Scout troops lay poppies in honour of those who fought in the Battle of Hong Kong. Since 1947, Canada has been commemorating the country's role in the Battle of Hong Kong at the Sai Wan cemetery. Some 100 people attended Sunday's ceremony, which was scaled back due to COVID-19 restrictions.James Griffiths/The Globe and Mail
“Canada remembers, Hong Kong remembers.”
So said Canadian Consul-General Rachael Bedlington at a ceremony on Sunday to mark 80 years since the Battle of Hong Kong, in which two Canadian regiments fought to defend the now-former British colony against Japanese invasion.
A brief skirmish by D Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers in Kowloon on Dec. 8, 1941, was the first engagement involving any Canadian troops in the Second World War.
In total, 1,975 soldiers from the Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles took part in the battle. Fewer than half of them made it back to Canada: 290 men died in the bloody fight itself, with defenders so outnumbered and outgunned. They were being targeted constantly by Japanese artillery and aerial bombers that one veteran, Sergeant George MacDonell, described it as “a cauldron of hell.”
A further 264 soldiers died in brutal prisoner-of-war camps in Hong Kong and Japan. After the war, multiple former camp administrators were tried for war crimes and executed.
Many of the graves in Hong Kong’s Sai Wan War Cemetery, where Sunday’s ceremony was held, are unnamed, marked only with the designation: “A soldier of the 1939-1945 war, Canadian regiment. Known unto God.”
”The ‘C-Force’ of the Battle of Hong Kong was the first Canadian army unit to engage in combat in World War II,” Ms. Bedlington said. “They were also the last to return home. Those who survived battle [experienced] nearly four years of extreme hardship, disease, malnutrition and mistreatment, watching their friends perish.”
She told the story of Private Urban Leonard Vermette, a Métis from Saskatchewan, who fought with the Grenadiers and spent nearly four years as a prisoner of war. On return to Canada, he re-enlisted to serve in the Korean War.
“He died in 1984 at the age of 64,” Ms. Bedlington said. “We remember him, along with those who fought and died in the battle, and those who fought and sacrificed in other theatres of that terrible conflict.”
Representatives of the diplomatic corps, the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, and various Canadian civil society and business groups were among those who attended the ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Hong Kong.James Griffiths/The Globe and Mail
Canada has been commemorating the country’s role in the Battle of Hong Kong at the Sai Wan cemetery since 1947. Some 100 people attended Sunday’s ceremony, which was scaled back because of coronavirus restrictions. Attendees included representatives of the diplomatic corps, the Hong Kong and Chinese governments and various Canadian civil society and business groups.
Children from Canadian international schools sang Canada’s national anthem, and read, in French and English, from John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Fields.
Leading the memorial prayer, Reverend John Chynchen connected the memory of the soldiers to those who survive them today. ”May you also grant consolation and comfort to their families and to all those who still suffer the painful memories of war and conflict,” he said. “May we be inspired by their gift of self-sacrifice and honour their memories by the continuing pursuit of democracy.”
Hong Kong was not a democracy in 1941, nor for many years after the British retook the city in 1945. What progress had been made toward full universal suffrage and greater representation in recent years has been reversed. Since 2020, changes have been adopted to reduce popular representation in the city’s parliament and to restrict who can stand for election.
”We pray for Hong Kong and we pray for all the countries that are represented here on this holy site,” Rev. Chynchen said. “We pray for their protection, their peace and also prosperity. We pray for their respective leaders, that you will provide them courage, integrity and great wisdom in their duties and responsibilities. Beyond all, let us always be peace makers for the world today.”
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James Griffiths