by Gillian Chan
For those who survived those bloody days of fighting there was worse still to come, as they were now prisoners of war and would be held in horrific conditions for the next four years. The Japanese army did not recognize the Geneva Convention’s rules about the treatment of captured enemy soldiers. The treatment they meted out to their prisoners was brutal. Many more Canadians would die in the prison camps in Hong Kong or when they were taken as slave labourers to Japan to work in factories and coal mines.
The loss of Hong Kong in 1941 looms large in both the histories of Canada and Great Britain in the Second World War. Controversies have arisen as participants and historians have reflected upon it over the years. Some see it as a betrayal of Canadian soldiers in a cynical move by the British government, taking advantage of the Canadian government’s naïvety and eagerness to participate in the war to “blood” their troops. Another extreme view is that the Canadian soldiers were inadequately trained and unsuited for the task they were given. Such views can be argued endlessly and evidence presented to back them up or disprove them.
Regardless of the controversies, 1975 Canadians were sent to fight and fight they did. Some were veterans of the First World War; some were reservists called up once the war started; others were still teenagers who had recently enlisted. They were far from home, poorly equipped and facing very difficult odds. Altogether, 1550 service men and women were killed in the defence of Hong Kong. Of the Canadian forces, 290 were killed in the battle itself. By the time of the surrender on Christmas Day, approximately another 760 were wounded, some lightly, others more severely.
A further 264 Canadians died in the hellholes of the prisoner of war camps in Hong Kong or in Japan, where they had been sent as slave labourers. A little over 1400 soldiers came home to Canada; all were affected by their experiences. Some died young; some were haunted by the searing memories of what they had experienced.
Images and Documents
Image 1: Winnipeg Grenadiers march down Main Street, Winnipeg, in 1939.
Image 2: Members of C Company’s Royal Rifles of Canada pose with their mascot Gander en route to Hong Kong. Gander was given the honorary title of sergeant and had sergeant’s stripes affixed to his harness.
Image 3: Infantrymen from the Royal Rifles of Canada board H.M.C.S. Prince Robert en route to Hong Kong on October 26, 1941.
Image 4: A rare photograph shows Japanese infantry advancing toward Hong Kong.
Image 5: The front page of the Winnipeg Free Press, December 23, 1941, headlines the heavy casualties experienced by the Canadian forces.
Image 6: Canadian and British prisoners of war faced brutal conditions, sometimes including slave labour, and were given little food. Over 260 Canadian POWs who had fought at Hong Kong died in the camps.
Image 7: Major General Umekichi Okada hands over his samurai sword during a ceremony marking the surrender of Japanese forces in Hong Kong, at Government House, on September 16, 1945.
Image 8: Liberated Canadian prisoners of war line up to receive new clothing in Yokohama, Japan (just outside Tokyo).
Image 9: Japanese expansion into mainland China moved ever closer to the small British colony of Hong Kong.
Image 10: Hong Kong comprised Hong Kong Island itself, plus Kowloon and the New Territories that extended beyond Kowloon on the mainland.
Credits
Cover cameo (detail): courtesy of Leonard Conolly.
Cover scene (detail): The Japanese Campaign and Victory 8 December 1941–15 February 1942: A Japanese landing party charges into Hong Kong; © Imperial War Museum (HU 2780).
Cover details: Aged journal © Jacob J. Rodriguez-Call; aged paper © Shutterstock/Filipchuck Oleg Vasilovich; belly band © ranplett/istockphoto; (back cover) label © Shutterstock/Thomas Bethge.
Image 1: Winnipeg Grenadiers on Main Street, Winnipeg, 1939; Western Canadian Pictorial Index A0594-18674.
Image 2: Infantrymen of “C” Company, Royal Rifles of Canada, and their mascot en route to Hong Kong. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, ca. 27 October 1941; Library and Archives Canada, Department of National Defence fonds, PA-116791.
Image 3: Infantrymen of “C” Company, Royal Rifles of Canada, boarding H.M.C.S. Prince Robert en route to Hong Kong. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 26 October 1941; Library and Archives Canada, Department of National Defence fonds, PA-114891.
Image 4: Japanese infantry on Sir Cecil’s Ride; photo courtesy of Ko Tim Keung.
Image 5: Canadian Casualties Are Heavy; Winnipeg Free Press, December 23, 1941.
Image 6: courtesy of Veterans Affairs Canada.
Image 7: Major-General Okada handing over his sword during ceremony marking surrender of Japanese forces in Hong Kong, Government House, 1945; Jack Hawes, Library and Archives Canada, Department of National Defence fonds, PA-114815.
Image 8: Liberated Canadian prisoners of war receiving new clothing, Yokohama, Japan, 1945; Library and Archives Canada, Department of National Defence fonds, PA-114876.
Images 9 and 10: Maps by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs.
The publisher wishes to thank Janice Weaver for her careful attention to the facts, and Tony Banham, author of Not the Slightest Chance, The Defence of Hong Kong, 1941 and We Shall Suffer There, Hong Kong’s Defenders Imprisoned, 1942–45, for his detailed comments on the story.
Author’s Note
I was drawn to the story of the fall of Hong Kong because of a strong family connection. My husband, Henry (Wan-sheung) Chan was born in Hong Kong less than two months before the Japanese invasion and as a small child lived under Japanese occupation. His father, Shing-chu Chan, was a doctor in Kowloon and was called up by the British during the Japanese attack. As the situation became more dangerous, his superior eventually made the decision to send the Chinese doctors and nurses home, fearing that when the Japanese arrived they would kill them. His assumption proved to be correct given what happened elsewhere. For his work at this time Dr. Shing-chu Chan was awarded the British Empire medal, which we have to this day. His family lived in Kowloon and experienced the terror of both the fighting and the rampage that followed withdrawal of the troops to Hong Kong Island.
Like many of Hong Kong’s residents, the Chan family decided to leave Hong Kong and go back to their ancestral village in China. With limited transport they had to walk for several days to reach relative safety. For most of this journey my husband and his youngest brother, who was just three, were carried by his aunt and mother on their backs. Everyone else in the family party walked, apart from the time they were able to secure a ride on a truck. My father-in-law ran a hospital a few miles away from the village for the rest of the war.
This story had always fascinated me and I had thought of it many times over the years, researching it in a not very serious way. My interest grew when I came across George S. MacDonnell’s book, One Soldier’s Story, which made me realize that the battle for Hong Kong was a Canadian story too. I started to collect any information I could, finding books written by men who had served with either the Winnipeg Grenadiers or the Royal Rifles of Canada, watching for newspaper articles. I knew that one day I would want to write about these men who faced such terrible odds in unfamiliar terrain and yet who stood fast far longer than could have been expected, only to face four years of captivity in conditions which can only be described as hellish.
During the course of my research the men of C Force became very real to me. I knew what they looked like from photographs and I was close to tears seeing how young some of them were and knowing what happened to them. In researching this book, I travelled to Hong Kong, visiting the battlefields in the Wong Nei Chung Gap and on the Stanley Peninsula. The bungalows which Jack and his platoon took from the Japanese are still there. It was an eerie feeling to see that people lived in these small, nondescript houses where so many men had died.
I am not ashamed to admit that I cried when I went to the cemetery at Sai Wan, where most of the Canadian soldiers are buried, and saw so many names familiar to me from
my research. The cemetery is built on a steep hillside. The Canadians are buried at the base of the slope with a view out over the new skyscrapers to Hong Kong Harbour.
I was very lucky and thankful to be helped in Hong Kong by Tony Banham, who shared his vast knowledge of this period of history and generously gave of his time to walk with me through the rugged terrain where the Canadian soldiers fought and died over seventy years ago. I am eternally grateful that Scholastic Canada has given me the chance to write this book for their I Am Canada series. My hope is that Jack Finnigan’s story can capture some of that experience and ensure that the bravery and suffering of the men of C Force is not forgotten.
* * *
Gillian Chan is the author of such award-winning novels as A Call to Battle, A Foreign Field, An Ocean Apart, Golden Girl and Other Stories and Glory Days and Other Stories.
Other books in the I AM CANADA series
Behind Enemy Lines
World War II
Carol Matas
Blood and Iron
Building the Railway
Paul Yee
A Call to Battle
The War of 1812
Gillian Chan
Deadly Voyage
RMS Titanic
Hugh Brewster
Fire in the Sky
World War I
David Ward
Graves of Ice
The Lost Franklin Expedition
John Wilson
Prisoner of Dieppe
World War II
Hugh Brewster
Shot at Dawn
World War I
John Wilson
Sink and Destroy
The Battle of the Atlantic
Edward Kay
Storm the Fortress
The Siege of Quebec
Maxine Trottier
For more information please see the I AM CANADA website: www.scholastic.ca/iamcanada
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Jack Finnigan is a fictional character created by the author, and his journal is a work of fiction.
Copyright © 2015 by Gillian Chan. All rights reserved.
A Dear Canada Book. Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd.
SCHOLASTIC and I AM CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
www.scholastic.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Chan, Gillian. Author
Defend or die : the siege of Hong Kong / Gillian Chan.
(I am Canada)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4431-1305-2 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-4431-4273-1 (ebook).--
ISBN 978-1-4431-4274-8 (Apple edition)
1. Hong Kong (China)--History--Siege, 1941--Juvenile fiction.
I. Title. II. Series: I am Canada
PS8555.H39243D44 2015 jC813’.54 C2014-905332-0
C2014-905333-9
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First eBook edition: February 2015