Chapter 3
18 Days of War
Hong Kong and New Territories
The morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, became etched in our historical record when the Japanese attacked the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor. Generally overlooked in discussions of that day in history is the fact that at the same time – the pre-dawn hours of Monday, December 8, Hong Kong time – Japanese forces crossed the Chinese border and invaded the British colony. But unlike the complete surprise of Pearl Harbor, the attack on Hong Kong had been long anticipated.
In the week prior to the commencement of fighting, defences on both the mainland and the Island of Hong Kong were elevated to a state of readiness.[223] On December 6th a warning was issued of impending war and officers were told to keep in touch with their Battalion headquarters.[224] On Sunday the 7th the commanding officer of the colony forces, Major General Maltby, came to the conclusion that war was imminent. At 1100 hours orders were issued for the whole garrison to move to their battle positions.[225] However, it appears that the level of threat was not passed on down the chain of command. The Canadian Signal Officer, Captain Billings, inquired if the order had any special significance and was told, “No.” [226]
That evening Capt. Billings moved from Sham Shui Po and occupied private quarters in Knight St.[Kowloon]. All arrangements for the manning were complete, radio frequencies allotted and personnel and equipment ready.[227]
Billings and the Canadian Signals formed the “Kowloon Infantry Brigade Signal Section” and were responsible for mainland communication. This included telephone exchanges with circuits to artillery batteries and the infantry battalions (Royal Scots, Rajputs, and Punjabis) deployed along the “Gin Drinkers Line” on the Chinese frontier. The signals operation was conducted from Mainland Headquarters at Waterloo Road in Kowloon.
On the Island, Brigadier Lawson situated his headquarters in concrete shelters at Wong Nei Chong Gap. Signals personnel were there for communications support.[228] By evening, the duty signaller was testing the telephone lines between Brigade Headquarters and the battalion headquarters of the Winnipeg Grenadiers at Wan Chai Gap and the Royal Rifles at Tai Tam Gap.[229] The two Canadian units had moved most of their men from the mainland along with Brigade Headquarters. This left only small rear parties at Sham Shui Po: the battalions’ first reinforcements, the baggage parties under the unit quartermasters, arranging for the shipment of unit stores and baggage to Hong Kong, and some R.C.C.S. personnel who were attached to H.Q. Kowloon Inf. Bde.[230]
The Canadian Military Headquarters report on “Canadian Participation in the Defence of Hong Kong” provides the official description of how the war with Japan began:
At 0550 hours on Monday, 8 Dec 41 (1720 hours Sunday, 7 Dec, Ottawa time), H.Q. China Command received word through Naval channels that war had broken out with Japan. All defence services were warned. At 0745 hours Kai Tak Airport was dive-bombed. The attacking force consisted of 45 single-seater fighters with forward guns. All R.A.F. and civilian aircraft were caught on the ground and virtually destroyed….The enemy air attack was then directed on the Sham Shui Po area, which was bombed and machine gunned. The Jubilee Buildings were hit and two R.C. Sigs signalmen were wounded. These were the first casualties sustained by “C” Force.[231]
The two signalmen were Bud Fairley and Sgt. Ron Routledge, who had shrapnel wounds in his back, shin, thigh and forearm. [232] In a post-war interview, Routledge described the situation:
It was pretty confusing you know because everybody realized they had to get out of the barracks and…they brought in some trucks and people started getting up on the trucks and very few people, if any others knew that this other chap and I were, had been wounded, and so they were sort of saying, “goodbye” and “you’ll be in another truck” sort of thing, you know. But that didn’t happen and they all left the Shamshuipo barracks and I wouldn’t be altogether sure where they all went at that particular time but certainly it was, or someone realized that we were in trouble in that shell hole and came and got us and took us to the Bowen Road Hospital in Hong Kong.[233]
When the attack began, Blacky Verreault was in the Jubilee Building barracks. He recorded the event in his diary:
We were lounging on the balcony when Walt [Jenkins] noticed some thirty airplanes overhead then “shit, they’re dropping something…those are bombs Blackie,” said he staring skyward, his mouth open. The first bomb demolished the guard house, the second made an enormous crater in our parade ground, the third smashed the corner of our building while the fourth fell smack in the middle of it. What a blast. We were almost blown off the balcony. We just then realized that this was not just some simple British exercise. I packed my things and hopped in a truck that took us to the hills.[234]
Gerry Gerrard had just finished breakfast and was operating one of the temporary wireless sets out on the parade square. He saw the bombs fall and the barracks being hit. Then orders came in to move immediately to the pre-determined manning stations.
…the truck just rolled up and we threw our stuff on – we were gone. Trouble is we had no personal stuff with us.…[235]
Normally we would have our equipment mounted on trucks, but in Hong Kong we were delivered to our destination and given a good luck wave.[236]
Four trucks had been provided for transporting the No.11 wireless sets and their operators out to the battalions on the mainland.[237] One took the dispatch riders to the Ordnance Depot on the Island where they got their motorcycles and then returned to the mainland.[238]
Early in the morning, the infantry battalions of the Mainland Brigade had taken up their positions with the Royals Scots on the left, the Punjabs in the centre and the Rajputs on the right. By 0900 hours the Japanese forces were confirmed to be attacking all along the border.[239] Lance Corporal Mel Keyworth, Signalman Gerry Gerrard and another Signals operator were assigned to the Royal Scots,[240]while Lance Corporal Bob Acton and Signalmen Howie Naylor and Tony Grimston were with the Rajputs.[241] The dispatch riders (Don Beaton, Bob Damant, Jim Mitchell, Lee Speller, and Ernie Thomas – minus Wally Normand who was in Bowen Road hospital recovering from appendicitis[242]) began a message service between Mainland Headquarters and the Island.[243] L/Cpl. Mitchell:
I was distributing. I would get guys like Thomas and different guys, they were all up there at Kowloon, they were going down with messages to the docks and picking them up from the ferry coming across. It struck me, if I remember right, that we were doing that because they didn’t want to send any messages by radio…because the Nips would pick them up. So there were a lot of dispatches from Hong Kong Headquarters across the ferry where our guys would pick them up and deliver to an officer on the mainland.[244]
The four linemen (Jenkins, Kurluk, Squires and Verreault) were assigned to assist the Royal Signals in keeping the mainland telephone lines operational.[245] In his personal war diary, Signalman Ray Squires wrote:
I spent the first 7 days of the war on the mainland, during which time I had the privildge [sic] of working under close shell fire. Particularly at a place called Sha Tin Pass [along the Gin Drinkers Line], I and a Royal Sig., Bill McCormick, volunteered for the job. When the first shell whistled over it seemed very close and I laid down. I couldn’t tell their distance by the whine then. However, before the morning was over we were just on the edge of their shrap[nel] spray….
We slept on floors and in trenches and ate hard tack and bully [beef].[246]
Blacky Verreault also recorded his observations of those first few days:
I’ve been in the hills since Wednesday [Dec. 10] with two Chinamen and a truck. I’ve worked like a demon. I only slept one night since. How stupid can war be. Unfortunately, we only realize it when we’re in it.
A lineman must work even at night which means that he risks being shot by both sides, what fun! The Nips continue to bomb us and twice we were blinded and buried by mounds of dirt from their explosions. To top it all, nothing to eat but a few cookies, hard as rock, and equally delicious.[247]
The other two linemen, Walter Jenkins and Ted Kurluk, were also out on the front line. At one point they were laying a telephone cable from a pillbox on the Gin Drinkers Line to an outlying building. Working in the dark, it wasn’t until they reached their objective that they learned the area was occupied by Japanese snipers.[248] In a 1983 interview, Jenkins was asked, “What did you do (during the battle)?”
Mainly running. Running in the dark, it seemed like to me mostly. Even this friend of mine, Ted Kurluk and I….He was another telephone lineman. Him and I one night, we laid some telephone lines through the Japanese lines in the dark.
Of course we didn’t know that until after….Like, we could hear Japanese machine-guns going but we – the only time I ever heard a machine gun going was, you know, in the movies with Humphrey Bogart or somebody like that, you see. I heard these Japanese machine-guns, they pop very slowly you know – pump, pump, pump – compared to a Vickers which is very fast. I heard these but I was more interested in getting this telephone line in.…[249]
Tony Grimston had been stationed in a ravine with a Rajput platoon on the first day of the battle. He then moved up to the Gin Drinkers Line.
His task had involved sitting in a dry ditch, transmitting coded radio messages to Fortress Headquarters. The Rajputs had stood between him and the Japanese, but by the sound of small-arms fire, the enemy was closing in and he was likely to be in the midst of a battle. Before the Japanese arrived, Grimston had been ordered to retreat. He had “borrowed” a ’28 Chevy from a farmyard and driven to Kowloon.[250]
Signalman Will Allister was in a hospital on the Island when the Japanese began their attack. He later wrote:
Day 1. A war on?...with me lying feverish in a malaria ward of Bowen Rd hospital…sunny room, clean sheets, friendly British nurses…calm, peaceful, marred only by the air-raid siren, that haunting wail of a witches’ chorus unleashing curses on the world. Then…beds filling up around me with wounded…blood, bandages, pain – the real thing.[251]
The need for beds to treat wounded meant that he was soon discharged. He found his way back to the Signals headquarters in Kowloon where the situation was growing more tense by the hour.
First one attack after another on our Gin Drinkers Line – our Maginot – built to hold back the hordes. Cracking. Crumbling. Our D.R.s speeding back and forth returning white-lipped with images: “Thousands of ‘em! Pouring in! – crazy suicidal bastards – racing into the wall of Brens and Lewises –the barrels going steady – gettin’ too hot to handle – they drop and die and pile up in a hill of dead and keep on coming – climbing over the dead screaming their murderous BANZAIAI!![252]
Dispatch rider Speller was working out of Mainland Brigade Headquarters:
…every trip you took your life was threatened….And of course we were on duty 24 hours a day….You just grabbed a sleep if you could, if you could make arrangements for somebody else to get two or four hours in, and then of course we had to do our duty at our headquarters up on Waterloo Road. We were on the Kowloon side, first, hoping to hold them back. But, oh, every time when I went up with a message it was, retreat, retreat, withdraw, withdraw.…[253]
Three days into the battle, the Japanese forces had advanced close to Kowloon and the channel separating the mainland from the Island of Hong Kong. The heavy artillery shelling that had up to now been focused on mainland targets was starting to reach the Island. Shells landed in and around Victoria, including the vicinities of Fortress Headquarters and Bowen Road Military Hospital.
At noon on Tuesday, December 11, China Command issued orders to evacuate the mainland and withdraw most troops to the Island, leaving the Rajputs to cover the retreat from positions on Devil’s Peak Peninsula.[254] All available Signals vehicles were to be loaded with instruments and equipment not required for immediate use and “ordered to the Island by the first available ferry in the early hours of the morning.”[255]
Back in Canada, newspaper and radio stories across the country reported the declaration of war with Japan and the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong. The presence of Canadian troops in the British colony was confirmed but no official statement had been issued as to which units were involved in the fighting. In fact, this was not confirmed by Ottawa until after the surrender. However, information had been getting back to Canada through both personal communication and government channels and, inevitably, found its way into the press. The Kingston Whig-Standardon December 10 reported:
Queen’s Man in Hong Kong
At least one Queen’s graduate is in Hong Kong, university officials revealed today. He is Capt. G.M. Billings who graduated in electrical engineering in 1936.
Capt. Billings, a member of the signals corps, was recently married to Mary Graham, daughter of Prof. and Mrs. Stanley Graham of 11 Kennsington Ave.
Mrs. Billings said she had received a cable from her husband, reporting his safe arrival in Hong Kong.[256]
The next day a Canadian Press story reported:
The first casualties to be suffered among Canadian soldiers defending Hong Kong – the wounding of two men – were announced yesterday by Defence Minister Ralston.
The casualties were: Sergeant Ronald John Routledge of Forest, Man. and Signalman John Lloyd Frederick Fairley of Port Alberni, B.C.
The Defence Department announcement said the men were “slightly wounded.”
Both men were members of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals.[257]
While accurate in reporting the first casualties, Canadian media reports didn’t reflect the magnitude of the Japanese advance and how quickly the mainland defences had been falling. Signal Corps families, if they even knew their relatives were in Hong Kong, were given little preparation for what was to unfold in the days ahead.
In spite of official communiqués to the contrary, the confidence of China Command, and in particular Major General Maltby, was clearly shaken by the early Japanese successes. The Royal Rifles war diary for December 11 recorded: “The officers of the new Brigade staff were in a highly nervous state and apparently very tired.”[258] Historian Terry Copp offers the following assessment: “Something very close to panic set in during the evacuation, not among the troops or even the civilian population, but at Fortress Headquarters.”[259] He might, however, have misrepresented the state of mind of the troops and civilians, as other writers, including men who were there, have described a different situation.
…for hundreds of soldiers, the evacuation became a chaotic, near frantic scramble to avoid being butchered.[260]
Orders: Wed. Withdraw. Withdraw. People in Kowloon going berserk – feeling the first hot breath of the Rising Sun.
Orders: Thurs. EVACUATE EVERYTHING, i.e. get the hell outa here! Easier said than done.[261]
In the evening, the surviving Royal Scots and the Canadians embark for the Island at Sham Shui Po Barracks and the Jordan Road ferry terminal. It is, not to mince words, a rout.[262]
The official Force “C” Signal Report described the evacuation as follows:
On the evacuation of the mainland, all Sigs Stores at Mainland HQ were dismantled and loaded. WT detachments were told to evacuate with equipment if possible, otherwise to destroy them. The set at customs pass was the only one lost. The unit to which it was attached was forced to retire to DEVILS PEAK and it was impossible to take it. The set was destroyed.
As soon as the warning order to evacuate was received at the Mainland HQ, all Sigs personnel and equipment not essential to the operation were sent under command of Sgt Sharp to the vehicular ferry (0-4 hours). They were given orders to reassemble at CASA BIANCA, DEEP WATER BAY. Sgt. Sharp was ordered to return if possible with the transport. At the ferry the O i/c [Officer in Command] embarkation said that there was no time to unload vehicles so equipment and transport went over together. Sgt Sharp however would not go. He desired to return and if possible pick up some transport to remove the remaining Sigs personnel. He was prevented from doing this by fifth column activities, and eventually crossed the harbour, after nightfall, in a sampon [sic], whose crew he forced to obey him, at the point of his tommy gun. He had had several brushes with enemy agents, and reported that he had shot some of them.
At zero hour the remaining Sigs and HQ personnel moved out from Bde HQ with a convoy and proceeded to Kai Tak pier where ferries were waiting to evacuate all personnel to Devils Peak and remaining foothold on the mainland. The convoy was fired on in a Chinese village Kowloon-Tong. No casualties. At Kaitak Capt Billings asked Brig. Wallis if he and his personnel could attempt to get the vehicles from Kaitak to the vehicular ferry, rather than abandon the vehicles there. (Devils Peak was already manned by Sigs personnel). Permission was granted.
With motorcycle outriders the vehicles (about 4 or 5 cars & trucks and 6 M/C’s) proceeded as fast as possible without lights (40 mph) to the ferry. Some firing was encountered and returned but no attempt was made to engage. All vehicles arrived with no casualties, were embarked and proceeded to the island.[263]
Another account of the evacuation is recorded in the History of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals:
Cpl. Charles Sharp had been ordered to evacuate a group of non-essential men and vehicles from the Kowloon Headquarters on 13 December. This entailed a drive to the ferry terminal through surprisingly heavy guerilla opposition. His charges safely aboard the ferry, Corporal Sharp attempted to return to the headquarters to report to Captain Billings. In this endeavour he was turned back by stiffening enemy opposition, and failed to get through even on foot. The remainder of the day he spent helping to engage enemy patrols. Eventually he crossed to the Island on a sampan whose crew he intimidated with his sub-machine gun. Some RCCS operators attached to the Royal Scots drove commandeered buses to assist in the evacuation of their position.
At zero hour the remaining Signals and Headquarters personnel moved to the Kai Tak airport shoreline where small boats were waiting to evacuate them to Devil’s Peak. When it became apparent to Captain Billings that the Brigade Headquarters transport and Signals motorcycles could not be evacuated, and were likely to fall into Japanese hands, he searched about for means of saving them. Brigadier Wallis agreed that Signals would not be needed at Devil’s Peak which had line communications and permission was granted for volunteers to attempt a run to the vehicular ferry which would take them to the Island….With motorcycle outriders, the half dozen cars and trucks loaded with Signals stores turned and raced to the dock through enemy-held territory in total blackout with only minor damage from enemy fire.[264]
Two Signals who were there have provided a more personal slant on the events of December 11-12. Gerry Gerrard recalled:
I went over to the Island when they started to withdraw down [to the dock] to evacuate and a British officer grabbed me and said, “Take that truck onto the ferry and get it over to the Island.”…
Keyworth was given a bus, a double-decker bus to drive. You’d have thought they’d have got a British guy to drive but they didn’t, they got him. And he had a bunch of guys in there I gather, but he didn’t know how to drive it. He shoved it into one gear and just left it and drove the whole way in that gear…didn’t even know what gear it was. I remember him telling me that.[265]
Will Allister:
Loading our heavy No. 11 sets on two trucks,…Trucks dashing by, brakes screeching…wounded limping down from the hills, dazed, disoriented – our Chinese driver thrown out by a British officer who drove off yelling: “Need it for wounded!”…
“Aircraft overhead!”
“Lie flat!”
“We’ll bust our ribs!”
“Better than getting your head blown off! We’re going through town and it’s lousy with fifth column!”
Sirens wailing, truck jolting, bouncing, horn blasting. Blacky cursing, bombs crashing.…Black smoke.…People running in blind terror in opposite directions…
“Look!” Hank pointing to three men reclining on a bench, relaxed, serene, grotesque, no wounds visible. My first dead men. Demant [sic] pronouncing: “Concussion.”…
The Kowloon docks at last. With Hong Kong and safety across the water. Leaping down and quickly drowning in a churning sea of jostling, shouting bodies. Terror and madness, trembling in the air. Sharpe [sic] returning for the others, Blacky and Greenberg diving through the mob with a Tommy Gun to find a Boat. Orders: Destroy everything not portable….
Blacky and Hank were back, breathless. “Les’ go! Two men to a set – smash de rest!” Staggering, straining …through the thickening crush – mothers dragging children – shouting for lost ones – strange uniforms, frantic schoolgirls, dialects, turbans, bedlam – then onto the boat – sprawling, exhausted.…[266]
On the Devil’s Peak peninsula, the Punjab and Rajput troops had been fighting a rearguard action gradually moving south toward Ly Mun Passage. Orders had been given for linemen to maintain the telephone lines during the evacuation.[267] Walt Jenkins was there, as was Ray Squires who recorded the events of the withdrawal in his diary:
We made two evacuations, going back a second time at night on a sam pan to establish communications for an Indian battalion which was to fight the rearguard action as we all evacuated to the island.
…2 a.m., 6 of us in said sam pan. A Chinese rowing (We’d forced him), a lovely warm night. Our troops sent over M.G. fire thinking we were prowlers, while a searchlight tried to pick us up. We were too low in the water and he failed.
We went back again the next morning on another sam pan and the Japs never fired on us, though they could see us. Four of us worked hard all day, set com [communications], then we were all chased out in a hurry at dawn the next morning. Three days of no sleep or food except a few bisc[uits]and a cup of tea I bummed from some Punjabis. Oh yes, the last trip [back to the Island] was on a launch, every inch of space crowded with Indians.[268]
With the mainland left to the Japanese, the Island prepared for a siege and the inevitable attack and invasion. Maltby divided the defending force into East and West Brigades: the Rajputs and Royal Rifles of Canada on the eastern side; the Punjabs, Royal Scots and Winnipeg Grenadiers in the west, commanded by Canadian Brigadier John Lawson.[269]
At 0900 hours on Saturday, December 13, the Japanese sent a boat under a white flag across the harbour.[270] The three officers on board carried a letter demanding the surrender of the Colony, threatening “severe artillery and aerial bombardment in the event of a refusal.”[271] Governor Sir Mark Young sent back the following message:
He acknowledges the spirit in which this communication is made but he is unable in any circumstances to hold any meeting or parley on the subject of the surrender of Hong Kong.[272]
Within 24 hours the shelling had begun in earnest.
Upon arriving on the Island the night before, the Signals contingent had moved to the Island Signal Pool, at the villa Casa Bianca near Deep Water Bay.
A hot meal was prepared, the first since the war started and the men had a sleep, most of them having had no chance to sleep throughout. Sgt. Sharp reported the following morning. [273]
Will Allister later wrote:
We were led into a dimly lit house…to sleep on the floor of some room, minds and bodies abuzz…swapping news stories… Sharpe [sic] got across on a sampan after dark…Beaton on his motorbike waylaid by fifth columnists and barely escaping…my mind a surreal swamp of smashed trucks, sitting corpses, running coolies shot down, enveloping crowds – was all this really happening?...Darkness…Silent thoughts…Jenkins querulous voice: “D’y’ think we’ll ever get outa here alive?” A long pause. Penny’s quiet voice at last drifting through the dark. “Can’t see how.”
And so to sleep.[274]
They awoke the next morning to discover the pleasures of their fine accommodation. Again, Will Allister:
I was lying on a soft carpet under a gleaming baby grand piano. Morning sunlight sparkled through huge windows. Tall portraits adorned the walls and a stately chandelier hung above me from the beamed ceiling. Soldiers slept on their kits between fine leather furniture. A bloody palace!...
Hank [Greenberg] and I wandered about, finding Jenkins shaving. “Six showers, if you please!”
Demant [sic] was in the library, languidly draped in a large leather chair, puffing a cigar. “I’m stayin’. Need a nice quiet place to retire.”[275]
But their encounter with luxury was to be short-lived. The next day, Capt. Billings with about fourteen of his unit moved to West Brigade Headquarters at Wong Nei Chong Gap and set up a signal office. No. 11 wireless sets and operators were sent to the Grenadiers’ headquarters at Wan Chai Gap and the Punjab headquarters in the city of Victoria. One set was retained at West Brigade H.Q. and another held in reserve at the Signal Pool at Casa Bianca, along with reserve operators and the Canadian dispatch riders who had joined forces with their British counterparts. Existing telephone line communications and dispatch rider service were maintained.[276]
At Wong Nei Chong Gap the Signals occupied cement pillboxes dug into the hillside.
Triple bunks lined three walls with a steel slot in the fourth for machine guns. A long narrow air vent above the centre bunks brought sand and pebbles shooting down when a shell or bomb landed….It was a cozy, stuffy, smoky little igloo offering a false sense of security. Rations were drawn from Grenadier lines across the road. Duties: four hour shifts on a telephone exchange and the No. 11 radio sets.[277]
Although the Japanese had not yet begun their invasion of the Island, they escalated the aerial bombing and artillery shelling of targets across the water from their mainland positions. Blacky Verreault described it as, “being bombed continuously. Rather monotonous din!”[278] It seemed as if using the wireless sets brought an immediate barrage. Signals operator Bob Acton remembered one incident:
We set up our wireless antenna and everything and a plane saw that damn thing or might have seen a soldier around it, but he let a bomb go. We were inside at the time – in the house – and when we came out it had blown a hole in the yard where the antenna and guy wires – it had all been in grass – it was only dirt and the bomb had cleared it all. So we got out of there in case he came back again. I think they used a [radio] direction finder.[279]
Tony Grimston and his group of operators were ordered to keep changing their location so Japanese artillery could not get a fix on their position.[280] Dispatch rider Speller recalled:
…we were going to our boys that were scattered in the various areas, you know, important areas where there are telephones and radios that set up. Within half an hour after they’d set them up, the Japs had us, they were shelling the place...the Japs knew more about the Island than we did.[281]
Early in the morning of Tuesday, December 16, a group of Signals including Blacky Verreault moved to a large house south of Victoria near one of the defence batteries. His diary entry for that day recorded his observations and thoughts:
We enjoy watching the bombs fall and miss the target [the battery]. It’s the surrounding areas that are hit and we’re in the surrounding areas….
We have just been showered by numerous bombs which have shaken our house to its foundations, plaster flying everywhere. Only one direct hit to make me a “has been”. Just the same, we hang in. The Japs are now half a mile in front of us with only the water separating us….
Whatever they say, the whistling of bombs has something thrilling about it. Really, war will make a man brave if it doesn’t kill him. I really thought I would be more frightened. Each bomb whistling and exploding gives me the sensation of a roller coaster ride. Obviously, if I came too close to an explosion, the sensation would be somewhat spoiled.[282]
At 0930 hours on December 17, a second surrender request was sent by the Japanese, along with an offer of truce until 1600 hours. The response was swift and direct:
His Excellency declines most absolutely to enter into any negotiations for the surrender of Hong Kong and he takes this opportunity of notifying Lt.-General Takashi Sakai and Vice-Admiral Masaichi Mimi that he is not prepared to receive any further communication from them on the subject.[283]
The Japanese were “genuinely surprised and disconcerted” at the rejection and within twenty-four hours the threat of more indiscriminate bombing and shelling (beyond military targets) was made good. A sitrep (situation report) of events up to 1900 hours on the 18thnoted that morning and afternoon air raids had dropped over 100 bombs, “the highest number to date.”[284] Dive bombing attacks were carried out on government and military objectives with both Stanley Barracks in the east and Murray Barracks in Victoria sustaining damage.
Road communications in Victoria became a serious problem as tram cables were smashed and water mains were broken. Signals communications were maintained with difficulty because of the cutting of land lines and even of buried cables.[285]
The intensity of bombing and shelling was particularly noticeable along the eastern part of the north shore of the Island, and at approximately 2000 hours on December 18 the invasion was underway.
Wave after wave of Japanese forces landed on the Island, quickly overcoming coastal defence positions and moving inland. Within four hours all the invasion force had landed[286]and had fanned out to the east and west, moving up the valleys toward the centre of the Island. Early in the morning of the 19ththey were approaching Wong Nei Chong Gap (the location of West Brigade Headquarters) and Tai Tam Gap, where East Brigade Headquarters was situated.[287]
At West Brigade HQ Brigadier Lawson had begun the destruction of non-essential files and documents. By dawn, preparations were being made to move to a new headquarters location on Black’s Link, the road connecting Wong Nei Chong Gap and Wan Chai Gap to the northwest.[288] At about 0700 hours Lawson reported that his headquarters location was surrounded and soon Japanese forces controlled strategic areas to the northeast and east of his position.[289]
In the Signals shelter at Wong Nei Chong Gap those early hours of December 19 were extremely busy, as messages were sent and received on both wireless and telephone sets and dispatch riders were sent off with communications for officers at headquarters positions in other locations on the Island. Gerry Gerrard recalled:
I was dispatching guys out and sending them different places….Like Ernie Thomas was killed there….Billings told me, he says send a dispatch rider down to the front line and so I asked for a volunteer, which I didn’t get – I can remember now, I got some straws and cut a short one and said O.K. pick out, and Ernie was the one that picked out and I noticed at the time that he was the only guy who was married with kids, and that’s the last we saw of him.[290]
Ernie Thomas, who celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday on December 2nd, was one of over eighty Canadians killed in action that day.
About the same time, dispatch rider Speller was at Fortress Headquarters in Victoria being given a sealed envelope to take to Lawson at West Brigade HQ. Getting on his BSA 500 he set off but soon encountered heavy sniper fire. When his rear tire was shot out he continued on foot and finally arrived at his destination accompanied by some Winnipeg Grenadiers who were in the vicinity.
Inside the pillbox, the rider was surprised to see Lawson treat the message [to evacuate] without any great concern. Given a cup of hot cocoa Speller sat in a corner and listened as two officers, Staff Sergeant Tom Barton and Sergeant Tony Phillips, tried to persuade the C/O to pull out immediately. “In a little while,” Lawson said briskly. “I’m not finished here yet.”[291]
At 0930 the two NCOs attempted to evacuate, but Phillips was killed and Barton seriously wounded. Thirty minutes later, Lawson tried to leave for Black’s Link but was killed by machine gun fire.[292]
Sniping by Japanese soldiers and Chinese fifth column was a constant danger for the dispatch riders, who were eventually sent out in pairs.[293] Rider Don Beaton later told of one trip when he and his partner came over a hill side by side and his companion was shot dead by the Japanese soldiers who were lining the hillside.[294]
At Wong Nei Chong Gap, the Japanese ground attack was supported by heavy shelling. By 1000 hours when Lawson made his move, most of the Signals contingent had been evacuated, leaving Capt. Billings, a dispatch rider and an operator.[295] Bob Acton described his experience that morning:
I can remember we just woke up one morning and they were starting to shell that place up the hill – Wong Nei Chong Gap. And the shelling started this particular morning and we packed up all our stuff and got our guns and continued on the road that went along there – and that went to Aberdeen. At Aberdeen there’s a hospital and one of the guys I was with – and Don Beaton was there too – and we went in there and I said I’ve got to take a leak and when I came back my gun was gone – my .303. And nearby was one of the Sgt. Majors of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, and he said to one of his guys, “give him your gun, you don’t need it.” I think he was the driver or something.[296]
With Lawson having given the “every man for himself” order, the withdrawal toward Black’s Link became a scene of disorganized confusion. Will Allister wrote about his emotions of the moment: “Fear…so weakening the rifle itself felt heavy.… RUN! Forward? Backward? Right? Left?” He and fellow operators George Grant and Wes White eventually found each other and over the next day gradually worked their way to Aberdeen.[297] Gerry Gerrard remembered retreating past Lawson’s bunker with a few other Signals including Don Beaton who had been wounded on his hand. “He couldn’t hold his revolver,” Gerry said, “So he took a rifle instead.” Gerry also recalled that John Little was one of the few who stayed while the rest withdrew.[298]
The History of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals describes more of the action that day:
Brigade troops were part way up the hill in rear of the position when they were fired upon from a pill box which they had believed to be in our hands. Each man crawled and fought his way up the exposed slope towards the intended new headquarters to the southwest. During one period, Corporal Sharp and his men held a vital road position on their own initiative, stalling the Japanese advance in that sector until relieved by a larger force.[299]
Around mid-day, Billings and the remaining headquarters staff made their evacuation attempt. There were more casualties, including the Captain who suffered wounds to his right knee and right arm.[300] He made his way back into one of the shelters and was found the next day by Lt. Blackwood, Winnipeg Grenadiers, who was conducting a search for survivors.[301] After dark, Billings and Capt. Bush of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps drove an abandoned vehicle to the Grenadiers’ Headquarters at Wan Chai Gap where they reported in by telephone to Island Command and spent the night in an Advanced Dressing Station (ADS).[302]
By the afternoon of December 19 Japanese advances had placed the Island Signal Pool at Casa Bianca in jeopardy, so the order was given to withdraw to Wan Chai Gap and occupy a house on Coombe Road.[303] A number of the Signals from West Brigade Headquarters had also moved to that location joining their fellow Canadians who moved from Casa Bianca. Equipment was set up in a room at the front of the house, and communication links established. The area was experiencing a heavy artillery barrage and one of the shells scored a direct hit on the house, killing four and severely wounding four more.[304] Canadians Charlie Sharp, Hank Greenberg and Bob Damant were killed. Bud Fairley and James Horvath were wounded and transported to Bowen Road Hospital. Both later succumbed to their wounds. Damant, Greenberg and Sharp were buried there at 526 Coombe Road.[305] Dispatch rider Wally Normand remembered being on the burial detail for his friend, Bob Damant, who he had joined up with in Montreal in July, 1940. They wrapped the bodies in gunny sacks and put them in a common grave.[306]
Tony Grimston escaped serious injury even though he was operating a radio in the next room when the shell hit.[307]Gerry Gerrard had just walked into the house. He was knocked down by the concussion and stumbled out covered in dust and debris. Mel Keyworth ran down the hill to get some help, and Gerry remembered, “patching guys up and sending them out, but I didn’t know who they were. I knew Fairley because he called me by name.”[308] Rolly D’Amours later wrote:
I was placed on guard duty around the house for an hour. There was continuous shelling coming from the north, and when I was relieved from guard duty, I decided I would sleep on the south side of the house because I figured I would be safer there than on the north side.
I crossed the room on the north side and was just coming into the room on the south side when a 9.2 shell crashed through the north wall and exploded right in the middle of the sleeping men. The blast threw me forward and my head slammed into a wall so hard that it broke the straps inside of my steel helmet, and gave me a terrible headache.
I tried to go through the room on the north side to get medical help, but the dust was so thick and the screams of the dying men so horrible that it was like going through hell.[309]
Will Allister arrived at Wan Chai Gap the next day.
…we found the Signals billeted in a house basement. Grimston, Rose, Gerard [sic], Speller, D’Amours – faces pale and gloomy but a joy to behold. My unit at last – the closest thing to family….
Tony…tall, lean, intelligent, deep-voiced with narrow, avian features and a sharp sarcastic tongue that was now gently sober….Yes, a direct hit and few got out alive. Then…his halting litany of names, carefully edited, falling on me like a succession of body blows.[310]
That night, their new location having been destroyed, the Signals contingent was on the move again, this time to join the Aberdeen Line Detachment on the southwest corner of the Island. But it was soon found to be too far away from the centre of activity and the unit was ordered to move to Victoria Barracks.[311] Jim Mitchell was part of this group.
We were all told to get into a truck. I had my motorcycle. We were going to go someplace and change our position. We were over by Aberdeen. Our officer we had that day was a British officer. He kept saying to us, “Wong Nei Chong Gap was down the road there.” And the road came along and went this way to Victoria and this way down to Aberdeen to the water….He said to me, “I want you to leave your bike here and walk up to the road where it comes from Wong Nei Chong and…there are two men with machine guns on one side and two on the other, and they’re waiting for the Japs to come from Wong Nei Chong…and when there’s any sign of the Japs I want you to come down here and tell us. Then we’re all going to take off and go to Victoria around the other side of the Island where they’re not there.…” I said, “O.K. sir,” and I went up there and said to the guys, “I’m going to have a cigarette and you guys let me know if you see some Nips coming through.” So I’m up there about 20 minutes and I hear bang, bang, bang, across the road from us…and I said, “So the Nips are here, so good luck boys,” and I went down. My bike’s gone, the truck’s gone, everything’s gone.
And I know we’ve been using a big transmitter to Singapore the night before, and I look and the transmitter is still there. So I took two grenades and threw them in and one went under the transmitter. I took off and heard bang, bang, and then went back and the transmitter’s down. So I said to myself, I’m going down to the edge of the water and then I’m going to walk along until I hit Victoria. So I go down to the water and I’m walking along and it’s not too muddy, and so help me God, I don’t know what it was that stopped me, but I froze, and there’s a skull and cross bones there…. And I looked down and there were two wires right by my left foot – I was right in with the land mines. Well, have you ever seen anyone tiptoe through the tulips?... So I walked on the road down and my gang was there and they had a big demijohn, you know, a big milk can full of soup…. About three hours afterward, two lads came in and one of the lads says, “That was quite a mess up there [at Wan Chai Gap] wasn’t it?[312]
Throughout the day and evening of December 20, the Japanese forces, against strong resistance, gradually extended their control of the Island to the west toward Victoria and south into Stanley peninsula. Canadian Signals scattered across the Island, worked with their British counterparts maintaining telephone lines and transmitting messages, most of them in code. Will Allister remembered lying in a field with Rolly D’Amours, sending messages on their No. 11 wireless set.[313] By the next day, most of the Signals contingent had either withdrawn to the barracks in Victoria or had begun moving there for what was being referred to as “the last stand.”[314] A number of Signals including Wally Normand, George Grant and Will Allister decided to work their way down from the hills, north into Victoria, where they hoped to find the rest of their unit. A British Signals officer they ran into had them check and repair telephone lines to Magazine Gap, the new location of West Brigade Headquarters. Passing a bombed out supply depot, they helped themselves to quantities of tinned bully beef, biscuits and cigarettes.[315]
The death of Corporal Sharp not only had an emotional impact on his fellow Signals, there were administrative consequences as well. Effective December 21, Cpl. Don Penny was promoted to the rank of Acting Sergeant, and L/Cpl. Mel Keyworth to Acting Corporal.[316]
Governor Mark Young now realized that the end was near and communicated his assessment to the Admiralty in London. The response from the Prime Minister was typically “Churchillian”:
The eyes of the world are upon you. We expect you to resist to the end. The honour of the empire is in your hands.[317]
That evening, the group of Signals who had reached Victoria Barracks was roused by a general alarm.
Everybody on guard around the building, the Nippons are all around us they say. Maybe in the building next door we don’t know. It’s terrible not to know.[318]
We did guard duty, talked, listened and moved closer to despair. There was no water, little food. We shaved in beer. We slept fully dressed, rifles on our chests, in case of a sudden stand-to in the night. Snipers shot at us in open places.[319]
Blacky Verreault’s diary provides a similar picture:
Mitchell and I were sprawled on our stomachs behind a tree. Suddenly I need a leak. I stand up to satisfy nature then ta!ra!ra!ra! tommy gun. Bullets whistle around my head. Zoum! Zoum! Zinc!!! There’s a dent on my helmet. I escaped a brutal end by falling on my stomach with you know what hanging out….
It’s been quite a while since I enjoyed the luxury of a bath. Water lines are all cut. This a.m., fed up with my whiskers, I shaved in a glass of beer. I tore half my face off. I didn’t have the courage to cut my moustache….
Presently while the bombs are falling, I’m at the canteen with a few guys while one guy is on the piano playing to his heart’s content. I’m in a joyous and noisy crowd; our good old parties. My throat constricts, my soul drains it seems.
Will I ever see home again?[320]
Monday, December 22, the Japanese advance across the Island had continued unabated. Bombing and heavy shellfire damaged or destroyed many buildings including Bowen Road Military Hospital which had been forced to carry out surgery in the basement, the upper two floors having been declared unsafe.[321] Water had been cut off and the general situation was deteriorating, as noted in Rolly D’Amours’ diary:
22nd getting real hot, shortage of ammo. bad comm.[unication] Shortage of food, many soldiers (all ranks) getting batty.[322]
More than one hundred men died that day including Signalman Bud Fairley, who had been at Bowen Road since being wounded at Wan Chai Gap. The next day, following a funeral conducted by chaplain H/Capt. F.J. Deloughery, he and eleven other casualties were buried in No. 2 Bomb Crater, outside the hospital.[323]
By the 23rd, many of the Brigade Headquarters men (e.g., Pay Corps, Ordnance Corps, Army Service Corps) had withdrawn along with the Signals to Victoria Barracks.
These men were allotted positions for the defence of the area under Capt. Billings. “These positions had been occupied and the men were told that there would be no retreat or surrender.”[324]
Although Japanese soldiers were advancing toward the city where Fortress Headquarters and the barracks were located, it was the artillery barrages that proved to hold a constant danger. Blacky Verreault:
Shells keep hitting us. Their sinister whistling is driving us mad but we must hang in we must.
For a whole hour, I felt it was my last….Everything is demolished, plowed by the tremendous explosions. What was left of our kitchen was vaporized. What destruction. It was the worst hour of my life. A more accurate fire would have scattered our remains in all directions. I’m covered with plaster, my mouth crusted with dust, my eyes half blinded and my body aching.…[325]
Will Allister, fresh from a dispiriting encounter with Capt. Billings regarding their prospects, came into the barracks room where three of the four linemen (Jenkins, Kurluk and Verreault) were gathered.
Here was a different spirit. They were alive. They still joked. They could grin. They sang. Blacky seemed to welcome every situation as a challenge to his manhood. He told how he sat calmly on a bridge cleaning his rifle as the English dove for cover from a dive-bomber…showing how a French Canadian acts.[326]
Even though the Signals had taken up defensive positions at Victoria Barracks, they continued to be responsible for their communications functions. Messages and orders were still being transmitted to the troops engaged in combat all over the Island and telephone lines from Headquarters needed to be repaired as shelling caused frequent and numerous cable breaks.
By mid-day, Wednesday December 24, the Japanese were advancing into the city from the east and street fighting was going on in the Wan Chai area about two kilometres from Fortress Headquarters. In the evening, a small force of Headquarters staff, including some Signals, was sent out to help defend a position in the area. A short time later, Fortress Headquarters and Victoria Barracks were both receiving mortar fire. [327]
Christmas Day, 1941
Throughout the night, fierce fighting for positions on the Island had continued without letup. Lineman Ray Squires was on guard duty at 2 a.m. along a narrow road on a hillside near the Peak, west of Fortress Headquarters.
We could hear the Japs fighting and shouting. With the Can[adians] below us we were chased out by a sudden burst of shellfire which killed two men about 20 yds away. I had just been sitting talking to them….
There was no sleep from then on until daylight; about 8:30 we moved farther along the road and ate hard tack and bully, while the Jap bombers put on a fair display of bombing.[328]
At about noon, he and a Royal Signals comrade were ordered out to repair a headquarters linked telephone cable near Magazine Gap just south of the city.
Breaks were frequent here in our cable and we worked for ¾ of an hour, at the side of the road, wondering as we did so why the Japs who could easily see us did not open up. Our freedom for such a length of time may have been due to the fact that their O.P. [observation post] on the peak of the mountain opposite was directly hit while we worked.
We were now within 200 yds of the end of our cable with 2 more breaks to repair when with a sudden wham a shell burst about 80 ft in front of us. We dived for a ditch but I got my rifle tangled underneath me in some wire and didn’t get quite low enough. So that the pieces of shrap.[nel] from the next shell, which was much closer, scraped the skin of one leg and punctured my elbow, both of which were sticking above surface level.[329]
A second Signaller, Mel Keyworth was also wounded by shrapnel around the same time, sustaining injuries to his left wrist.[330]
Like his fellow lineman Squires, Blacky Verreault spent much of the day fixing breaks in the telephone cables.
…I crawled along the line making repairs as I went. I couldn’t stand up. Shells were exploding twenty, thirty feet from me. Above, clouds of dirt and rocks flew over my head. The horrible buzzing of shells creating a hellish din. I was going crazy. I sweated gallons that day.[331]
It wasn’t just the linemen that were called on. Operator Gerry Gerrard:
Actually, we were sent out – Grimston and I and D’Amours – we were sent up to the Grenadiers at Wan Chai; it’s a different area of Wan Chai than where the fellows were killed. We didn’t recognize it anyway. [It was in the Wan Chai neighbourhood of Victoria, east of Fortress Headquarters.] We were there and the Japs run over us. Something didn’t seem right. There were no Grenadiers there and we were a little ways from Headquarters and so D’Amours, he went down and looked and the Japs were in there already, so we had to get out of there….
So I took a road – it went toward the sea and I knew that Headquarters was down toward the water – so we went down the road and I was quite surprised, we got down to the main street in Hong Kong and turned right and there was our Headquarters.[332]
At around mid-day, the Japanese initiated a concerted effort to take control of positions held by the defenders on the west side of the Island. The last communications link between Fortress Headquarters and the East Brigade forces was severed and Japanese troops began to gain access to the tunnels leading toward the command centre. At 1515 hours, General Maltby advised the Governor that, “no further effective military resistance could be made.”[333]
…they [Signals] were ordered to lay down arms. This they did after destroying all equipment, including the last link with Canada, a high-powered wireless station working to England.[334]
Although the order to lay down arms had come from Headquarters at 1530 hours, news of the surrender took time to spread to all the colonial forces. The communications system between Fortress Headquarters and the various units had been largely destroyed, so the order was often just verbal and delivered in person. Some commanders (on both sides) refused to believe it until written confirmation was provided.[335] On Stanley Peninsula, Brigadier Wallis did not actually surrender his East Brigade forces until the next day.
Reactions to the capitulation covered a wide range of emotions and responses. Will Allister:
Over? Was it? Was it true? Could it be? What did it mean? I couldn’t think – couldn’t grasp it. The Signals gathered in a cluster, faces registering disbelief, relief, foreboding. Lay down your arms? I couldn’t! It was all wrong. But others were already doing it.
“Pile them here!” My precious Lee-Enfield? My security? My protector through all the mad chaotic events, my faithful friend, the only thing I didn’t discard. Without it I was half a man, helpless…the others were laying theirs down, man after man… Slowly I followed suit, overcome by a terrible alien sensation of nakedness, of being totally helpless…an act of…ritual destruction…I was trying…grappling with the enormity of what was taking place…a faint glow flickering in the recesses of my being…and expanding…it’s over…the idea was filtering into my brain…no more terror, no dying, no fighting to the last man! It spelled “life”…hope rekindled, a respite at last. I would not die today. The frightful weight was lifting and a flood of light filled me like a joyous roar: I was alive. To hell with to-morrow![336]
Blacky Verreault:
Christmas Day. Four p.m., we surrendered. We gave up to these imitations of men. What a disgrace! Our ammunition had run out. The men could barely stand up when they finally gave up. So many lives given for such shameful results. Horrible! My friends died for nothing![337]
Ray Squires, who had been wounded earlier in the day, had quite a different experience:
Our next order of the afternoon was to make our H.Q. in a large basement on the peak. It was already tenanted by the engineers and a very fine Staff Sgt. there asked us to have dinner with them, and what a dinner we had, a helping of turkey, mashed potatoes and green peas. It was our first sign of Christmas day. But the position was too good to be true and along came the change of orders, our position was to be in trenches a mile distant considered less susceptible to shell fire.
It was now late in the afternoon and my elbow was becoming stiff and swollen and I wandered a short distance down the road where one of the boys helped me off with my sweater so that I might have a look at my arm. The wound was small but the swelling wasn’t. As I went back to the gang wondering whether to go to hospital or not, I met Mac, [Bill McCormick, Royal Signals] he was standing beside some Indians who had their rifles by the barrels and were smashing them over an iron road railing. He looked at me with a very regretful look on his face, turned his palms upwards and said, We’ve packed in. It’s all over.
There was no point in staying out of hospital now so we bathed my arm in Gin, and I made my way to [War Memorial] Hospital. Where I received the best Xmas present of my life: A clean bed with an undescribable sense of relief and relaxation as a Civy Volunteer nurse kindly tended me.[338]
Sgt. Ron Routledge was one of a few R.C.C.S. men working with East Brigade forces. He later recalled the surrender on Stanley Peninsula:
Surrender? Well, I recall being, well everyone had to, we had to stockpile all our arms in one particular place in a field and wait for orders from the Japanese, and the first orders came, I think it was either the 27thor 28th, when we all had to get in and march all the way back to North Point in Hong Kong.[339]
For Gerry Gerrard, the surrender prompted an interesting observation regarding their captors:
We just milled around there, and it wasn’t long before the Japs came in and I thought they were sort of – they didn’t know quite how to handle us. Of course we were the first white people – they were used to knocking the Chinese around – and they herded us down, marched us down to the old telephone warehouse and put us in there for the night.[340]
Tony Grimston remembers after depositing his rifle, walking along a path over the Peak and almost stumbling into a Japanese machine gun nest. He immediately raised his hands and surrendered. “They took my watch, but were not too bad. Then we went to the telephone building.”[341]Johnny Douglas told a story about he and some others sharing a big bottle of saki while drawing straws to see who would be the next to surrender.[342]
Dispatch rider Lee Speller shared his recollections of that day in a post-war interview:
We were waiting because we knew things were tense, we’d seen the Japanese boat come over with the white flag, and of course, Signals, being in the Signals we got the information before the rest of the boys did. We were told to sit tight, be on the guard, but sit tight and wait to see what happens. Well, Billings, our signal officer, Captain Billings, he’s been called into China Command Headquarters. He was shell-shocked at that time, grabbed a big white sheet, “Come on Speller, you’re going with me!” I said “What the hell do you need me for?”
Anyway, he dragged me over to China Command and I can remember the Japs there with [Colonel] Tokunaga coming in with his sword,…I left and went back to the barracks and waited. Then we were told – oh I don’t know, it was about 5 o’clock in the afternoon – that it was all over. And we were sent to different places.
Jenkins and I and I forget who was with us, we were sent into the China Lek Bar Warehouse. We spent the night there sleeping on big coils of wire and cables and stuff….And then of course the next morning we all lined up out in the street for the search. And this was it, our walking day.[343]
After the surrender, Rolly D’Amours decided not to wait around to be captured.
That night, I took off my shoes and started swimming for the mainland with the intention of joining the troops of Chiang Kai Shek, but the water was too cold and I had to turn back. I slept that night in a Fire Station while my clothes were drying.
The next morning when I returned to the pier to get my shoes, I ran into a squad of Japanese soldiers. There was a telephone booth on the docks. The Japanese wanted me to use the phone to find out if it was booby-trapped, and one soldier kept prodding me with his bayonet. The officer in charge told me that either I telephoned or I would be bayoneted right then and there. I crossed my fingers for good-luck, turned the crank on the phone and let out a big sigh of relief when nothing happened.
I was told to go back to Victoria Barracks. On my way there, a small group of soldiers offered me some food and drink, and even gave me a cigarette. I went on my way to Victoria barracks where I loaded my knapsack with canned goods, and waited for the Victory Parade of the Japanese when they entered the city in force. That was the end of my fighting and the beginning of my suffering.[344]
Although Ron Routledge recalled the march to North Point Camp taking place on the 27thor 28th, it was actually not until Tuesday December 30 that the roughly 2200 East Brigade men, now prisoners of war (POWs), were transferred to their new “home.”[345] Similarly, that same day the former West Brigade forces were marshaled to the ferry docks, transported across the bay to Kowloon and marched to Sham Shui Po.
The route was anything but direct. A Chinese woman missionary saw the dispirited column that day and followed the men for a long time out of sympathy. They shambled along to Argyle Street Camp, northeast of downtown Kowloon. After a brief rest there they were then marched directly west to their ultimate goal, Sham Shui Po. Those familiar with Hong Kong will know that this route was a circuitous triangle. No one was left at Argyle Street nor was anyone added. But the dog-leg extended the journey by two hours. Presumably the Japanese chose the route both to weaken and to further humiliate their captives by displaying them in defeat to the Chinese citizens of Hong Kong.[346]
It was not enough that the Canadians had lost twenty-three officers and 267 other ranks (including six Signals and ten others from Headquarters Company). Their Japanese captors were intent on breaking their spirit and taking away their dignity. Ominous signs of what was to come.
Back in Canada, news about the fighting in Hong Kong had been appearing in the newspapers on a daily basis. The withdrawal from the mainland, artillery barrages, and the rejected proposal to surrender were all widely reported. But headlines such as, “Defenders Fight Strongly Awaiting Rapid Drive of Chinese,” and, “Morale is Strong”[347]reflected more of the official political pronouncements than the reality on the ground. And there had still been no confirmation from Ottawa as to which units (and men) were involved in the conflict. The first indications came out on December 19 in a Toronto Telegram article headlined, “Quebec and Manitoba Troops in Hong Kong.” The report included the following:
About this Canadian expedition, the identity of its establishment and its numbers there are restrictions which need to be observed even if by this time the enemy will have been in a position to size up the strength of the composite resistance.
It has been announced, however, that the Canadian forces are mostly from Quebec and Manitoba, commanded by Brigadier Lawson, of London, Ont.[348]
There was no mention of Headquarters Company units, so the Signalmen’s families may still have held out hope that their “boys” were at some other location in the Far East. Particularly when the news stories over the next few days became more bleak.
A fearless but apparently doomed band of Canadian, Indian and British troops are fighting in the bomb-scarred streets and on the shell-furrowed hills of Hong Kong today.…[349]
No Hope Is Held Colony Can Be Saved Despite Great Defence[350]
For the Vancouver families, however, their anxiety rose on December 22 when the Daily Province ran a story headlined, “Vancouver Signals with B.C. Detachment Aiding in Bitter Defense of Hongkong.” Under photos of George Grant, Jack Rose and Art Robinson, the article also named Ernie Dayton, Wes White and Ernie Thomas.
Now that information about individuals was leaking out, newspapers across the country were carrying stories about men from their local communities who were at Hong Kong. For most people this was the only indication they had received that their family member was involved in the conflict. So now those headlines and stories covering the battle had new meaning for thousands across the country. But the news was not good.
Heroic Little Garrison Still Holds Hong Kong
…After eight days of fighting against overwhelming odds the defending force – Canadians, Scottish and Indian troops – retired to the island. There they have been fighting ever since, without hope of help, but without thought of surrender. There the Canadian commander, Brigadier Lawson and his senior staff officer Colonel Patrick Hennessy, have been killed.
These are the first names that have come to us, and the loss of these gallant lives brings home more poignantly the fact that while we are preparing to enjoy Christmas cheer, Canadian soldiers are at grips with a savage enemy. From the scanty items of news that trickle out over the air we can get no clear picture of the situation, no definite knowledge of what the fighting is like, but the fact that the little garrison is still holding the fort against the hordes of the enemy is witness to its gallantry. The hearts of all Canadians go out in sorrow and pride to the heroic little force at Hong Kong.[351]
When newspapers hit the stands on the day after Christmas, front pages headlined the fall of the colony. The government had finally made the decision to release the names of all those Canadians in “C” Force, and over the next two days most major papers published the full list. In addition, there were more stories about some of the individual men who were sent to Hong Kong:
Vancouver Men Missing At Hong Kong[352]
At least 19 B.C. men have been taking part in defense of Hong Kong[353]
Ontario Men are Among Garrison of Hong Kong[354]
Ten Victorians Listed Among Heroic Defenders of Hong Kong[355]
Signals figured prominently in some of the reports, including one in the Vancouver Sun on Saturday, December 27:
Silence Shrouds Fate of 4 Vancouver Soldiers in Hong Kong. Next-of-Kin Have No Word of Signals
Four Vancouver Signals are enshrouded in the cloak of silence that surrounds the fate of the Canadian contingent at Hong Kong since surrender of the beleaguered garrison there Christmas Day.
Next-of-kin here have heard no official word, and are uncertain whether the Vancouver soldiers have been taken prisoner or whether they died in the gallant defense.[356]
George Grant, Don Penny, Art Robinson, and Ernie Thomas are all named, as is Wes White later in the story. The article includes a quote from Don Penny’s mother (coincidentally, December 27 was Don’s birthday):
“I wouldn’t mind so much if he is a prisoner,” she told The Vancouver Sun. “They treat prisoners of war all right.”
Unfortunately, her assessment would turn out to be horribly wrong.
Chapter 3: 18 Days of War - Notes
[223] Banham: 13
[224] CMHQ Rpt. #163: 22
[225] Lindsay: 34
[226] Signal Report: 2
[227] ibid.
[228] DHH, 593.D1
[229] Lindsay: 35
[230] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 22
[231] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 23
[232] CWM:58C 1 17.10
[233] VAC Canada Remembers website
[234] Verreault: 36
[235] Gerrard, author interview
[236] HKVCA website, Western Torch Newsletter, March 2005: 8
[237] Levett: 8.12.41
[238] Signal Report: 2
[239] Banham: 29
[240] Gerrard, author interview
[241] Acton, author interview
[242] Normand, p.c.
[243] Signal Report: 3
[244] Mitchell, author interview
[245] Signal Report: 3
[246] Squires: 3
[247] Verreault: 37
[248] Ferguson: 67-69
[249] Jenkins, C. Roland interview: 3
[250] Ferguson: 110
[251] Allister: 20
[252] Allister: 21
[253] Speller, C. Roland interview: 8
[254] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 26
[255] Levett: 11.12.41
[256] Kingston Whig Standard, Dec. 10, 1941: 2
[257] Kingston Whig Standard, Dec. 11, 1941: 28
[258] Royal Rifles of Canada: 48
[259] Copp: 11
[260] Ferguson: 81
[261] Allister: 22
[262] Banham: 49
[263] Signal Report: 3-4
[264] Moir: 221
[265] Gerrard, author interview
[266] Allister: 22-23
[267] Levett:13.12.41
[268] Squires: 3
[269] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 27
[270] Banham: 69
[271] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 29
[272] Banham: 70
[273] Signal Report: 4
[274] Allister: 25
[275] Allister: 26
[276] Signal Report: 4
[277] Allister: 26-27
[278] Verreault: 38
[279] Acton, author interview
[280] Ferguson: 110
[281] Speller, C. Roland interview: 10
[282] Verreault: 38-39
[283] Banham: 90
[284] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 30
[285] ibid.
[286] Banham: 108
[287] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 31
[288] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 45
[289] Banham: 129
[290] Gerrard, author interview
[291] Ferguson: 163
[292] Banham: 134
[293] Signal Report: 4
[294] Donna (Beaton) Magill, p.c.
[295] Signal Report: 4
[296] Acton, author interview
[297] Allister: 30-35
[298] Gerrard: p.c.
[299] Moir: 222
[300] CWM 58C 1 17.10
[301] CMHQ Rpt. #163: 46
[302] Signal Report: 5
[303] Levett: 19.12.41
[304] ibid.
[305] DHH 593.D19
[306] Normand, p.c.
[307] Grimston p.c.
[308] Gerrard, author interview
[309] D’Amours, Chapter 10: 5
[310] Allister: 40
[311] Levett:19.12.41
[312] Mitchell, author interview
[313] Will Allister, author interview
[314] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 55
[315] Allister: 45
[316] CWM 58C 1 17.10
[317] Banham: 193
[318] Verreault: 42
[319] Allister: 47
[320] Verreault: 42
[321] Roland: 23
[322] D’Amours family files
[323] DHH 593.D19
[324] Signal Report: 6
[325] Verreault: 43
[326] Allister: 49
[327] Banham: 230, 242
[328] Squires: 1
[329] ibid.
[330] CWM 58C 1 17.10
[331] Verreault: 44
[332] Gerrard, author interview
[333] CMHQ Rpt.#163: 53
[334] Moir: 222
[335] Banham: 251
[336] Allister: 51
[337] Verreault: 44
[338] Squires: 2
[339] Routledge: VAC Canada Remembers website
[340] Gerrard, author interview
[341] Grimston, p.c.
[342] Lori Douglas, p.c.
[343] Speller, C. Roland interview: 13
[344] D’Amours, Chapter 10: 7
[345] Banham: 285
[346] Roland: 47
[347] Hamilton Spectator, Dec. 17, 1941
[348] Toronto Telegram, Dec. 19, 1941
[349] Vancouver Sun, Dec. 20, 1941: 1
[350] Hamilton Spectator, Dec. 22, 1941
[351] Toronto Telegram, Dec. 24, 1941
[352] Vancouver Sun, Dec. 24, 1941: 1
[353] Vancouver Daily Province, Dec. 26, 1941: 3
[354] Hamilton Spectator, Dec. 26, 1941
[355] Daily Colonist, Dec. 27, 1941: 2
[356] Vancouver Sun, December 27, 1941