Prisoners of the Japanese: Two brothers from Drummondville and the Battle for Hong Kong
The vast majority of Drummondville residents who enlisted during the Second World War were sent to the European theatre of war to join the fight against German troops and their allies. However, a small number who enlisted in the Royal Rifles of Canada 35 per cent of whom were of Frenchspeaking origin, were sent to defend the British colony of Hong Kong against the Japanese, an ally of Nazi Germany at the time. It was here that Canadian soldiers experienced their first battles of World War II as they defended the colony of Hong Kong against a Japanese attack in December 1941. Among these Canadian soldiers were two brothers from Drummondville, Lloyd and Llewellyn (Bill) Doull.
The two brothers, born in Atholville, New Brunswick near the Quebec border, moved to Drummondville with their family in 1925 when their father began working for the Dominion Silk Dyeing and Finishing Company. Their mother, Ethel Cissell, was originally from Mitchell, Quebec, not far from Drummondville.
Bill enlisted in 1939 at the age of sixteen. He worked at the Canadian Celanese in Drummondville during the week and trained with the Seventh / Eleventh Hussars, Canadian Army Cavalry Regiment, in Bishopton, Quebec on weekends. In the early summer of 1941, Bill applied to join the Royal Canadian Navy. A few weeks later, Lloyd, his older brother, was on his way to Richmond to enlist in the Royal Rifles of Canada, and Bill accompanied him. When he returned home that day, his papers had arrived telling him that he had been accepted into the Navy, but he had already signed his name with the Royal Rifles and was part of the “D” Force.
In the fall of 1941, the Royal Rifles of Canada were deployed to Gander, Newfoundland, where they served in coastal defence. From there, they were redeployed to Valcartier where they were equipped for tropical operations. However, the battalion received minimal military training at these locations. In 1941, war with Japan was not considered imminent and Canadians were expected to see only garrison duty (without combat).
Nevertheless, in October 1941, the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers were ordered to prepare to serve in the Pacific theatre of war, although they did not know exactly where. From a national perspective, the choice of battalions was ideal. The Royal Rifles was a bilingual unit from the Quebec City area and, along with the Winnipeg Grenadiers, the two battalions represented the eastern and western regions of Canada.
The Royal Rifles travelled by train to the Port of Vancouver where they joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers. These two units were combined into a formation called the “’C’ Force” and on October 27, 1941 they secretly boarded the New Zealand warship Awatea and the armed merchant cruiser Prince Robert. The Canadians were rushed across the Pacific and engaged in a desperate fight to defend the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong from the Japanese.
The battle for Hong Kong
They arrived in Hong Kong on November 16, 1941, but without all their equipment. The equipment for the ‘C’ Force had been loaded on the ship Don Jose, but never reached Hong Kong, as it was redirected to Manila at the beginning of the hostilities. Upon arrival, all the troops were confined to the Nanking Barracks at Sham Shui Po Camp in Kowloon.
The “C” Force, poorly trained but determined, joined British and Indian garrison troops in an intensive 18day engagement against a continuous assault by seasoned Japanese invaders. The Japanese attacked Hong Kong eight hours after attacking Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, U.S.A., far outnumbering the Allied forces. The Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers were engulfed in hand-to-hand combat against the 38th Japanese Division. Some 52,000 Japanese attacked Hong Kong’s 14,000 defenders, most of whom had no recent experience of fighting their opponents.
Canadians suffered from a lack of adequate weapons and effective deployment of manpower, disease, lack of water, food and sleep, but they continued to resist stubbornly for eighteen days until their official surrender to the Japanese on December 25, 1941. Those who survived the battle became prisoners of war of the Japanese. Many of them were to endure torture and starvation by their Japanese captors in the following years.
During their stay in Hong Kong, many of the troops stationed there were afflicted with diseases, including malaria. Lloyd Doull was no exception and was struck by this disease six weeks after his arrival in the colony. For ten days during the siege, he alternated between a temperature of 105 degrees F (41 degrees C) and chills under his big service coat. On December 18, he was transported from the trench on a stretcher to an outpost and given quinine. When the outpost came under heavy mortar fire, the doctor said to get him out and he was loaded onto a truck and taken to St. Albert Convent Hospital.
After his capture on December 23, 1941, Lloyd described what was for him one of the most frightening moments of his life. About fifteen captured soldiers in the hospital were lined up, hands on their heads, while two Japanese soldiers took turns rotating a large machine gun back and forth aiming at them. This lasted for five hours. Prisoner of War Camps
Japan had not signed the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The terms of the Convention were ignored by the Japanese who invented rules and inflicted punishments at the whim of the camp commander. Along with other prisoners of war in Japanese hands, the Doull brothers were to suffer terrible hardships for the next four years. They would experience illness, forced