Hong Kong Museum of Costal Defense [Joshua Burke]

Hong Kong Museum of Costal Defense

The Hong Kong Museum of Costal Defense explains about the history of Hong Kong and China. The Lei Mun Fort was built in the 1880’s to defend the eastern approach to Victoria Harbor. The arrangement of the Fort consisted of 18 casemates, two six-inch breech-loading guns mounted on disappearing carriages. Additional batteries were also built. 

Me with a 1887 64-pounder rifled muzzle loading Mark 3 gun which had a range of 3,600m .

The Relics

I started with looking at all the old relics of the fort that the British had to defend the island from the 1890's to WW2.

At the entrance of the Museum there was a huge cannon, British vehicles consisting of a small British reconnaissance vehicle, a troop transport, and a medium tank from the late 1900’s.

Side view of the British reconnaissance vehicle 

Me with the British reconnaissance vehicle in front view. (Notice the smoke grenade launchers.)

Me with the troop carrier in front view. 

Side view of the troop transport. (Notice the flaps that can fold down so the troops inside can give covering fire. 

The troop transport can carry 12 solders and the crew of two.

Side view of the medium tank.

 The arrangement of the medium tank is one main cannon and three machine guns.

All the vehicles. 

What I thought was very interesting was they had a land based Brennan torpedo station that was finished in the 1894. The Brennan torpedo was invented by Louis Brennan, an Irish immigrant to Australia and was believed to build the first guided torpedo invented in 1877. In the museum they only had a replica of the torpedo, the last original Brennan torpedo is in the UK.

The oil tanks that were used for lubricating the Brennan torpedoes.

Me in the entrance of the Torpedo station.

A replica of the Brennan torpedo.

The part of the station were they launched the torpedo. 

Diagram of the launching of the Brennan torpedo.

 What was also cool was the six-inch disappearing gun. These guns were put into action in 1890 and had a range up to 8,200m. Each gun was concealed in an emplacement beneath its armored shield, and had to be lifted to the firing position above the armored shield. The force of the recoil caused the gun to disappear beneath its in placement allowing very little time for the warship to fire upon the battery.

  

Me with the six-inch disappearing gun.

Notice the excellent firing position from were the six-inch disappearing gun is. 

 The Exhibit

Inside the museum there were galleries about the costal defense from the Ming Dynasty (1369 – 1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) through WW2, and the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army). My favorite Gallery was Gallery 8: The Battle for Hong Kong (1941), of course.

 The WW2 History  

The first wave of bombing of Hong Kong started just 30 min after parliament declared war. However the British remained confident. After the commander of the Hong Kong Regiment heard from parliament that Hong Kong was not a strategic position he made an agreement with the Chinese forces that if the Japanese attacked with ground troops, the Chinese would attack from the rear to take the pressure off. To delay the Japanese troops from crossing they scuttled all the transport ships, all except the junks and sampans. Dumb. The Japanese troops crossed from the mainland to the island using the junks and sampans under the cover of darkness. They took control of the island in just 18 days, not long enough for the Chines troops to mobilize.

A British artillery piece used during WW2. 

An anchor that was on a scuttled ship when the Japanese attacked.

That’s It for now

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Joshua