Family became comrades

Within months, Lam Chun, her mother, and her brother joined the Hong Kong Independent Battalion — her sister's unit. They fled to its Pingshan headquarters in rural Shenzhen in Guangdong province. Lam Chun's two other older sisters stayed behind in occupied Hong Kong; one worked at a bookstore by day and taught night classes for female factory workers, while the other, recently married, was unable to join them.

Nearly 1,000 strong and composed almost entirely of locals, the battalion became a relentless foe to Japan after its Dec 8, 1941, invasion of Hong Kong.

The then-British colony's defenses collapsed in just 18 days — a swift defeat that historians, including Hong Kong Chronicles Institute Deputy Chief Editor Liu Shuyong, see as emblematic of Britain's halfhearted commitment to defending the colony.

Now, as the last survivors fade, their stories — once buried under colonial and wartime politics have resurfaced. Their resistance played a crucial role in the broader Allied effort to defeat fascism and weaken the Japanese war machine, and their heroics in the liberation of Hong Kong cannot be underestimated.