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Illustration by Rachel Wada
Who do you remember? Each year we pause for a moment of silence. We remember those who have sacrificed, served and continue to serve during times of war, conflict and peace. We reflect on stories told, and the impact that echoes from the past into the future.
On Remembrance Day, I remember my great uncle, Sergeant Raymond Lowe of Force 136 (Second World War), and my uncle Edmund Lee, former Commanding Officer HMCS MALAHAT (Esquimalt).
Uncle Ed joined the naval reserve in 1947 as a seaman. He worked his way up the military ladder and earned the Order of Military Merit in 1976. He also worked as an astronomer at the observatory in Victoria. I remember Uncle Ed as a gentle soul, who loved to laugh and who taught me how to train my telescope at the stars. He died peacefully at the age of 82.
My Uncle Ray’s story is colourful, uncomfortable and historic. Raymond Lowe was born in Victoria in 1913 the youngest of six children. His mother died when he was young and he was raised by his father, brothers and sisters. His sister Ella was my grandmother. She gave birth to nine children, her eldest was my Uncle Ed.
Uncle Ray lived in a world where racism and mistrust were institutional and legalized. He left British Columbia to work as a salesman in Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan, and eventually landed in Winnipeg.
When the Second World War began, Canadians of Chinese descent who volunteered to fight were not accepted to the navy or the air force due to internal policy, though some were accepted to the army. They were second-class citizens: with no right to vote, no right to practice professions such as law or medicine and encountered many other restrictions. They were subject to the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, often called the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited most Chinese from entering Canada. As the war moved to the Pacific the air force and navy policies were withdrawn. Conscription became a hotly debated topic in Chinese Canadian communities: why volunteer to fight for a country that did not want them?
But Chinese Canadians like my great Uncle Ray saw military service as an opportunity to serve with their courage and skills. They wanted to prove the loyalty and commitment of Chinese Canadians to Canada, and in doing so to fight for the right to be considered first-class citizens.
By 1944, Britain was desperate to regain control of its Southeast Asian colonies from Japan. Uncle Ray was one of the first group of 13 hand-picked recruits to Force 136: a branch of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) that would lead missions based in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. Britain needed agents who could gain the trust of local Chinese who were opposed to the occupation, in order to build guerrilla forces. Suddenly, Chinese Canadians became the perfect recruits.
The team received commando training for “Operation Oblivion.” Its covert mission: espionage. They would parachute behind enemy lines, where they would support and train local resistance movements and sabotage Japanese supply lines and equipment. The SOE thought that Chinese Canadians would better blend in and be able to speak local languages. They were sworn to 25 years of secrecy. But the men knew that if captured by the enemy, the government would not come for them. They would be seen as spies and would be killed. They were given cyanide pills to use in the event of capture.
Force 136 began training on the rugged terrain in the Okanagan, near Naramata, in south central B.C. That top-secret training facility is now named Commando Bay, and it is a heritage site in Okanagan Lake Provincial Park. The operatives trained in many guerrilla tactics, such as small arms, demolition, sabotage, communications and assassination. Each operative had a specialty: Uncle Ray was a skilled wireless operator known as “the Voice.” Some operatives saw action and were shipped to Southeast Asia. Uncle Ray was shipped to Meerut, India for further wireless training, then to commando school on Fraser Island in Queensland, Australia to learn parachuting with deployment imminent. When Japan surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945, the war ended. Operation Oblivion was over and Uncle Ray was discharged that year.
All of the Operation Oblivion veterans survived. Some, including my Uncle Ray, returned to Canada.
Serendipity found Uncle Ray in Winnipeg, where he crossed paths with Pat Flaherty, a Canadian woman he’d first met in England. They married in 1948, raised a family, and he and his brother Tom ran a successful business.
The soldiers’ advocacy, their service (and the ultimate sacrifice of many other Chinese Canadians who fought in the war) helped repeal the Exclusion Act and earned Chinese Canadians the right to vote.
Details about Operation Oblivion have only come to light as later generations sought to retrace these echoes of the past. The work of Vancouver’s Chinese Canadian Military Museum, the 2012 documentary Operation Oblivion and books such as Marjorie Wong’s The Dragon and the Maple Leaf: Chinese Canadians in World War II have helped me piece together fragments of my family’s memories.
Raymond Young Lowe was the family’s resident optimist. Perhaps because of his vow of secrecy or perhaps because he left the past in the past, he never talked about the war until he was very old. Even then he talked about it very little. In his obituary, the family wrote that Raymond believed that the universe tends to unfold as it should. He chose to live a life of serenity, not a life of regrets.
History is messy and our relationship with it can be complicated. The war brought many horrors. Yet Uncle Ray and the other Operation Oblivion members sought to serve. Without their service, the rights of Chinese Canadians may have taken much longer to earn. My mother would have been denied entry to Canada as a student in 1959. She would not have met my father. My uncle Edmund would not have been able to join the naval reserves. As a born and raised Canadian of Chinese descent, I could not have become a lawyer. I would not be able to cast a vote or scrutineer at elections.
I would not be here sharing remembrance of the past and hope for the future.
Jeanette Lee lives in Toronto.