Hongkongers in the British Armed Forces is a deeply researched, engaging and informed account of a group of forgotten heroes in Hong Kong and within the British Empire. Written by a Hong Kong-born military historian, it uncovers the agency of Hong Kong service personnel, broadly defined to include frontline soldiers, clerks, cooks and stewards during the two Opium Wars, the Boxer War, the two World Wars and the Cold War. Hong Kong provides an example of imperial soldiers who worked and fought for the British Empire. The Hong Kong service personnel were a microcosm of ethnic diversity: they included Eurasians, Portuguese and South Asians, all of whom called Hong Kong home. A broad theme of this book is the dynamic relationship between the British colonizers and the colonized Chinese. Rejecting the simplistic dichotomy between collaborators and victims, it argues that Hongkongers served in the British armed forces for various reasons – material rewards, a sense of pride and a desire to see the world – and that their cultural and social background was more important than racism in accounting for their different treatment by the British commanding officers.

The book takes a chronological approach to examining Hong Kong soldiers’ roles and experiences from 1860 to 1997. Following the introduction, chapter two begins with the Canton Coolie Corps, or unarmed but disciplined labour corps, which supplied the British troops during the Second Opium War. In the 1860s and 1870s, the British contemplated forming an indigenous Hong Kong combat unit, but it did not materialize. In 1891, as chapter three shows, the Hong Kong Company of Submarine Miners was formed. As technicians or skilled labourers in the army, they participated in the 1900 Boxer War. The South Asian gunners, raised during the Second Anglo-Chinese War, were reorganized as the Asiatic Artillery, whilst an Indian Army infantry group, named the Hong Kong Regiment, was sent to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong service personnel played a crucial supporting role during the First World War. Thousands of Hongkongers joined the Chinese Labour Corps of the British Army to serve in northwest Europe, whilst many others provided logistical support for the Allied troops in Mesopotamia. By the time the First World War ended, the Hong Kong service personnel had “attained a certain level of technical proficiency or even elite status” (p. 54) in the eyes of the European commanding officers.

During the interwar period, covered in chapter four, more Hong Kong Chinese were recruited into the garrison, not least due to London's cost-cutting considerations and anticipation of war in Europe and with Japan. By 1939, about 3,000 Hongkongers served as sappers, gunners, clerks, interpreters and volunteer defence corps. All this helps debunk the myth of the British refusal to cooperate with the Chinese during the war. Chapters five to seven focus on the defence of Hong Kong in 1941, and Hongkongers’ resistance to Japanese aggression until 1945. As the author has covered the topic of Hong Kong in the Second World War in other publications, the main concern here is the roles and experiences of Hong Kong service personnel. Readers are provided with meticulous details about the approximate number of Hongkongers serving in the various units of the garrison; the recollection of battles by individual Hong Kong soldiers; the collaboration between the ex-service Hong Kong personnel and the British Army Aid Group; and the Hong Kong Volunteer Company's contribution to the Burma campaign.

The final two chapters are about Hongkongers’ military service during the Cold War until the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. In view of the Sino-American confrontation, the British garrison played a vital role in securing the border with China, while assisting the civilian government in dealing with refugee influx and social unrest. In 1962 the Hong Kong Military Service Corps was established as the mother unit of all Hong Kong soldiers serving in various roles. The Royal Navy employed thousands of local workers in the Royal Naval Dockyard, whose closure in 1959, however, created a row between the Hong Kong government and the discharged workers supported by the leftist union. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Defence Force was established as an all-round volunteer civil defence unit. Unlike the pre-war Volunteer Corps dominated by Europeans or Eurasians, after 1945 many Chinese joined the Hong Kong Defence Force and other volunteer outfits. Finally, the book examines how ex-service personnel and ex-Volunteers fought for their rights and recognition. One of the milestones of their fight was London's agreement, in 1986, to grant British citizenship to Hong Kong Second World War veterans.

The book draws upon a rich array of primary sources, especially the oral history records of ex-service personnel featured in the Hong Kong Heritage Project, the Imperial War Museum and the archives of SOAS University of London. It demonstrates Kwong's years-long research in Hong Kong's military history – a labour of love indeed. Non-military historians may be a little overwhelmed by the many different titles of the Hong Kong units covered in the book – the Hong Kong Defence Force, the Hong Kong Military Service Corps, the Hong Kong Regiment, to name just a few – but the author can't be criticized for that. As a diplomatic historian, I would want more discussion about the political context of wars and events. That said, Hongkongers in the British Armed Forces is a major contribution to Hong Kong's military and colonial history and will likely remain the definite work on the subject for years to come.