Although three of his crew were killed when the Japanese machine-gunned the airmen in the water, Birchall and the remaining crewmen were taken prisoner. His radio operator managed to send off a warning message before the Catalina was shot down by Japanese fighters. Two days later, on his first patrol, he detected the Japanese fleet streaming towards the island. The commander, Squadron Leader Leonard Birchall, arrived there on April 2. In March 1942, the RCAF's 413 General Surveillance Squadron was dispatched with its Consolidated Catalina flying boats from Scotland to Ceylon. As the Japanese extended their domination in the Pacific, the enemy threat soon reached as far as Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) off the southeast coast of India. However, it was a Canadian squadron that was next to play a key role in the war against the Japanese. This resulted in several hundred Canadians serving with the British forces as they fought against the rapidly advancing Japanese forces in Malaya, Singapore, Java (now Indonesia), Burma (now Myanmar) and India. In the early part of the war, many members of the quickly expanding RCAF were assigned to Royal Air Force (RAF) squadrons and went wherever those squadrons were sent. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) was also involved in the war in Asia from the beginning. The majority of those who returned to Canada suffered serious disabilities as a result of their prisoner of war experience, and many died premature deaths. Forced to carry out backbreaking labour on construction sites and in mines while being beaten frequently and fed a starvation diet, 264 more young men died before the emaciated and diseased survivors were freed in 1945. They were to remain prisoners for almost four years, during which time they were subjected to systematic brutality that found its equal only in the concentration camps. Two hundred and ninety Canadians died in the hard-fought battle, but as the remainder surrendered they could not have seen that their horror was just beginning. Sai Wan Bay War Cemetery, Hong Kong, where 283 soldiers of the Canadian Army are buried, including 107 who are unidentified. Finally, on Christmas Day 1941, the Allied forces in Hong Kong surrendered. The Canadian commander, Brigadier John Lawson, was killed fighting in front of his command post. Nevertheless, the Canadians fought courageously, and one of them, Company Sergeant-Major John Osborn of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross after he deliberately fell on a grenade just before it exploded, thereby saving the lives of several comrades. When the Japanese army attacked in overwhelming numbers, the beleaguered garrison fought without any realistic hope of success. They were members of two infantry battalions - the Royal Rifles of Canada from Québec and the Winnipeg Grenadiers - and they had arrived in Hong Kong only three weeks before as part of an attempt to strengthen the island colony's defences. In Hong Kong, the small British garrison included 1,975 Canadians. The fighting in the Pacific did not begin only with the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Decemat the same time other Japanese forces attacked the British colonies of Hong Kong and Malaya (now Malaysia) as well as several other American bases in the Pacific. The First Canadian contingent lands at Hong Kong.Ĭanadian forces were involved in the war in Asia from its outset.
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