History
Founded by members of the Kadoorie family The Peninsula was built with the idea that it would be "the finest hotel east of Suez." In December 1928 the hotel opened in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong, located at junction of Nathan Road and Salisbury Road and directly opposite the quays where ocean liner passengers disembarked. Kowloon was also the last stop on the trans-Siberian rail link that brought travelers from Europe. As such, the Peninsula hotel was ideally situated to take advantage of the increasing number of wealthy visitors to the area.
On 25 December 1941, at the end of the Battle of Hong Kong, British colonial officials led by the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Aitchison Young, surrendered in person at the Japanese headquarters on the third floor of The Peninsula. The Governor was confined for two months in one of the hotel suites before he was shipped to a prison in Shanghai. The resort was then renamed "Tōa Hotel" (東亜ホテル, "East Asia Hotel"?), and the rooms were reserved for Japanese officers and high-ranking dignitaries, while Hong Kong sank into misery and destitution. In his book God Is My Co-Pilot, Colonel Robert Lee Scott, Jr., USAAF, commander of the 23d Fighter Group, China Air Task Force, described in detail an aerial raid he led on the Japanese shipping anchored in Hong Kong harbour, conducted 25 October 1942, and the lone attack he personally made in his Curtiss P-40K Warhawk (nicknamed Old Exterminator) upon the famous Peninsula Hotel:
"So I looped above Victoria Harbor and dove for the Peninsula Hotel. My tracers ripped into the shining plateglass of the penthouses on its top, and I saw the broken windows cascade like snow to the streets, many floors below. I laughed, for I knew that behind those windows were Japanese high officers, enjoying that modern hotel. When I got closer I could see uniformed figures going down the fire escapes, and I shot at them...I turned for one more run on the packed fire escapes filled with Jap soldiers, but my next burst ended very suddenly. I was out of ammunition."
It was restored to its original name after Japan was defeated and the British regained control of the colony. The hotel today is part of the Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels group headed by Sir Michael Kadoorie, is the flagship property of the The Peninsula Hotels group.
In 1994, an extension was added to the original hotel in the form of a 30-storey tower, which is topped off by a helipad.
Read more about this topic: The Peninsula Hong Kong
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