‘I think we’re largely forgotten’: Nearly 80 years ago, Canadians fought the Battle of Hong Kong GlobePolitics
This translation has been automatically generated and has not been verified for accuracy.In this photograph taken on December 4, 2016, a Hong Kong Police Force member stands at vigil at the base of the Cross of Sacrifice memorial during the Canadian Commemorative Ceremony honouring those who died during the Battle of Hong Kong and World War II, in Hong Kong's Sai Wan War Cemetery.
The conflict between pro-democracy protesters and government in Hong Kong this past year has illuminated Canada’s ties to the semi-autonomous former British colony, where 300,000 residents hold Canadian citizenship. Many of his fellow soldiers never came back. Of the 1,975 Canadians sent to Hong Kong in the fall of 1941, 290 were killed or died of wounds in Japan’s invasion of the colony, which began the same day in December that Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor.
Surrender wasn’t the end of the struggle for surviving Canadians, including Mr. Doddridge, who would spend another three years and eight months as prisoners of the Japanese, performing forced labour in inhumane conditions on starvation rations. They endured abuse and severe malnutrition. Mr. Doddridge recalls prison meals were a “dollop of rice in the morning and another bit of rice at night along with some boiled green vegetables." Occasionally the prisoners received fish, but it was often putrid. “You were always hungry and what you did get to eat was not nourishing.”He said he managed to avoid beatings from the guards by staying off their radar even as the Canadians were forced to work on lengthening airplane runways and digging tunnels.
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