Training included donning a uniform for one weekend a month and an annual 10-day camp during which Ross exercised with two six-inch guns taken from the World War 1 Cruiser, HMS Kent.

On 7 December 1941, Ross received orders to report for duty and was assigned as a gunner to 2nd Battery at Bluff Head, Stanley.

[2] By 19 December, Japanese troops were advancing from the north and 1st Battery, positioned at Cape D'Aguilar were ordered to destroy its guns and evacuate to Stanley Village.

Ross had volunteered his car, a Morris 8 to the war effort and under the orders of Captain Douglas Crozier drove munitions and troops (many hanging to the outside of the vehicle) from Cape D'Aguilar to Stanley Village, the position of the last stand of the Battle of Hong Kong.

Ross was originally imprisoned at North Point, then marched to Sham Shui Po Barracks and finally shipped to Innoshima, where he worked at Habu Dockyard for Osaka Ironworks.

[1] The property taken from Ross and Wood consisted of two wristwatches, an Orlik pipe, a tin of tobacco, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and 27 dollars in cash.

Ross was heavily involved in the community, acting as President of the Scouts Association of Hong Kong and Vice-President of Outward Bound since its inception in the sixties.