The Huron Expositor, 1998-11-04, Page 11a lifetime of freedom
Thirteen branches of Zone C1 were represented Sunday
at a dinner at the Seaforth Legion honouring veterans of
World War One and Two.
CAMPBELL PHOTO
about their Hong Kong the Pacific war. Nuns were
venture.. They arrived in raped and murdered in the
Hong Kong • Sunday. streets. Hospital patients
November 16th, 1941. A were bayoneted and
mere twenty tine .days mutilated in their beds,
before the,Japanese went to nurses were raped on the.
war by attacking Pearl nodies of dead patients.
Harbour. - Hong Kong was truly
Oneday after the Pearl indefensible. And on
Harbour attack Japanese Christmas Day it fell.
aircraft bombed Hong Of the 1975 that sailed on
Kong's Kai Tak airport in the Awatea 557
the $ritish territory south .',died...almost half of them
of the Chinese border. At met death in prisoner of
_about the ,same time war camps.
Japanese soldiers crossed Prime Minister King
into the area on their march under strong pressure from
to Kowloon. They had Canadians. especially from
orders to capture Hong the Premier of Ontario'and
Kong within ten days. much of Canada's press,,
A surprI4l' tta'el[ ntnAktiatillsh{t-tf 'ab official
December 1 1 th' took investigation under Sir
Kowloon with little effort Lyman Duff. chief.
or loss to the Japanese. justice...who was as well a
leaving Hong Kong a mile former political party
across the bay to be, executive member. It was
defended by 11,000'troops to be a one man closed
of the. , empire...from door investigation.
Scotland. Canada and . His report discredited the
charges'maife against the
King government and
stated the soldiers left for
Hong Kong. "well trained
and well equipped."
The Premier sent Mr.
King a 32 page letter
criticizing Duff's report
asserting that • if had
distorted the evidence
placed before the
commission. He called for
a drastic overhaul of the
military and requested that
his letter be tabled in
Parliament. The Prime
Minister refused on the
India.
What Churchill predicted
was about to come true.
The brave but ill-equipped
defenders. no doubt
spurred on by the
desperation of their plight
were stubborn and
tenacious in their
resistance. Having to fight
beyond the ten days
allotted by their
commanders so angered the
Japanese invaders they
.became cruel and vicious.
The result was some of 'the
most savage atrocities of
by honouring
those who
fought for it.
grounds that it would
violate the secrecy of the
Royal Commission. His
"secrecy" ' explanation
brought cynical comments
from critics. and much of
the press.
The Canadian Press
obtained a copy and sent a
seven thousand word
summary of it across
Canada. Papers were told
not to print it .and all.
complied...except the
Winnipeg Tribune. It
printed nine columns of
excerpts. Colonel Drew,
the Ontario Premier who
was severely wounded in
the First War was
threatened by the
government with
prosecution and jail in an
effort to shut him up....but
it failed.
The King Government
stubbornly rode out the
storm ignoring, the claims
of cover up...and sadly for
many Canadian
soldiers....and luckily for
the Prime Minister the
Dieppe, raid came along
and drove the Hong Kong
debacle from the headlines.
However in 1948
Mackenzie King was
forced to release portions
of the Duff report - for
General Maltby. former
British commander in
Hong Kong said publicly,
"The Winnipeg Grenadiers
and the Royal Rifles of
Canada arrived in Hong
Kong inadequately
trained."
No less a person than Bob
McClure. a missionary to
China who could pilot a
plane, a medical doctor
extraordinaire, who later
became the first non
ordained moderator of the
United, Church -of Canada.
fought Mackenzie King,
with the truth....and sadly
and he lost.
It was December 1940.
He was summoned to.
Ottawa because he publicly
criticized the government
for allowing Canadian
nickel to- find it's way to
Japan: For years he had
personally seen the
Japanese invaders
wantonly killing Chinese
civilians and believed they
would one day return the
nickel to us into the bodies
of Canadian soldiers. In'
Munroe Scotts fine
biography of McClure he
tells of the private meeting'
where King admitted large
quantities of Canadian
strategic material was
being exported in the
general direction of Japan
but if McClure did not
make a public apology for
his "error" he would go to
jail. •
King's political
astuteness was , so
obliviously and ashamedly
• shallow for not knowing
the truth of what McClure
was' saying.
Bob McClure was
intimidated into
apologizing for criticizing
the sending of Canadian
nickel to. the Japanese...a
year later at Christmas, the
nickel did come back to us,
killing Canadian soldiers in
Hong Kong.
In Ted Ferguson's
wonderful book Desperate
Siege: The Battle of Hong
Kong, our Canadian -Post
War diplomacy seems to
mirror our wartime
stupidity....in 1970 about
two dozen veterans of the.
Hong Kong expedition
gathered in a hillside
cemetery overlooking the
crown colony to honour
their fallen comrades. A
bugler sounded the last
post and the surviving
veterans bowed their heads
in two minutes silence.
At a reception later the
men were praised as heroic
defenders by a Canadian
official...who then
explained that on their
upcoming visit a few days
hence to the Canadian war
cemetery in Yokohama,
Japan, the Japanese
requested that the veterans
must not wear their
uniforms...and also, the
firing party must leave
their rifles at the airport -
and if they wanted to
honour their dead
comrades with "the last
post" the bugle must be
taken to and from the
cemetery concealed in a
bag.
The Canadian embassy in
Tokyo had agreed to these
requests with an official
commenting... "After all,
,gentlemen, we don't want
to risk offending the
Japanese do we?
Visit. Victoria Park and
look for ,the, name Frank
Casson carved in the
granite - on the
cenotaph....and remember
'him. Frank and I were
schoolmates. He lived on
the corner across from the
old public school.
For over 50 years now he
has been in the hillside
cemetery in Hong Kong to
remind us that the truth
must always be told. We
must learn from the deadly
folly of the light brigade
and the death and stench of
bodies in the fields of
Flanders....as we must
learn from the dead who lie
in Hong Kong. Find out the
truth and tell it, to those
whose right it is to know.
Anything short of the
truth •brings shame and
dishonour to us all in the
eyes of those who did not
come back.
NOVEMBER 11
We must
all remember
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NOVEMBER 11
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