Cost of Freedom: Sacrifice: Second World War: Hong Kong Introduction

Hong Kong: The Story

National Archives of Canada (PA-115236, photo by Louis Jacques).

Captain Stanley M. Banfill Returns Home from the Far East, Montreal, Quebec, 13 October 1945.

Captain Banfill, taken prisoner at Hong Kong in December 1941, meets his son for the first time on returning to Montreal. Of the 1,975 Canadian soldiers who took part in the defence of Hong Kong, 1,685 men were imprisoned in Japanese prisoner-of- war camps for the rest of the war. Many died in the camps.

Canadian soldiers had no opportunity for victory in the battle for Hong Kong. The rough terrain was strategically isolated and tactically difficult to defend. The enemy soldiers were battle-hardened veterans, and they vastly outnumbered the Canadian troops and their Commonwealth allies. Despite the formidable odds, the Allies fought valiantly until they were forced to surrender. Canada suffered 290 dead and 493 wounded. A total of 1,685 soldiers were captured and subsequently languished under appalling conditions in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps; 264 of these would die in the camps.

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Numbers Killed, Wounded, and Captured at the Battle of Hong Kong, December 1941.