Two Hundred Men Under Strength.

Heroes Remember

Two Hundred Men Under Strength.

Transcript

I saw the pressure about getting in the air force and that is when I took the tests, and they phoned back, at least they wrote back, I got a message back, from Petawawa to become an instructor and I tried all the avenues but they wouldn’t let me go because we’d already been warned for overseas, we were all to get ready to go away, you know. So within a week, no, I guess we all had, we had about a weeks leave, home leave, and when we got back we had about two weeks to get ready and we were on the way, on the train to Vancouver to go to Hong Kong. We were about 200 men under strength. We had some medical trouble of our own men, they were off sick and so on, so we recruited about six or seven officers from Fort Osborne Barracks, junior officers, that had just done their training and about the same number of men. They had no basic training at all, some of them - most of them. Their medicals were C or even D category. They just took every man they could get, in order to fill up their ranks. As a matter of fact the whole battalion wasn’t properly trained. If you’re comparing them to the regiment, 1st battalions over in England. Pre-battle training and all that sort of thing, we never had any of that, very basic firing machine guns and rifles on the range and that’s it. As a matter of fact, I never saw and I don’t think we did have even had a two inch or a three inch mortar to train on. I think we had them over in Winnipeg in the Fort Osborne Barracks to see, you know, but they were very, very brief. Even my own experience with it, we were just shown how it worked and a few little dumb shots and that was it.

Description

Mr. White describes the inadequate strength, health and training of the Hong Kong force.

Harry Leslie White

Harry Leslie White was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, on May 24, 1907. His family emigrated to Winnipeg, Canada, in 1911. His father, a First World War Veteran, became a policeman. After finishing grade 6, Mr. White had numerous jobs to help support his family. He did some reserve training and was also taught to box by his father. After being turned down by the air force, Mr. White joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers for basic training in Kingston, Jamaica. Here he also helped guard a POW camp holding German and Italian naval personnel. Once in Hong Kong, he joined E Company. Mr. White was captured, but unlike so many others, spent his entire time as a POW in Hong Kong, working on the Kai Tek airport. After the war, Mr. White established an orchard, and later returned to Eatons, where he had worked prior to the war.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 2:33
Person Interviewed:: Harry Leslie White
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Canada
Battle/Campaign:: Hong Kong
Branch:: Army
Units/Ship:: Winnipeg Grenadiers
Rank:: Lieutenant

Language selection

Two Hundred Men Under Strength.

Heroes Remember