Winnipeg Free Press Articles - Commemorative Trip to Hong Kong

HONG KONG -- Six Canadian veterans, now in their 80s, return to their old battlefields here tomorrow.

In 1941, a great battle occurred when 2,000 Canadian soldiers, many from Winnipeg, fought for 17 days to stem a Japanese invasion.

It was a disaster for the Canadian side.

The six veterans -- who are being flown to Hong Kong by Veterans Affairs -- were imprisoned in camps here and in Japan, where they were tortured and starved for several years.

Included in the group is Ed Shayler, 87, who grew up on Arden Avenue in St. Vital and who was one of seven soldiers who served in Hong Kong from that Winnipeg street alone.

Please see reporter David O'Brien's story in tomorrow's newspaper.

Return to Hong Kong / David O'Brien

Free Press reporter David O'Brien has accompanied six Canadian veterans on a pilgrimage to the Second World War battlefield of Hong Kong.

HONG KONG -- A great and dramatic battle unfolded here more than 60 years ago when 2,000 Canadians, many from Winnipeg, fought for 17 days to stem a Japanese invasion of this outpost off the coast of China.

Today, another courageous struggle begins when six frail and elderly men, veterans of the fighting, embark on a difficult journey to their old battlefields and visit the graves of friends who never came home.

All six were imprisoned in camps here and in Japan where they were tortured, humiliated and starved for three and a half years.

"I think I'm ready," said Ed Shayler, 87. But "I can't promise I won't cry."

Shayler is making his first pilgrimage to Hong Kong, a trip he has avoided until now because of the terrible nightmares and painful memories that started here when he was a young sergeant with the Winnipeg Grenadiers.

The Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles were sent to Hong Kong a month before the invasion to bolster its defences in what is now regarded as one of the greatest acts of military folly in Canadian history.

Unlike the disaster at Dieppe in 1942, the entire Canadian force in Hong Kong was lost and stricken from the military's order of battle. Years went by before family members knew who survived and who was killed.

The journey here was organized and paid for by Veterans Affairs to mark the liberation of the soldiers from Japanese prisoner of war camps. A doctor and nurse have accompanied the delegation to look after the veterans.

Shayler and two of his brothers were among seven boys who grew up on Arden Avenue in St. Vital and served in the Winnipeg Grenadiers.

He said he buckled up his courage and agreed to make the trip partly because his family urged him to go, but also because he feared it might be his last opportunity.

About 290 Canadians were killed in the fighting and another 267 died in prison. And the men who came back never recovered, emotionally or physically, from their ordeal.

The battle began on Dec. 8, 1941, six hours following the attack on Pearl Harbour, and ended Christmas Day.

The other five veterans who have made the trip are:

Robert (Flash) Clayton, 84, of Brechin, Ont. Clayton was recovering from battle wounds in hospital on Christmas Day when Japanese soldiers entered the hospital and killed about 60 other soldiers and nurses. He returned to Hong Kong in 1991.

Philip Doddridge, 83, of New Richmond, Que. A retired school teacher and principal, Doddridge is the current national president of the Hong Kong Veterans Association. He attended Remembrance Day ceremonies here in 1994.

Gerry Gerrard, 83, of Victoria, B.C. For the past 40 years, he has stood at attention at his local cenotaph on Remembrance Day. He returned to Hong Kong in 1995.

George MacDonell, 83, of Toronto. He ran away from home in 1939 at age 17 to join the army. In his book, One Soldier's Story, MacDonell describes the experiences of those who survived as a triumph of the human spirit. He was deputy minister of Industry, Trade and Technology under former Ontario premier Bill Davis. He returned to Hong Kong once about 30 years ago.

Douglas Rees, 84, of Calgary. He says he relied on "faith and a will to live" to overcome the degradation he suffered. A former civil servant in Toronto, he is reluctant to give media interviews. He only recently disclosed some of his experiences to his daughter, Cheryl Viner, who has accompanied him here. "Some of the things he told me, I wish he hadn't," Viner said.

dave.o'brien@freepress.mb.ca

DAVID O'BRIEN

Free Press reporter David O'Brien has accompanied six Canadian veterans on a pilgrimage to the Second World War battlefield of Hong Kong.

HONG KONG -- On Christmas Day every year for more than 60 years, Robert Clayton wakes up in a sweat and confronts his demons.

"Every Christmas morning, I'm where I shouldn't be," Clayton, 84, said yesterday. "I'm in this God-damned place here."

He is pointing to St. Stephen's College, a 70-year-old high school nestled in the bosom of a small mountain, a relaxing, pastoral setting away from the hustle of daily life in this land of 6.9 million people.

But in 1941, it had been converted to a hospital for Canadian and Allied soldiers desperately attempting to thwart a Japanese invasion.

It was there, on Christmas Day around 6 a.m., that soldiers of the Rising Sun attacked the hospital and killed about 60 injured soldiers and medical staff.

Clayton, of Brechin, Ont., was recuperating from four wounds he had received during the fighting when the Japanese attacked.

"They were killing men in their beds," he recalled.

The Japanese later locked him and 40 other men in a room on the second floor, periodically taking two or three men out at a time and killing them.

"I could hear the screaming and hollering, but I couldn't do anything."

Several nurses were gang-raped before they, too, were bayoneted and killed. Two Canadian nurses, including May Waters of Winnipeg, survived the attack and were eventually repatriated.

Like five other veterans who have returned here on a pilgrimage, Clayton is haunted by feelings of guilt that he survived, while others died.

Coping with their memories of the battle and subsequent imprisonment has been one of the central challenges of their lives. None of them feels their lives were as good as they might have been as a result of their war-time experiences.

"I've tried to forget, but I'll never forgive," Clayton said. "It's not easy coming back, but I do it for the boys. I like to see my boys. I love every one of them."

He was referring to the veterans he has met during several previous return visits.

About 2,000 Canadians fought in the Battle of the Hong, most of them members of the Winnipeg Grenadiers or Royal Rifles of Canada, a Quebec-based regiment.

During the fighting, the Grenadiers fell under the command of Canadian Brig.-Gen. John Lawson, who also commanded a British and Indian battalion on the western side of the island.

Lawson and a small band of men and officers were killed Dec. 19 when they tried to fight their way out of their command bunker while it was surrounded by Japanese soldiers.

The six veterans walked yesterday among the ruins of the battle bunker, which was built into the side of a mountain.

"I used to come here," veteran Ed Shayler said in a barely audible voice as he scanned the bullet-ridden remains. "I've been in there."

Shayler, 87, was a sergeant in the Grenadiers and fought in the area where Lawson was killed.

According to some accounts, Lawson dashed outside with a revolver in both hands, firing on the run before he was killed.

But Tony Banham, a local expert on the battle who led a tour yesterday of the battle site and the bunker, said it's not known for sure how he died.

However, it is clear he died bravely because the Japanese buried his body near where he fell, a gesture reserved only for acts of heroism, Banham said.

Lawson's last words to his commanding officer were that he was "going outside to fight it out."

A company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers held nearby ground for three days after Lawson's bunker was overrun until they were all killed or wounded, he said.

A plaque honouring Lawson was recently installed by the Canadian government, and a signboard recognizing the fighting that went on near the bunker, with special mention of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, is also being put up by the Hong Kong government.

The veterans are conducting more tours today before participating in special services at the cemeteries where their comrades are buried.

Their trip was sponsored by Veterans Affairs to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific and their liberation from Japanese prisoner of war camps.

dave.o'brien@freepress.mb.ca

DAVID O'BRIEN

HONG KONG -- In the largest ceremony of its kind ever held, an estimated 1,000 people are expected to attend a service of remembrance at a military cemetery today for Canadians who fought and died here more than 60 years ago.

"I can't imagine there will be a dry eye in the house," said Derek Sullivan, director general of the Canada Remembers division of Veterans Affairs Canada.

"It's going to be a spectacular ceremony, the largest ever," Sullivan said.

The centre of attention will be six veterans of the fighting who travelled more than 12,000 kilometres from their homes in Canada to participate in the ceremonies.

And they, in turn, will be remembering 290 of their fellow soldiers who were killed in the 17-day Battle of Hong Kong in 1941. Another 267 Canadians died in Japanese prisoner of war camps.

The battle marked the first time Canadian army units engaged enemy troops in the Second World War. The first to fight, they were also the last to come home.

(The army wouldn't see action again until August 1942 at Dieppe, another losing venture for military brass.)

About 300 Canadians will be at today's ceremony at Sai Wan War Cemetery, including 126 students from the Durham Regional School District in southern Ontario.

They will be joined by 100 members of the Hong Kong Canadian Scout Group and another 100 cadets from the Hong Kong Adventure Corps -- a local cadet group.

About 38 family members of soldiers who served here have also flown out at their own expense for the ceremony. One of them, Emily Lyons of Brandon, was just 16 when her family got word that her brother, Edgar Smeltz, had died in the fighting.

Her brother's body was never found, but he is remembered on a memorial in Sai Wan Cemetery.

A 120-strong choir from the Canadian International School of Hong Kong Lgd. is staging a major concert for the crowd, which will include some of the estimated 250,000 Canadian citizens who live and work here.

It's the largest concentration of Canadians outside Canada, according to Patrice Cousineau, a spokesman for the Canadian Consulate.

Cousineau said the Canadians -- most of whom hold dual citizenship -- are a strong presence in this land of 6.9 million people.

There's a Canadian Chamber of Commerce here to promote Canadian affairs, a Chinese Canadian Association, the Canadian Club of Hong Kong and a Canadian scout group, to name a few.

The six veterans arrived here last Wednesday and have participated in several plaque unveilings and toured the sites of former battlefields, some of which are being restored and protected with permission from the Chinese government in Beijing.

A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to the People's Republic of China in 1997, when the British lease expired.

In return, China has agreed not to alter Hong Kong's highly capitalistic and efficient society under the so-called "two systems, one country" policy.

Senators Larry Campbell, Pierre Claude Nolin and Viviene Poy are among the Canadian VIPs at today's event.

Veterans Affairs Minister Albina Guarineri was supposed to be here, but she bowed out when the federal election was called.

However, she phoned all six veterans to express her regrets and wish them well.

dave.o'brien@freepress.mb.ca

Return to Hong Kong - David O'Brien

HONG KONG -- Ed Shayler and George Peterson will probably be buried in their hometowns in Canada when they die, but part of them will always rest among the graves of their fellow soldiers in a war cemetery here.

All the veterans who fought in the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941 feel they left part of themselves here, but Shayler, Peterson and about 400 other soldiers were given a special resting place among their comrades in Sai Wan War Cemetery yesterday.

A memorial capsule containing tributes to their lives was buried in the cemetery.

About 1,000 people participated in a ceremony in Hong Kong yesterday, a warm, breezy day, to remember Canadians who fought in the Battle of Hong Kong.

The capsule contains stories, artifacts, poetry, artwork and music created by students from high schools across Canada.

Students from the Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School in Selkirk submitted an account of Peterson's life, while a student from Ontario "adopted" Shayler and included his story in the memorial capsule.

Peterson and Shayler are the lone survivors of a group of seven boys who grew up on Arden Avenue in St. Vital and served in the Hong Kong battle as soldiers of the Winnipeg Grenadiers.

Shayler joined with two of his brothers, one of whom died in a Japanese prison camp, while Peterson served with his twin brother, Morris.

Peterson still lives in Winnipeg, while Shayler moved to Calgary after the war.

Shayler is one of six veterans who travelled here to help mark the 60th anniversary of their liberation on Aug. 15, 1945.

It was in the autumn of 1941 that two Canadian battalions, the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada, plus a brigade headquarters and specialist details, added 1,975 troops at the request of the British to the defence of their former colony, which was under threat of Japanese invasion. The garrison was already about 12,000 strong, including British, Indian, and Hong Kong troops, when the Canadians arrived.

The invasion came a day after the Japanese attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor. The Allied forces, vastly outnumbered, outgunned, and under-experienced, put up a courageous fight before surrendering on Christmas Day, Dec. 25. By that time, 290 Canadians had died in combat, and another 267 would die as PoWs between that day and the end of the war in 1945.

It was at the Battle of Hong Kong that Canada experienced many firsts for the Second World War: The first Victoria Cross awarded, the first combat casualty, the first combat death, the first death of a senior officer, and the first Canadian soldier taken prisoner, yet it has received little attention compared to other famous battles.

The memorial capsule project was spearheaded by Nancy Hamer-Strahl of Port Perry High School.

She said the project began as a regional project, but it was expanded by inviting schools across Canada to participate.

There was even an entry from a school in Inuvit, which submitted an ulu, a cutting tool that symbolizes strength, Hamer-Strahl said.

The capsule is intended to remain buried in perpetuity, just like the men in the cemetery, she said.

"But who knows what might happen in 200 years," she said.

The cemetery contains the graves of 283 Canadian soldiers, both known and unknown.

A memorial wall at the cemetery also records the names of 228 Canadians whose identities were never determined or whose bodies weren't found.

The Japanese threw many bodies into the ocean during and after the fighting, and they dumped other bodies in mass graves without marking the locations, according to Tony Banham, a local expert on the battle.

Banham said some bodies have been discovered over the years by construction crews.

A total of 551 Canadians died in the fighting or in prison camps in Hong Kong and Japan out of 1,975 who were sent to Hong Kong a few weeks before the Japanese invaded on Dec. 8, 1941.

In the earlier ceremony, wreaths were laid by a variety of organizations and governments, including one from a representative of the People's Republic of China.

Rick Walker, Manitoba's trade representative in Beijing, laid a wreath on behalf of the province.

John Norris travelled from his home in California to attend the ceremony.

Originally from Winnipeg, his father, Jack Norris, had served with the Winnipeg Grenadiers in the battle.

Norris, 69, said his dad spent nine months in hospital in Winnipeg after the war recovering from the abuse he endured as a prisoner. He died four years later, he said.

Emily Lyons and her sister Doris also came from Brandon to remember their brother, Edgar Smeltz, a Winnipeg Grenadier whose body was never found.

They were melancholy but otherwise composed, while others teared up at the playing of the Last Post and the placing of poppy crosses on each of the Canadian graves.

Each of the six veterans delivered long silent salutes to their comrades, but, typical of their generation, they held back the tears that others could not.

dave.o'brien@freepress.mb.ca

-- with files from Canadian Press

Return to Hong Kong - David O'Brien

HONG KONG -- For more than 60 years, Emily Lyons had no idea how her older brother died.

All she and her family in Brandon were ever told was that he died during the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941.

But the painful mystery was solved yesterday when Lyons met the son of a Hong Kong veteran here, a man who served with her brother, Edgar Smeltz, and saw him die.

Lyons and her sister Doris Hocking are in Hong Kong as part of a 38-member delegation from the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association. They are family members of veterans who paid their own way here in life-long searches for answers about their brothers, fathers and grandfathers.

Six veterans of the fighting are also here in a separate delegation sponsored by Veterans Affairs.

Lyons said she struck up a conversation with Jim Trick, who grew up in Stonewall, and mentioned that one of her regrets in life was not knowing how her brother had died.

When Trick heard the man's name, it immediately rang a bell. He pulled out a copy of a diary kept during the war by his dad, Charles Richard Trick.

And there it was. Several entries described how he and Edgar Smeltz, both transport drivers in the Winnipeg Grenadiers, had been forced to pull back along a mountain valley during the fighting.

The diary told how the two men burned their trucks to keep them out of enemy hands during the frantic retreat and how they were captured on Dec. 19 after accidentally crossing Japanese lines during the fighting.

Then, on Dec. 20, the following item: "At daybreak, mortar bomb hits shack we are in and killed about 10. Ed is killed."

Lyons, who was 16 when Edgar died, said it was important to her to know the circumstances of her brother's death.

"Now I know how and when he died and what happened to him," she said. "It was something I always wondered about."

Trick, who now lives in Victoria, said he too has been haunted by his father's experiences.

"I grew up listening to his severe coughing bouts, but had no idea what caused them," he said.

His father had worked in a Japanese coal mine after being taken prisoner.

The focus of pilgrimages to famous battle sites is frequently on the impact on individual soldiers.

Forgotten is the great price paid by family members.

Most returning veterans had severe health problems and spent many months and even years in and out of hospitals while they were still young men.

Among other ailments, they all reported suffering severe nightmares, often on Christmas Day, which marked the day of their defeat as soldiers and the beginning of three-and-a- half years as slaves in Japanese prison camps.

Douglas Rees, one of the six veterans who returned here for a tour of old battlefields, said his nightmares have only just ended, but he doesn't know why.

"Maybe it's my age," he said.

Ted Terry was an infant when his father, also named Ted, went to Hong Kong and died in a Japanese prison.

He said his mother never got over his death and it became the focus of her entire life.

"She lived and breathed Hong Kong," Terry said.

dave.o'brien@freepress.mb.ca

Return to Hong Kong

David O'Brien

HONG KONG -- After 64 years of a life filled with hatred and confusion, a veteran of the Battle of Hong Kong seems, finally, to have found a way to put it all behind him.

Phil Doddridge has returned to Hong Kong twice before in an attempt to understand what happened to him here during the Second World War, but each time he left overwhelmed by a sense of loss and disturbed by the brutality he experienced.

He is one of six veterans who returned here as part of Canada's Year of the Veteran for a week-long visit that ended yesterday.

In a moving address at a farewell dinner last night, the retired school teacher and principal from New Richmond, Que., explained why he had come back in the past and what he had learned this time, which he said will probably be his last visit.

"On the return trips, I was looking for some justification of the death, humiliation, sickness and hunger that we all experienced," Doddridge said.

"Perhaps one of my buddies would whisper from the grave; perhaps I would be given a clue as to what it was all about. I wanted assurance that there is victory in death, that there is a guarantee of a reward for the loss of life in these brutal struggles."

He said he was still left with some of the same old questions, but "another emotion surfaced, one of relief, of letting go of the lingering hatred of the ones who caused so much pain and suffering.

"Perhaps this is the answer I have sought all my adult life. The hatred must go, foregiveness must replace it, for we must not let the experience of war rule our lives forever after."

"Maybe we cling to those agonizing memories because we are afraid that no one cares, and that we must make them care, make them remember the young men who gave their lifes without having any other choice."

Earlier in the day, the six veterans and a small group of Canadians visited Stanley War Cemetery for a service of remembrance. It was their last official function, but it also turned out to be the toughest and the most emotional.

The last organized fighting in the Battle of Hong Kong took place in the very same cemetery, then a civilian graveyard, on Christmas Day 1941.

When it was over, hundreds of Japanese and Canadian solders lay dead and wounded among the 100-year-old graves and tombstones.

Doug Rees, who fought among the graves in 1941 as a member of the Royal Rifles of Canada, refused to leave after the service until he found a piece of terrain that held some significance for him.

His daughter, Cheryl Viner, asked another veteran, George MacDonell, to help convince him to leave when it was time to go and he eventually did return to the bus.

"He wanted to know if he was hallucinating or if he had really been here among all the carnage and killing," MacDonell said. "He wanted to know, 'Is this the place where we lost so many men?' I said, Douglas, this is it. This is it.'"

MacDonell, who also fought in the cemetery battle as a platoon sergeant in the Royal Rifles, said he himself was very upset in the morning before the remembrance service, fearing it might be more than he could handle.

But, like the others, he didn't shed a tear.

"I said to myself I am not going to break down here in front of all these people," MacDonell said when asked how he and the other veterans retained their composure while everyone else seemed on the verge of tears.

Ed Shayler, 87, here on his first visit since the war ended, had worried that he might break down, but he, too, was stoic and outwardly calm, a model of soldierly discipline.

"I never could cry," he said.

All six veterans laid bouquets of flowers on the graves of some of the Canadian soldiers buried in Stanley, one of two war cemeteries in Hong Kong where Canadians were laid to rest after the war.

When the colony surrendered late in the day on Dec. 25 -- a few hours after the cemetery battle -- MacDonell led a party of men towards Japanese lines seeking permission to bury his men.

Seeing they were unarmed, a Japanese officer granted them permission and the detail proceeded to bury the men in the exact location where Canadian soldiers are now buried.

However, for reasons that aren't clear, most of those soldiers were disinterred after the war and moved to Sai Wan War Cemetery, the largest military cemetery in Hong Kong.

Most of the 20 Canadians buried in Stanley were involved in battles elsewhere, MacDonell said.

The veterans begin the long journey to their homes in Canada today.

dave.o'brien@freepress.mb.ca