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JAMES HAYES
By 1940 this force had been considerably expanded to include four batteries of artillery and one anti-aircraft battery, seven machine gun or rifle companies, a mobile column consisting of two platoons of armoured cars and three of medium machine guns, a fortress signal company, corps signals and engineers, an Army Service Corps company and others. All these men were recruited as volunteers, although no doubt some of them felt that the pressure exerted upon them by events and by their fellow-men made it easier to fall in with the rest than stay away. At any rate, the Commandant was able to say in 1940 that "the Corps is now as strong as it is ever likely to be".21 The G.O.C., Lieutenant-General E. F. Norton clearly thought they were good in quality as well as in numbers, because in a message dated 30th October, 1940 he said that the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps was "in an eminently satisfactory state of efficiency".22
This was no doubt true despite rapid expansion, but only because, as the Year Books show, its leaders had long been aware of the growing danger from Japan in the east and Germany in the west. In his message for the Year Book of 1936 the then G.O.C. had made a particular point of urging on the drive for volunteers,23 and in the 1937 issue the Editorial emphasized that, however willing, young men were useless in an emergency without previous training.24 Of the drive for efficiency there can also be no doubt. The Commandant's annual report ended with the statement that the headquarters staff of the Corps "had one object and interest..... to make the unit as efficient as possible to take its place beside the regular Army in the defence of the Colony.”25
The expansion of these last few pre-war years contains one feature of great significance: the inclusion of Hong Kong Chinese in the Corps in separate units. No. 4 (Chinese) Company was formed in October, 1937 "with two platoons each of 30 machine gunners"26 and No. 7 Company some time later. The Corps had been slow in this respect; although it is clear from the Com-
21 Y.B., 1940, p. 7.
22 Y.B., 1940, p. 4.
23 Y.B., 1936, p. 6.
24 Y.B., 1937, p. 3.
25 Y.B., 1937, p. 7.
26 Y.B., 1938, p. 47.