The Valour and the Horror

 

Background

The Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles, soldiers with so little training that they had been classified "unfit for combat", set sail from Vancouver, anticipating the adventure of their lives. In their innocence, some had even lied about their age to get enlisted. They had no idea of where they were going or what their mission would be, and they arrived at Hong Kong on November 16, l941, six weeks before the colony was to celebrate its centennial.

Canadian Troops Arrive in Honk Kong Six Weeks Before the Japanese Attack

The British fleet had gone, leaving l0,000 Commonwealth troops to defend two million people. The British reduced the Japanese to racial caricatures: only 5,000 troops, with very little artillery support, ill equipped and not used to night fighting. The contempt continued: their aircraft were obsolete, their pilots mediocre and unable to dive bomb because of poor eyesight, and it would be impossible for them to cross the half-mile of water between Kowloon and the heavily defended island, since they were prone to seasickness.

They were wrong. The Japanese attacked with 10 times as many men: 50,000 battle-ready, experienced soldiers, with superior weapons and training. The advance which British intelligence estimated would take one week took the Japanese 12 hours. The line that could be held for several weeks was taken in a few hours. The Canadians took the last boat from the mainland to the island. Private John Gray was captured and executed by the Japanese on December 13, 1941, to become a footnote in history: the first Canadian infantryman to die in combat in World War Two.

Both sides believed that the island of Hong Kong was an impregnable fortress, the Japanese aware of the legend that Hong Kong was a strong castle which would take l00 years to destroy. Nonetheless, the Japanese began a five-day artillery assault on the island. And while the defenders expected and were ready for an attack from the sea, the Japanese only had to cross the harbour, which they did on December 18 -- at night.

When one soldier telephoned the British to announce that the Japanese had landed, he was told: "That's impossible. You must be dreaming." Nonetheless, running out of food and ammunition, and "outnumbered 50 to one," according to Bob Manchester the Commonwealth held out for four and a half days. Of the 7,500 men attacking, the Japanese suffered 800 casualties. Their field commander was forced to apologize to headquarters for having so much difficulty against so few resistors.

As they were captured, Canadians asked if they could bring the wounded, but were told "no". Eventually, the bayoneted bodies of these men were found in a nearby stream.

St. Stephen's College, a private school on the island, served as a temporary field hospital. Bob Clayton one of the hundred patients, arrived two days before Christmas. He had been wounded in both legs. Walking through the college as he recounts this savage Christmas, he is still visibly haunted by these events.

At 5 a.m. on Christmas morning, the Japanese took the hospital. The doctors greeted them, ready to surrender. They were killed. Then the soldiers began bayoneting the patients. A nurse tried to stop them, but she was dragged away. The survivors were taken to a dormitory, where one after another, they were tortured and dismembered. Five of the nurses were raped and killed, and 63 patients were murdered.

A number of captives, including Manchester and Clayton, were spared, but the order was to take no prisoners. At 3 p.m. on December 25, Hong Kong officially surrendered to the Japanese.

The following day, the Japanese marched the prisoners through the city. Many were relieved that the fighting was over, but many of those surviving would come to envy the dead as they spent the following years in POW camps.

Working as slave labor and living on a daily ration of rice and water, many prisoners of war succumbed to disease, malnutrition, or the vicious beatings by guards. A total of 266 Canadian POW's died in Japan before they were liberated by the Americans in September, 1945.

Manchester and Clayton return to the camps where they spent the remainder of the War. Manchester remembers Niigata where, on New Year's Eve, 1943, 16 men were crushed to death, when their flimsy barracks roof fell in under the weight of snow. Clayton spent two and half years in Kawasaki, where he was forced to build war ships for the Nippon Kokan Corporation. He meets with representatives from Nippon Kokan, who deny any knowledge of forced Canadian labor during the war.

While both Canadians are offered the opportunity to meet with Japanese Hong Kong vets, only Manchester does so. Clayton, who so bravely returned to St. Stephen's, cannot face the possibility of meeting with a soldier who may have been responsible for the carnage he survived on Christmas Day, 1941.