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Heroes from History People Really Don’t Appreciate Enough

Khalid Elhassan November 10, 2020 32 min

William Colby - William J. Donovan — William Colby (oak leaves on cap) with OSS personnel and Norwegian Resistance members in Norway. Special Operations

27. Witnessing Japanese Brutality Set Bill Chong on the Path to Becoming a Hero

Japanese troops crossing the Shenzhen River Bridge into Hong Kong, December, 1941. South China Morning Post

Japanese forces invaded Hong Kong Island, whose garrison included Canadian units, on December 18^th, 1941. After a week of heavy fighting, during which thousands of civilians were killed, the Japanese forced the defenders to surrender and secured the island. Like many who found themselves living under Japanese occupation, Bill Chong was appalled by the brutality and rudeness of the conquerors. He grew particularly incensed after he witnessed a Japanese soldier execute a wounded Canadian officer, and decided that he would do something about it.

Japanese artillery shelling Hong Kong. Wikimedia

Chong sold all his possessions in Hong Kong, burned his Canadian passport, and set out for mainland China. As he put it: “I had seen so much of the war in Hong Kong I was full of hate … I had seen how the Japanese killed people, killed Canadians without any cause. They’d just shoot anybody they want, they’d shoot people left and right. I said, ‘I’ve got to do something about this.’ I felt like getting a gun and just going out and shooting a few Japanese [soldiers]. So I escaped to China“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.