The Invincible

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
the author of Military Archives: International Directory of Military
Publications and The Bantams: The Untold St

This meticulously researched novel presents a vivid picture of the
Japanese army’s brutal occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. At
the centre of the novel is the Connaught Hotel, known as “The
Invincible” and populated by a cross-section of Europeans, Chinese,
Canadians, and Japanese who were brought together during that tragic
period of history. Particularly memorable are Mitchell’s portraits of
the British expatriates—many endlessly preoccupied with class, rank,
and social position—and of the Canadian soldiers who were brought in
as last-minute reinforcements.

The novel depicts in episodic form the gallant if hopeless 17-day
battle by Hong Kong’s mixed garrison of British, Canadian, Indian, and
Chinese troops against the battle-hardened Japanese. The invaders had no
easy time of it and, after their hard victory, vented their spleen in
wholesale rape and murder. Many Canadian POWs were among the victims,
and the author sensitively describes the survivors’ three and a half
years of travail, and that of the civilian internees in Hong Kong.

Mitchell’s chronicle of this almost-forgotten interlude in Canadian
history is a colorful and au-thentic blend of fact and fiction.