Headquarters Company Wasn’t a Fighting Unit

Heroes Remember

Headquarters Company Wasn’t a Fighting Unit

Transcript

Being in Headquarters Company of the Royal Rifles, I wasn't in a fighting company, like A, B, C, or D. I was in Headquarters Company and I had been placed in the signal platoon, at the beginning, but then I had been transferred to number two and then number four on the ship. Number four platoon was supposed to be Bren gun carriers, people movers, soldier movers, and we didn't have any of those. So everybody in Headquarters Company was just sent here and there, a few here and a few there, to help out where they needed help, carrying ammunition or whatever. I was, I was sent across the island from the north end of it, right to the south part of the island with a group of about ten or twelve. We were just outlook for the, to notify the headquarters if any, enemy landings there. But nothing happened on that side of the island as far as we were concerned, everything came from the China side. It was, it was a kind of a shock then that we knew that we were at war. We were there for, until the 18th I think it was, of December when the Japanese actually landed on the island. Then we were withdrawn. The eight or ten men that was with me, withdrawn back to Royal Rifles headquarters, around Palm Villa. But there was, up until the 18th I never saw anything. There was no war in my area at all.

Description

Mr. MacLean describes what the role of Headquarters Company was to be, and with no need for that role to be filled, what he did instead. He then describes how, because of where he was posted on the island, he did not actually see war action until well after Japan invaded.

Ralph MacLean

Mr. MacLean was born in the Magdalen Islands on June 27, 1922. He now resides in Calgary, Alberta, with his wife and family. Mr. MacLean signed up for service looking for excitement and thinking he would get to travel to Europe and was assigned to the Headquarters Company of the Royal Rifles. Instead of being sent to Europe Mr. MacLean found himself in Hong Kong in mid-November 1941. He was captured by Japanese forces on Christmas Day after being forced to retreat to the side of a cliff and left with no means of defence. During his captivity, Mr. Maclean was held at Shamshuipo and North Point POW Camps, before being shipped to Niigata as slave labour for a steel foundry. Liberated by Americans, Mr. MacLean returned to Canada soon after, and returned to civilian life.

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