Franklin Gimson writes in his diary that Hong Kong fell so quickly because people weren't committed to the 'ideas or principles on which this war is being waged'. He thinks they 'fought in a half-hearted manner' and he also notes the pre-war hope that Hong Kong would be made an open city - and thus not defended at all.
Source:
Franklin Gimson, Internment in Hong-Kong March 1942- August 1945, 32b (Rhodes House Library, Oxford)
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