Hongkong Electric Company

Their advance halted abruptly at the North Point Power Station, held by an extraordinary force.

Four officers and thirty-six men of the Hong Kong Volunteer Hussars platoon, alongside thirty-nine civilian volunteers from the China Light and Power and Hong Kong Electric Company, including the station manager, Vincent Sorby, plus eight Free French soldiers commanded by Captain Jacques Gal, a Shanghai businessman who had just turned into a soldier.

Without exception, these men were World War I veterans, many aged fifty-five or older.

Some had actually fought in the Boer War.