The tombstones cascade down the gentle slope of a hill above the city to a small plateau, where the Canadians are buried, many with no names: “A Soldier of the 1939-1945 War: A Canadian Regiment: Known Unto God.”
They are the too-forgotten dead of the battle of Hong Kong—a fierce, futile defence by mostly Commonwealth troops of the former British colony against overwhelming Japanese forces that began two days after Pearl Harbor 68 years ago, and that a small contingent honours here on the first Sunday of each December. This year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen were among them.
The ceremony was an act of remembrance accompanied by a dose of propaganda. But propaganda or not, those who were unmoved on his hillside Sunday were without souls.
Two hundred and ninety Canadians died in the defence of Hong Kong. They died “so close to Christmas and so far from home,” Doreen Steidle, Canadian Consul General in Hong Kong, told the gathering, her voice breaking.
Hundreds of others were lost in the brutal Japanese prison camps. Many of those who came home were broken men. International Trade Minister Stockwell Day was at the ceremony; his grandfather survived the internment, but died a year later back in Canada. He never left the hospital.
The Canadian and other forces who defended Hong Kong were ultimately forced to surrender; so many battles were lost in those months when the Japanese ransacked the Pacific. Most Canadians focused on the war in Europe. Two atomic bombs spared the Allies from having to assault Japan. The defence of Hong Kong became a footnote.
Sunday, however, the Prime Minister by his presence drew the nation to this simple hillside ceremony.
There were the moments that always catch the throat: the aged veteran shuffling so slowly as he laid a wreath at the Cross of Sacrifice, then straightening and snapping a crisp salute; an ancient but powerful voice reciting the Ode of Remembrance, as we call it now—a British poem from 1914 that the Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders have especially embraced:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
There were other reminders this day, more calculated. Once again, Mr. Harper evoked a muscular interpretation of Canada’s history, a Conservative contrast to the Liberal narrative of peacekeeping and honest brokers.
“This is a country that has always stood up when the cause has been just,” he told those gathered, “a country that never flinched in a fight no matter how fierce the foe.”
And invoking Hong Kong in defence of a more ambiguous war, he declared: “We are also reminded of the gratitude we owe to those who continue to defend our values in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world.”
This will offend some, who will believe the dead of a just war were exploited in defence of a war they see as unjust.
But all should ponder another moment. During the laying of wreaths, a representative of the Chinese government stepped forward, placed a wreath on the Cross of Sacrifice, stepped back and bowed in salute.
The heirs of Mao honoured the Canadians who died in defence of what is now a part of China. In their defence.
We should hope they continue to remember—better, perhaps, than we remember that sacrifice ourselves.
