British Soldier and Chinese Boy in Hong Kong

During the occupation, racing at Happy Valley was restarted by a Chinese man who had formerly been a Justice of the Peace and held the rank of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He told his friends that he had tried to get Chinese admitted to the Jockey Club for twenty years, and now he could ensure that no Briton was ever admitted to the race course. To his disappointment, the horses frequently collapsed during races from starvation. Eventually, the course was turned into a vegetable patch.

This Propaganda photo of a Chinese boy and a British Royal Marine emphasized the positive aspects of colonial rule. The reoccupation of Hong Kong was marked by confusion and tension between China and Britain. United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945) recommended that Hong Kong be administered by the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang after the war. Britain intended to hold onto the colony, and in defiance of Supreme Command Allied Powers‘ orders to not hold separate surrender ceremonies, a British Fleet under Royal Navy Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt (April 11, 1892 – December 19, 1959) headed for Hong Kong, with the tacit approval of the new Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) administration, to support the declared administration of Colonial Secretary Franklin Charles Gimson (September 10, 1890 – February 13, 1975). They arrived on August 30, 1945, to find a colony where triad gangs competed for loot amid disorder and leaderlessness. Harcourt did not have the soldiers to restore order, so Gimson played one triad off of another, arming and deputizing some to suppress others. By October 1945, the 150th Territorial Brigade arrived, forcing the triads into cooperation with the colonial government and allowing Gimson to marginalize the Kuomintang guerrillas in the Kowloon area. Despite legitimate claims to Hong Kong, Kuomintang Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975) declined to confront the British. The United Kingdom retained control until 1997, when the treaty expired, and Hong Kong was returned to the People’s Republic of China.