Editors note: This account is as told by Murray Doull, Sergeant at Arms for the Vavenby & District Branch #259 located in Clearwater and Secretary-Treasurer for the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association of B.C. started by the sons and daughters of those who served. Transcribed as told to Hettie Buck, Editor for the surgeryitaly and Barriere Star Journal, during an interview
Sergeant at Arms for the Vavenby & District Branch #259 and has good reason to honour those who serve and protect on Remembrance Day in Canada. Coming from a military family, my father, Bill Doull, was a Japanese prisoner of war for three years and ten months and that is why I am involved with the Legion and why Remembrance Day is close to my heart, because of the history of my family with regards to sacrifices made for this country.
Most Canadians don’t know that before any of the commonwealth countries or the U.S. entered the war, England was getting pounded from the air by the Luftwaffe (the German air force). Giving some background leading up to my father’s capture. In Sept. of 1941 Winston Churchill met with William Lyon Mackenzie King, best known for his leadership of Canada throughout the Great Depression and the Second World War. Churchill asked the then Canadian Prime Minister King, as a show of support for Britain, if Canada would send two regiments to enforce the British enclave in Hong Kong, no one ever thinking the Japanese would attack Hong Kong at that time.
Canada sent almost two thousand Canadian soldiers from the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers with a support Corp., some of which were the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals from Victoria in B.C. They landed in Hong Kong in Nov. of 1941. Eight hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, they attacked Hong Kong and Singapore.
The Japanese had been in China since 1936, 100,000 strong. They had a large, well equipped military force in China and came down through Kowloon into Hong Kong with a force approximately numbering 40,000.
The Canadians and the Brits were outnumbered 17 to 1 and lasted 17.5 days. During the battle that ensued 290 Canadian died and 493 were wounded. A further 267 Canadians perished in the nearly four years as prisoners of war under brutal conditions. Starvation, disease, torture. My dad was 23 years old when he was captured on Christmas Day in 1941. He was six feet tall and 220 pounds when he was captured and when the Americans found him in a hell hole called Niigata on Honshu Island in a ‘slave labour’ camp and he weighed 97 pounds.
Along with eight other Canadians he was immediately evacuated to an American military hospital in Tokyo harbour where they flew them to another U.S. military hospital in Guam, where they brought them back, slowly.
My dad and these Canadians, once the Americans had partially restored their health came back to Canada, from Guam to Hawaii, then traveled to Los Angeles by train to Vancouver. When they crossed the Canadian border, they were wearing American uniforms.
My dad lived to be 93 years old. That force being the first Canadians to go to war for their country during the Second World War and they were the last to come home. Of that force there is only one person remaining alive today and he is now 106 years old and living in Quebec.
The Royal Rifles of Canada came from Quebec, which is where I was born, and the Winnipeg Grenadiers obviously came from Manitoba.
My father and his two brothers went overseas, and they all survived, but they all came home in very poor condition.
Doull and his wife moved to Clearwater to the Sunshine Valley area in the summer of 2015, coming in from the Fraser Valley. I came to British Columbia when I was 19 and never looked back.
In 2005 I accompanied three Hong Kong veterans with the Prime Minister’s party and the PM at that time was Paul Martin. The Prime Minister’s party along with the Minister of Veterans Affairs, Honourable Albina Guarnieri. We went to Hong Kong with the purpose of our trip being to meet with the Chinese to discuss the preservation of the Canadian burial sites in Hong Kong. By then the British had given Hong Kong back to the Chinese.
The Chinese are still very much appreciative of the defense by Canadians of Hong Kong and what our delegation found were immaculate cemeteries.
Being looked after incredibly well and we received the assurance that care would continue. The Chinese have built trails to some of the battle sites where Canadians had passed away with nice plaques and information signs in both Chinese and English depicting some of the history of the battle. That continues to this day. There is a huge cemetery in Sai Wan where there is over 200 Canadians buried and it’s very well kept. We were there for almost two weeks.
The Hong Kong veterans in the mid-1990’s as their numbers were decreasing and their health deteriorating, a group of the sons and daughters of Hong Kong vets formed an organization called The Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association. It’s a nation-wide association and today I am the Secretary-Treasurer for the B.C. division. Our website ishttps://www.hkvca.ca/
https://www.hkvca.ca/
The Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association worked for years raising money to build a commemorative memorial wall for the Hong Kong veterans in Ottawa which is now established next to the Canadian National War Memorial there, one of the largest of any veterans’ groups in Canada. It has each and every Hong Kong veteran’s name on it, with a designation as to whether they were killed in battle, died as prisoners of war, were wounded or came home.
My dad lived a long life, attended Remembrance Day ceremonies and laid wreaths alongside other veterans until he passed. He was a man who could fix anything, do anything, married to my mother Claire for 67 years. He was a strong man, carried on and honoured his comrades as we honour him every Remembrance Day.
