Paying respect to those lost in battle and those who remain
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LETHBRIDGE, AB. — It was a sunny day, with brightly coloured costumes and flags, bagpipers and Blackfoot drummers and chanters along side Legion members in uniform.
The bright colours were in sharp contrast to the dark days that led up to August 15, 1945. In 1941, 1,975 Canadians volunteered to fight for Canada and support 12,000 British, East Indian, and Hong Kong Volunteers in defending the British Colony of Hong Kong from the Japanese invasion.
This past Saturday morning at the Lethbridge cenotaph, about three dozen people attended the ceremony to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of VJ Day (Victory over Japan) to honour Canadian soldiers who fought in the Battle of Hong Kong. When they were liberated in 1945, soldiers had been prisoners of war in Hong Kong and Japan for almost four years, where they survived nightmarish treatment.
Kathie Carlson, of the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association, says her father is one of five Canadians that are still alive today from the Battle of Hong Kong. She says they were the first Canadian Soldiers to be engaged in World War II in the Pacific, and the last to return home to Canada after the end of the War.
