1/25/13 Hong Kong vets honoured at downtown memorial

Hong Kong vets honoured at downtown memorial

BY TERESA SMITH, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN DECEMBER 8, 2012

Senator Vern White participated in a w reath-laying ceremony to mark the 71st anniversary of the Battle of Hong Kong. The
ceremony took place at the “C” Force Memorial Wall in Ottaw a, Dec. 8, 2012.
Photograph by: PAT McGRATH, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

OTTAWA — Large snowflakes fell Saturday on about 60 people gathered around the Hong Kong
Veterans Memorial to honour the 1,975 Canadian soldiers who staged a brave 18-day battle before
they were taken prisoner by the Japanese in 1941.

The Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada, from Quebec, arrived in Hong Kong on

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1/25/13 Hong Kong vets honoured at downtown memorial

Nov. 16, 1941 to help their British allies defend the colony from Japanese invasion. The Japanese
attacked on Dec. 8 and, after battling day and night for 18 days, the vastly outnumbered and
exhausted troops were forced to surrender on Christmas Day, 1941.

They were the first Canadians to see battle and those that survived were last to come home.

Dempsey Syvret, 91, was one of those soldiers, and the only veteran to attend Saturday’s ceremony
in Ottawa.

Syvret was 18 years old when he joined up, and 19 when he landed in the Pacific; today, he’s one of
fewer than 50 surviving veterans of the Battle of Hong Kong.

Dressed in his uniform, proudly displaying his many medals, Syvret said he was surprised by how
many people were there to pay tribute to his friends who died.

On Dec. 5, 1941, a Friday, Syvret recalled that he and his comrades went to their positions “that we
didn’t know much about — and then we were there over a weekend.”

Command then called them off and, on the following Monday the Japanese attacked, — only hours
after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

The battle raged for more than two weeks and then, “on the hills near a mountainside, they bypassed
us,” said Syvret, his blue eyes shining.

“About 20 of us were taken prisoner on Christmas Day,” said the elderly man, shielded from the falling
snow under an umbrella held up by his youngest daughter, Rita Syvret.

The prisoners of war were fed rice three times a day, and soup made from boiled-down Chinese
cabbage.

“That’s all we got.”

When the Japanese would lose a battle, Syvret said the prisoners, who were made to work all day on
Japanese warships, would be forced to stand at attention for hours on end.

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1/25/13 Hong Kong vets honoured at downtown memorial

When he finally came back to Canada, Syvret said the doctors he saw didn’t believe his stories about
the prison camps.

“It was no use talking,” he said.

“The doctors would sit down and have their pencil and sheet ready and, they’d ask you ‘What
happened?’ ‘What did you go through?’ and you’d start and they’d put their pencil down and push
their paper away.

“You could tell them you had malaria or dysentery or beriberi (a disease caused by malnutrition) and
they wouldn’t believe it. They didn’t even know what it was,” he said.

Syvret said it wasn’t until American doctors began to document what their soldiers had experienced
that “Canada and Veterans Affairs started to pay attention.”

On Saturday, mourners laid wreaths with purple ribbons near the dark granite monument.

Others placed white roses under the memorial near the corner of King Edward Avenue and Sussex
Drive, which bears the name of each person who fought for Canada in Hong Kong.

While the gravity of his experience is clear on the lines etched in Syvret’s face, he retains a levity and
a quick smile.

This Christmas, he said he plans to celebrate with his family, although the 91-year-old smiled as he
winked at his daughter saying: “Who knows, I might not be around.”

tesmith@ottawacitizen.com

twitter.com/tsmithjourno

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1/25/13 Hong Kong vets honoured at downtown memorial

Senator Vern White participated in a w reath-laying ceremony to mark the 71st anniversary of the Battle of Hong Kong. The
ceremony took place at the “C” Force Memorial Wall in Ottaw a, Dec. 8, 2012.
Photograph by: PAT McGRATH, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

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