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Description
Mr. Hurd discusses his officer's relief at the Hong Kong's surrender, as he had felt the battle was futile and would cost too many unnecessary deaths among his men. The Royal Rifles were, ironically, the last Commonwealth regiment to lay down their arms.
Transcription
Well I think I met Colonel Holm and he told me they’re going to surrender. I said, “I don’t know.” I looked at it they were going to kill us off anyway. I was wrong there. He was trying to get the brigadier to surrender before. He would say, “It’s useless us trying to carry on. We’re going to lose, we gotta make the best peace deal.” Of course he was in favor of that, he hated to see his men being killed off the way it was.
They came through that night, the Sunday night, Christmas Eve I guess it was, or Christmas Day, they came through with the white flag. The forces had been surrendered early afternoon and it was dark before we knew about it. We kept on fighting all we could. So we fought until… the Royal Rifles were the last people to surrender really as far as I know. The other part of the Island had already surrendered.