Below are three 15 minute videos which give some live action of the war and what the Canadian forces faced.

WW2 Hongkong 1941 (Part 1) from myxpitstop

Film 1 (above): This shows the two battalions of Canadian troops (the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Canadian Rifles), some 2,000 men, on the troop ship Awatea. As it says they thought this was ‘a cushy’ posting not realising that three weeks after they landed in Hong Kong on 16th November 1941 they would be fighting for their lives. There is film of the action as well as the infamous Gin Drinkers Line which was supposed to hold up the Japanese, but spectacularly failed to do so.

WW2 Hongkong 1941 (Part 2) from myxpitstop

Film 2 (above): This has footage of the Canadians fighting to hold the Wei Nei Chong Gap on Hong Kong Island and describes the death of their commander, Brigadier John Lawson, as well as the actions of Sergeant Major John Osborn of the Winnipeg Grenadiers who was awarded the Victoria Cross.

WW2 Hongkong 1941 (Part 3) from myxpitstop

Film 3 (above): In this graphic film a survivor of the massacre at St Stephen’s Hospital, back at the Hong Kong hospital over sixty years later, described that day, with actual footage of the Japanese attack. There are also pictures of the emancipated Canadians in the POW camps in Hong Kong and Japan. The film makers visit Sai Wan and Stanley Military cemeteries and you see the grave of Brigadier Lawson, who as I reported in my book died at Wong Nei Chong Gap.