Individual Report: E30727 Woodburn BURTON

Rank:	First Name:	Second Name:
General Information
Rifleman	Woodburn	Keith
From:	Enlistment Region:	Date of Birth (y-m-d):
New Richmond QC	Eastern Quebec	1924-01-31
Appointment:	Company:	Platoon:

Transportation - Home Base to Hong Kong

Members of 'C' Force from the East travelled across Canada by CNR troop train, picking up reinforcements enroute. Stops included Valcartier, Montreal, Ottawa, Armstrong ON, Capreol ON, Winnipeg, Melville SK, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper, and Vancouver, arriving in Vancouver on Oct 27 at 0800 hrs.

The Winnipeg Grenadiers and the local soldiers that were with Brigade Headquarters from Winnipeg to BC travelled on a CPR train to Vancouver.

All members embarked from Vancouver on the ships AWATEA and PRINCE ROBERT. AWATEA was a New Zealand Liner and the PRINCE ROBERT was a converted cruiser. "C" Company of the Rifles was assigned to the PRINCE ROBERT, everyone else boarded the AWATEA. The ships sailed from Vancouver on Oct 27th and arrived in Hong Kong on November 16th, having made brief stops enroute at Honolulu and Manila.

Equipment earmarked for 'C' Force use was loaded on the ship DON JOSE, but would never reach Hong Kong as it was rerouted to Manila when hostilities commenced.

On arrival, all troops were quartered at Nanking Barracks, Sham Shui Po Camp, in Kowloon.

Battle Information

We do not have specific battle information for this soldier in our online database. For a detailed description of the battle from a Canadian perspective, visit Canadian Participation in the Defense of Hong Kong (published by the Historical Section, Canadian Military Headquarters).

Wounded Information

Date Wounded	Wound Description	References
41/12/22	N/A	36

Hospital Information

Name of hospital	Date of admission	Date of discharge	Comments	Reference
HK-UNK	N/A	N/A

POW Camps

Camp ID	Camp Name	Location	Company	Type of Work	Arrival Date	Departure Date
HK-SM-01	Stanley	Fort Stanley, Hong Kong Island			Capture	41 Dec 30
HK-NP-01	North Point	North Point, Hong Kong Island			41 Dec 30	42 Sep 26
HK-SA-02	Shamshuipo	Kowloon, Hong Kong			42 Sep 26	43 Jan 19
JP-To-3D	Tsurumi	Yokohama-shi, Tsurumi-ku, Suyehiro-cho, 1-chome, Japan	Nippon Steel Tube - Tsurumi Shipyards	Variety of jobs related to ship building	43 Jan 19	45 Apr 16
JP-Se-4B	Ohashi	Iwate-ken, Kamihei-gun, Katsushi-mura, Ohashi, Japan	Nippon Steel Company		45 Apr 16	45 Sep 15

Transport to Japan

Draft Number	Name of Ship	Departure Date	Arrival Date	Arrival Port	Comments	Reference
XD3A	Tatuta Maru	43 Jan 19, left Shamsuipo Camp, 0500 hrs; left Hong Kong 1300hrs	43 Jan 22, 0400 hrs	Nagasaki, Japan	Boarded train, arrived in Tokyo on 43 Jan 24 at 0700 hrs, boarded electric train for 10 mile ride to camp	Tony Banham

Transportation SE Asia to Home

Transport Mode	Arrival Destination	Arrival Date	Comments
USS Rescue	SF		a US hospital ship

No other or additional related information found. Please submit documents to us using the contact link at the top of this page.

Post-war Photo

Other Military or Public Service

No other or additional related information found. Please submit documents to us using the contact link at the top of this page.

Death and Cemetery Information

Date of Death (y-m-d)	Cause of Death	Death Class
1992-09-13	Heart attack	Post War
Cemetery Location	Cemetery	Grave Number	Gravestone Marker
Burnaby British Columbia Canada	Forest Lawn Memorial Park

Gravestone Image

Obituary / Life Story

BURTON - Keith Woodburn passed away peacefully Sunday, September 13th, 1992 aged 68 years. Survived by his loving wife Rita; 3 sons Wayne (Gloria), Daniel and Ken (Mary Ann): 5 grandchildren Daina, Christina, Jacob, David and Nicole; also 2 sisters Marion Marshall of Montreal and Betty Garant of Caplan, Quebec; great-grandma Laurette Desautels; and many other relatives and friends from coast to coast. Keith was a Hong Kong Veteran who served with the Royal Rifles of Canada during World War II. After settling in Burnaby he worked as a longshoreman in New Westminster for over 35 years. Memorial service will be held Friday, September 18th at 1:00 p.m. in the First Presbyterian Church, 335 7th St., New Westminster. Cremation.

COLUMBIA- BOWELL 521-4881

Links and Other Resources

There may be more information on this individual available elsewhere on our web sites - please use the search tool found in the upper right corner of this page to view sources.

General Comments

E30727 Woodburn BURTON - 1991 Remembrance Day

E30727 Burton: Woodburn, or Keith as he was known as, was my Father in law. He was shot 3 times and escaped being killed by a squad of Japanese soldiers who came into the hospital and shot all the patients. He played dead under a bed as they checked for any survivors. He didn’t know how long he laid there until another patrol came along and found him alive. He was taken to the prison camp where he was a slave labourer building the landing strip carrying stones, some with wheel barrows for the Hong Kong airport. He and his wife Rita flew to Hong Kong just to land on that airport strip in January 1988. Pictures of his head stone at Forest Lawn in Burnaby B.C., him in uniform, copies of pictures of the camp and those of the prisoners can be sent if you need them.

My husband, Wayne Keith Burton is his oldest son, born in 1949 . He has two other sons Danny and Kenneth. His wife, Rita passed away July 2006. They have 5 Grandchildren and 6 Great grandchildren . Both of his sisters have passed away. Betty the youngest in July 2017 was predeceased by Marion.

End of Report.

Report generated: 27 Apr 2025.

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Additional Notes

(These will not be visible on the printed copy)

Service numbers for officers ("X") are locally generated for reporting only. During World War II officers were not allocated service numbers until 1945.
'C' Force soldiers who died overseas are memorialized in the Books of Remembrance and the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, both sponsored by Veterans Affairs Canada. Please use the search utility at VAC to assist you.
Some birthdates and deathdates display as follows: 1918-00-00. In general, this indicates that we know the year but not the month or day.
Our POW camp links along with our References link (near the bottom of the 'C' Force home page) are designed to give you a starting point for your research. There were many camps with many name changes. The best resource for all POW camps in Japan is the Roger Mansell Center for Research site.
In most cases the rank displayed was the rank held before hostilities. Some veterans were promoted at some point prior to eventual post-war release from the army back in Canada. When notified of these changes we'll update the individual's record.
Images displayed on the web page are small, but in many cases the actual image is larger. Hover over any image and you will see a popup if a larger version is available. You can also right-click on some images and select the option to view the image separately. Not all images have larger versions. Contact us to confirm whether a large copy of an image in which you are interested exists.
In some cases the References displayed as part of this report generate questions because there is no indication of their meaning. They were inherited with the original database, and currently we do not know what the source is. We hope to solve this problem in future.
We have done our best to avoid errors and omissions, but if you find any issues with this report, either in accuracy, completeness or layout, please contact us using the link at the top of this page.
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