2
REVIEW OF THE YEAR
The extent to which the British Commonwealth is participating in the war in Korea has been kept constantly before the Hong Kong public by the numerous occasions during the year on which troops on their way to and from Korea have passed through the Colony.
There were two occasions, in April and May, when a great welcome was given to units of the British Army on their way back from serving in Korea under the flag of the United Nations. The first of these was the return of the 1st Battalion, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, with supporting units, and the second, the return of the 1st Battalion, The Middlesex Regiment. On each occasion the troops were welcomed at the wharf by the Commander, British Forces, Hong Kong, Lt.-General Sir Robert Mansergh, K.B.E., C.B., M.C., and were after a few days reviewed in the New Territories in a march past at which the Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, G.C.M.G., took the salute.
The presence of so many troops in the Colony, many of them sent to the Far East for the Korean hostilities, enabled what was probably the largest military parade in the history of the Colony to be held on the King's Birthday, 7th June. The parade took place in Kowloon and it was unfortunately a day of steady downpour. spite of the bad weather however the streets were packed with thousands of people to see the parade.
In
In November there was a more stern reminder of the Korean war when about 600 members of the 1st Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment, many of them replacements for those lost during the Battalion's magnificent stand on the Imjin River in April, passed through Hong Kong on their return to the United Kingdom in time to re-join their families for Christmas.
At the same time, the Korean war has indirectly had a serious effect on the Colony's economy, and for Hong Kong's business men and industrialists 1951 has been a year of difficulty and depression. Hong Kong industries, which have developed and expanded with extraordinary rapidity since 1945, were early in December 1950 faced with the most serious crisis they had yet run into in their short history
7