Before the war the estimated population of Hong Kong was 1,600,000, including refugees newly arrived from China.
The Japanese were quick to realise that it would be a problem to provide a population of that size with food, housing and other necessities. In order to relieve the pressure, the government set up, as early as January 1942, a "Repatriation Committee" within the Civil Administration Department to organise trains and ferries to forcibly repatriate large numbers of people to China.
By December 1942 the population had been reduced to 1,000,000.
Despite this, the shortage of daily food became more acute. Gendarmes would catch people in the street and have them forcibly transported out of Hong Kong.
By this and other measures Hong Kong's population was reduced to 600,000 at the time of Japan's surrender in 1945.
Credit : History Museum of HK.
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