Kamikaze Tunnels of Hong Kong- A story of War and Occupation

Kamikaze Tun­nel 2 Lam­ma Island

The ocean is calm as the British Air­craft Car­ri­er slow­ly steams into the Japan­ese occu­pied waters of Hong Kong, appre­hen­sive of float­ing mines. A sun­ny morn­ing in August 1945. Bat­tle sta­tions aboard the HMS Vengeance are manned, gun­ners on high alert. The 7 foot bar­rel of the Bofors gun fires 40mm, 2 pound artillery shells at a rate of 2 every sec­ond or 120 a minute. Eight of these high-cal­iber guns are mount­ed on the deck, aimed men­ac­ing­ly out­ward, armed, primed for bat­tle. The crew care­ful­ly scans the water and rocky Hong Kong islands for hos­tiles. Sud­den­ly, in the dis­tance a small 25 foot wood­en boat paint­ed green appears, speed­ing towards the 695 foot air­craft car­ri­er. The Japan­ese sol­dier pilot­ing the boat secures the wheel with a strap and jumps into the ocean as the small explo­sive laden boat con­tin­ues, head­ing straight for the HMS Vengeance. It’s still a safe dis­tance out when the Bofors guns open fire on the boat and it bursts into flames explod­ing with the force of half a ton of TNT. It’s no match for the high­ly trained crew of the British Navy and 8 high pow­er anti-air­craft guns.

Kamikaze: Naval Weapons: Japan­ese fast motor boats, packed with high explo­sives, intend­ed for use against allied ships.

Admi­ral Har­court is aboard the HMS Indomitable, anoth­er British air­craft car­ri­er steam­ing into the treach­er­ous waters of Hong Kong that morn­ing. 30 Kamikaze boats are head­ed for the British fleet when the order is giv­en to the fight­er pilots in the air to elim­i­nate them. Their inten­tions can­not be ascer­tained before the boats are fired upon, but no chances are tak­en, as, a mem­ber of Admi­ral Har­court’s staff, WK Lore recalls: “Intel­li­gence reports showed that these motor boats were designed to car­ry half a ton of TNT at the bow. And also they had four for­ward speeds and no reverse. Admi­ral Har­court then gave the order to sink them. It may appear that this was on the cal­lous side. But it must be remem­bered that the British fleet includ­ed sev­er­al cap­i­tal ships with sev­er­al thou­sand men each.”

HMS Vengeance in 1944

“These motor boats were extreme­ly fast and manoeu­vrable. They were very small targets.
“The big guns of the fleet would be almost use­less against such boats if one moved into the midst of the British ships. It was a deci­sion reluc­tant­ly but cor­rect­ly made after weigh­ing the 30-odd Japan­ese lives against pos­si­ble thou­sands of British lives and loss or dam­age to units of the British fleet.”

Excerpt from the South Chi­na Morn­ing Post of Sun­day Novem­ber 30th 1975:

Kamikaze Boats and sur­ren­der­ing Japan­ese Sol­diers. Lam­ma Island, Hong Kong Thurs­day, August 30, 1945

The tunnels today:

“It’s full of trash. I don’t want to go in there.” Krish­na tells me at the entrance of the tun­nel. Out­side there are a few signs but they are weath­ered with age and I can’t read any­thing. On the map how­ev­er we are right on what is labeled as “Cave Kamikaze”. It’s not a cave but a tun­nel bored into the rock dur­ing WWII. It’s unclear if the Japan­ese them­selves did the work or if it was pris­on­ers of war but the pur­pose of the tun­nels is clear, they were used to store muni­tions and “kamikaze boats”. It’s high­ly pos­si­ble that the boat that tried to sink the HMS Vengeance 70 years ago was launched from one of these 3 tun­nels in Pic­nic Bay on Lam­ma Island.

Trash inside Kamikaze Tun­nel 2 

Out­side Kamikaze Tun­nel 2 

The tun­nel we stand in front of is tun­nel #2 of 3. The trash in here looks like it was washed in by a storm at sea. Ocean garbage. I gin­ger­ly step through it mak­ing my way to the back of the mud­dy tun­nel, illu­mi­nat­ing it with my pow­er­ful head­lamp. Krish­na stays at the entrance as a few curi­ous tourists stop by, none ven­tur­ing fur­ther than the entrance. I snap some pic­tures and head back out, try­ing not to get eat­en alive by the kamikaze mosquitoes.

Bats in Kamikaze cave 2 

Bats in Kamikaze cave 2 

I notice two bats hang­ing from the roof of the tun­nel, their sharp claws grip­ping the wet rock. Look­ing clos­er I can see them drink­ing the water drip­ping down from the ceil­ing. They’re kin­da cute…in an odd fly­ing-mouse-with-a-grotesque-pig-like-face kin­da way. Back at the entrance, poor Krish­na got eat­en alive by mos­qui­tos. My loose clothes shield­ed me more than her. I’m slight­ly sat­is­fied by the fact how­ev­er, that many of these blood suck­ers are on the menu tonight of my bizarrely adorable bat friends. In fact each bat will eat on aver­age over 6,000 insects. I hope they are all mosquitoes.

Inside Kamikaze tun­nel 3

It’s dark now but we return the fol­low­ing week­end to explore the rest of the tun­nels. The first is most­ly filled in. I read that it was used by locals to store garbage and then was filled with dirt. There is a small open­ing but it’s wet and a tight squeeze.

Bats in Kamikaze tun­nel 3 

Bats in Kamikaze tun­nel 3 

Bats in Kamikaze tun­nel 3 

A few min­utes after pass­ing the sec­ond tun­nel I see a small path going into a low clear­ing in the thorny pur­ple flow­ered Bougainvil­lea. I have to get on my hands and knees and crawl, even then the thorns grab at me, demand­ing an entrance fee of ripped cloth­ing. Anoth­er tun­nel is hid­den behind this cur­tain of thorns. Almost no trash. The ceil­ing is cov­ered with bats. Some­how I con­vince Krish­na to crawl through after me. Again it’s filled with mos­qui­tos. I can see we are dis­turb­ing the bats as they swoop about ner­vous­ly. I try to stay away from the back of the tun­nel where most of them are to pre­vent dis­turb­ing them, all while reas­sur­ing Krish­na that they don’t want to suck her blood and are excel­lent aer­i­al nav­i­ga­tors despite their errat­ic fly­ing, it’s very unlike­ly that they will hit you in the face. Lit­tle do I know every time I shine the light away from her she freezes in the dark. Total­ly still, not want­i­ng to move. Unfor­tu­nate­ly I don’t see the fear on her face. For me this is nor­mal. I’m at home explor­ing dark places. Back in Los Ange­les I would go out canyoneer­ing at night a few times a week. Unex­plored canyons, while you can’t ful­ly appre­ci­ate their beau­ty with just head­lamps, have anoth­er lev­el of adven­ture when the sun goes down.

Out­side Kamikaze tun­nel 3

Getting to the Kamikaze Tunnels:

Cave Kamikaze on Google Maps

From the Sok Kwu Wan Fer­ry Pier on Lam­ma Island, go South through town (Turn right com­ing from the pier) fol­low the path past the Tin Hau Tem­ple, around the mud flats on the Lam­ma Island Fam­i­ly Walk (A paved path that goes around Lam­ma Island). In 10–15 min­utes you will see a large tun­nel on your left (marked as “Cave Kamikaze” on Google Maps). This is Tun­nel #2. Tun­nel #1 is a few min­utes ear­li­er but you can skip it. Tun­nel #3 is a few min­utes down the path. If you do decide to go in tun­nel #3 please be respect­ful of the bats that call this place home. Don’t shout and try to make your vis­it as fast as pos­si­ble. They are real­ly sen­si­tive to loud nois­es and cam­era flashes.

Kamikaze Tun­nel 1 close up 

Kamikaze Tun­nel 1 from the Fam­i­ly Path 

Further reading:

Mem­oirs of Charles David­son, P.O. 812 Sqdn from the HMS Vengeance 

Thread on Gwolo.com here