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extent the restrictions on immigration, had the effect of lowering the population of the Colony to about 1,600,000 by the end of November, 1941.
The long anticipated blow fell on the morning of the 8th of December, 1941, simultaneously with the destruction of the greater part of the U.S.A. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour. Incidently, the elimination of this fleet, followed rapidly by the sinking of .M. S. Prince of Wales and Repulse in Malayan waters, ended our hopes of any early lifting of the siege, and gave the Japanese a free channel to the Phillippine Islands and the Southern Pacific.
Not long after midnight on the 8th December warning was received that the Japanese were preparing to cross the border into British territory.
I issued instructions immediately for doctors, nurses and midwives to evacuate isolated hospitals and public dispensaries scattered over the Leased Territories, and to proceed to their previously allotted stations in Kowloon, bringing with them the more valuable instruments and other medical supplies.
At the same time, I caused about 1,400 St.John Ambulance Brigade stretcher bearers and nurses to man twenty odd first id posts in Kowloon and on ilong Kong Island, together with sixty doctors on eight-hour shifts. Lories were converted into ambulances with pre-fabricated steel frames. Emergency relief Hospitals were established in all the more important educational institutions. Certain selected hospitals were evacuated and changed into casualty clearing stations to receive both military and civilian wounded.
Some 140 additional private pratitioners and 450 European and Asiatic women members of the Auxiliary Nursing. Service were posted to these civilian defence scheme medical units.
Pari passu with these measures on the vivil side, the Services mobilised to full strength. A field ambulance, advanced dressing stations and several auxiliary military hospitals were made ready to receive army casualties, about 160 European V.A.Ds. being distributed among the military hospitals.
In order to reduce the proportion of potential wounded in the densely populated districts, efforts were made to persuade the inhabitants to scatter to dispersal areas in the hills and open country. Such places were equipped with kitchens, food stores, fuel, water supply, sanitary conveniences and boards for roofing narrow trenches cut along the contours. Planned to accommodate about 350,000, such areas never held more than 10,000. This was, in part, due to the reluctance of the Chinese to leave his home, even after damage by bomb, shells or fire, and further to the counter-attraction provided by the existence of a number of cooked food centres in the built up areas where free meals of rice, beans, oil and salt were issued twice daily.
The medical defence service was fully operative by the time the first bombs fell at 8 a.m. on the 8th December.
The attack was directed against Kai Tak airfield on the Kowloon Peninsula. Two obsolete fighter aircraft were destroyed. They comprised the only air cover available for our forces. Thereafter, the Japanese aircraft operated at will all over the Colony. Numerous civilian casualties were soon brought under treatment in the two main civilian casualty clearing stations on the mainland.
In spite of the destruction of road bridges, rai Iway tunnels, and of other obstacles - not the least of which was the
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