Only a few hours after Hong Kong surrendered to Japan on Dec. 25, 1941, Chinese admiral Chan Chak helped lead 67 British and Chinese officers on a 129-km escape to unoccupied China. It had all the makings of a Hollywood film: car chases, speeding torpedo boats and an officer saving his commander from drowning amid a barrage of gunfire. Now, in an exhibition called "Escape from Hong Kong: The Road to Waichow," the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence, hk.coastaldefence.museum, is displaying maps, medals and other mementos that bring the legendary journey to life. Reading the handwritten logbooks, it's easy to imagine the weary men fording streams with blistered feet, sleeping on piles of straw and taking cover any time a plane flew over, always fearful that Japanese troops might be lurking around the bend.
The exhibition is typical of the edifying surprises that await visitors to the undeservedly neglected museum, occupying a lonely perch above Aldrich Bay in a 122-year-old renovated British fort. Put off, perhaps, by its militaristic name, most tourists exclude it from their itineraries. But while the facility has plenty for the war buff — gun batteries, caponiers and a torpedo station can be seen, as well as bullet holes from the Japanese invasion pockmarking the ruined billets — mainstream visitors will enjoy the general displays that showcase Hong Kong's maritime history from the Ming dynasty to the present. If it is impossible to understand the great port of Hong Kong without first understanding its relationship to the sea, then the Museum of Coastal Defence provides an excellent introduction.