were killed in the fighting.
USAAF units based in China attacked the Hong Kong area from October 1942. Most of these raids involved a small number of aircraft, and typically targeted Japanese cargo ships which had been reported by Chinese guerrillas. By January 1945 the city was being regularly raided by the USAAF.

Attacks

1942

The air attacks on Hong Kong are little remembered today. Unexplored bombs dropped during the war are occasionally unearthed during construction projects, and need to be defused. The only occasion when unexploded aerial bombs have resulted in casualties occurred in 1993, when a ship dredging shallow water near Tsing Yi detonated a bomb. The explosion badly damaged the ship and injured one of its crew. In the five years to 2018, the Hong Kong media reported 35 discoveries of unexploded munitions. Two more bombs, probably dropped in the 16 January 1945 raid, were discovered and defused in early 2018. It is likely that many more unexploded bombs will be discovered in the future.

Citations

Works consulted

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