Gin Drinkers Line

The Gin Drinker's Line is a fascinating and poignant reminder of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong on December 8th 1941. The last remains of this British military defense line can be found dug into the hillside above the Shing Mun Reservoir. The eerie tunnels can still be explored by those brave enough with a torch, but some stone entrances are hidden by the undergrowth and some have been partially blocked up with silt.





Named after nearby Gin Drinker's Bay, the tunnels were given London road names and at various tunnel intersections you will find signs carefully carved into the walls pointing you towards Oxford Street or Charing Cross.

At various tunnel entrances you can find the remnants of machine-gun posts and pill-boxes, giving you the same landscape view that a soldier would have been scanning over on his watch.
It was this line of defense that the Japanese invasion forces broke through during the 1941 invasion of Hong Kong. The defense line should have played a key role in delaying the
Japanese on the leased mainland territories and Kowloon, stalling their arrival and giving the main defenses on Hong Kong Island time to prepare, and also protecting the aerodrome (later Kai Tak Airport) on the Kowloon Peninsula.
As it was the defense line played little or no role in the invasion at all. Poorly manned and developed, the line was connected by a serious of tunnels into the the hillside, with not only entrances and exits to each tunnel but also open ventilation shafts. Added to the problem was the inability to see the entrance of one tunnel from the end of the next, therefore creating parts of the line that could be broken but not detected. The British quickly retreated to Hong Kong Island, and then as the invasion continued, to Stanley, where some of the most bitter fighting occured. The British surrended Hong Kong to the Japanese on December 25th 1942, 17 days later.