HONGKONG PUSHES ITS DEFENCES.

Western Star, 4 March 1938, Page 4

HONGKONG PUSHES ITS DEFENCES.

As a result of Japan’s increasing range of military activities in China the British Crown Colony of Hongkong is hurriedly increasing its fortifications, while similar work is being rushed at Singapore (says the ‘Christian Science Monitor’). Emergency crews of military and naval engineers, technicians, and labourer,, are working 24 hours a day to complete a 40,000,000d0l programme of harbour, land, and air defences. The hills and islets on the fringes of the colony already are bristling with heavy guns, machine gun, and anti-air-craft emplacements and other preparations for defence by land, air, or water. There are liundred s of searchlights to spot aerial attackers and mythical raids, and “blackouts” are staged periodically to train the populace. British authorities claim that only sufficient precautions are being taken to keep an invading force at bay until help could arrive from Singapore or even Australia, or India. Singapore is three days away by warship. Heavy-calibre guns are being mounted on the “peak” above Hongkong and in the high hills just behind Kowloon. The guns are landed and set up only under cover of darkness, and guards bar all approaches to the emplacements. A network of military roads is being thrown across the Hills.

AIR DEFENCE PREPARED. Japan’s wide scale aerial operations in China convinced British authorities that'“the colony’s air defences were far from adequate. They ordered expenditure of 350,000d0l for construction of \ bomb-proof shelters, gas-proof cellars, and de-contamination- chambers for civilians at numerous points in. congested areas. But to_ provide a minimum standard of safety from air attack s for Hong Kong’ s 1,000,000 civil population it is estimated that 700,000d0l more must be spent for additional equipment against air raids and ga s attacks. This would include gas masks for all. t More than 200 bombing, pursuit, and scouting planes will be stationed here under the full quota ordered for the colony. The British naval force s now at Hongkong or within easy reach are considered adequate for the present. There are some 55 ships in Britain’s China Squadron based there, eight of them fast, modern cruisers. ' The squadron also has an aircraft carrier, 17 first-class mine-laying submarines, each equipped with eight torpedo tubes, and a number of auxiliary craft.