The answers to the dual question respecting the quality of the equipment and the training of C Force are, respectively, simple and complicated to reach.
In the case of equipment, the force was admirably looked after in both general and technical ordnance stores. The only deficiencies, anti-tank rifles and mortar ammunition, were due solely to there being none available in Canada. The fact that the battalions were fully equipped with such rare items in Canada as grenades, Thompson guns, mortars, and wireless sets is a tribute to the Ordnance personnel concerned and an indication of the effort that was made to properly equip C Force. In all respects except Mechanical Transport (MT) it was almost certainly the most well-equipped force to sail from Canada.
If the force had received its full complement of vehicles it would have been better equipped than any other portion of the Hong Kong garrison in that regard. The lack of energy shown by Movement Control at National Defence Headquarters and the lamentable communication gap between National Defence and the Office of the Controller of Transport might not have been solely responsible for the late shipment of the bulk of the MT - there would probably not have been another ship available before the Don José. It is puzzling that Sir Lyman Duff in his Royal Commission Report criticized the military but not the civilian participants. One can hardly help suspecting, as well, that it was not wholly coincidence that the only people the Commissioner chose to censure in the entire report had already been dealt with by the military. In any event, while there was undoubtedly bad management, it was primarily due to ill fortune that the MT did not reach Hong Kong before the Japanese attack.
The fact that the twenty or so priority vehicles did not sail on the Awatea was the result of inefficiency and nothing else. What is far more inexplicable is the uncertainty of the Commissioner as to whether the absence of these priority vehicles had any effect. In this area, in particular, Sir Lyman appears to have had a remarkably shaky grasp on the facts of military life - one cannot avoid the impression that he felt that vehicles were not really necessary, but were simply provided for the enjoyment of the soft and pampered soldiery. It is blatantly obvious that the learned Chief Justice had never carried any portion of a 3-inch mortar over rough country. If he had, he would assuredly have descended from the bench and, with his own hands, hurled from the room any person who had the impudence to suggest that one could only "speculate" on the effect on troops of the absence of the tracked vehicles designed to carry the mortar.
As to the question of training, the enormous amount of verbiage devoted to the subject at the Commission gives a very detailed account of the state of training of both battalions. Whether the correct conclusions were drawn is another matter.
There can be no doubt that in both the Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, the quality of officers, NCOs, and men was quite high. If events had dictated that one or both battalions had been incorporated into one of the divisions that fought in Europe, they would have undoubtedly had a record to equal that of any similar unit. The late mobilization of the Rifles (due probably to a rather narrow recruiting base) and the reduced requirement for machine-gun battalions such as the Grenadiers led to their assignment to garrison duties early in the war. Almost all the men in both battalions who had joined soon after the outbreak of war were not products of the Army's training establishments, but had of necessity been trained within the units themselves. Despite the best endeavours of all concerned, both individual and unit training was very difficult under garrison conditions. As a result, both battalions on their return to Canada were in a condition described by the Director of Military Training as "not recommended for operational consideration".
It seems possible that a suggestion made by the Associate Minister of National Defence, C.G. Power, led to one and consequently both of these units being selected to go to Hong Kong. In that event, all the testimony concerning training at the Commission was simply a verbal smokescreen designed to blind a militarily ignorant Commissioner to the exact status of these victims of a fait accompli. Following are some of the brutal facts. None of the Winnipeg Grenadiers had fired a shot for nearly eighteen months, between April 1940 and October 1941. During the latter month most men had a chance to fire 35 shots. As far as the Grenadiers' tactical training was concerned, two Companies spent two weeks each in Montpelier Camp in Jamaica where, during the second week, they conducted section and platoon tactical training and one company exercise. The Royal Rifles had had somewhat more opportunity for tactical training, but in August 1941 (after which they did little training until they embarked for Hong Kong) about one-fifth had not yet passed their Tests of Elementary Training on such a simple and basic weapon as the rifle, and over one-third were in the same unhappy situation with the other standard weapon, the Bren light machine-gun. The implications of these figures should be apparent even to a reader without personal military experience. For additional confirmation let such a reader ask any friend or relative with Army experience for an opinion of the battle-worthiness of a unit of whose men 20% and 40% respectively had not passed the TOET's on the rifle and light machine-gun and then wait for the guffaw. When these melancholy facts are combined with the negligible experience the men had had with grenades (the Rifles had done a little with dummies, the Grenadiers nothing at all), mortars (the Grenadiers had never seen a shell, the Rifles had watched some go off once), and anti-tank weapons due to their non-availability, the actual state of the units' training is obvious. To say that these units were even close to being ready for action is arrant nonsense, although several senior officers who unquestionably knew better said exactly that before the Commission. Unfortunately, the Commissioner lacked the personal knowledge to treat their statements with the contempt they deserved, and instead, accepted them as expert testimony.
In 1948 General Foulkes stated during his highly lucid review of the situation (see Appendix C) that the concept of training for battle underwent considerable evolution during the Second World War. This is quite true, but the only question that may be asked in making a judgement is: were these battalions adequately trained by the standards of the time? They were not, and to say they were made a mockery of the words spoken and written earlier by these same officers in scores of circulars, manuals, and military pronouncements emphasizing the importance of training.
The Commission's detailed examination of the state of training of the October 1941 reinforcements was largely the pursuit of a red herring. In some cases their training had reached a higher level than that of many of the men already in the battalions, particularly the recruits received over the summer whom the Commissioner never took into his calculations. In any event, it was the training standard of each battalion as a whole that was the point at issue.
The heavy emphasis certain officers placed on the importance of morale over training was an obvious ploy to distract attention from the units' training weakness. If this testimony is taken at face value and then brought to its logical conclusion, why bother to train at all? There were battalions in Canada whose men were better trained not only in personal military skills but in functioning and operating in battalion sub-units in the field as well. It was the weakness of the two Canadian battalions at Hong Kong in this latter area that was to cost them particularly dearly.
Any admission made at the hearings that the Royal Rifles and Winnipeg Grenadiers were less than adequately trained was usually tempered by the allegation that it was honestly thought that there would be sufficient time during their garrison duties at Hong Kong to rectify any deficiencies in training. This thesis seems also to have been accepted by historian C.P. Stacey. 93-1 Probably the most gaping loophole in this reasoning is that, if during ten months and sixteen months respectively on garrison duties in Newfoundland and Jamaica the battalions had not become ready for operational employment, what reason was there for assuming that similar duty in Hong Kong would do the job? Did they suspect the existence of some exotic oriental training potion?
So what remains? Simply this; those officers who spouted their pious platitudes at the Royal Commission about the importance of morale and esprit de corps were right in one way. The men of the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers were all volunteers and so were the reinforcements who joined them. Their esprit de corps was undoubtedly high, and ill-trained as they were, at Hong Kong it was almost the only thing they had. Morale is no substitute for training, but they made it do. Fighting as strangers in a strange land, split up, and thrown into attack after attack against overwhelming odds over appallingly rough terrain, they never broke, they inflicted savage losses upon their enemies, and they put up a fight which, despite Canadian ignorance and British mud-slinging, deserves to live forever. But did the odds have to be so heavily stacked against them?