Ukrainian Canadian soldiers and the battle for Hong Kong (11/16/97)

Ukrainian Canadian soldiers and the battle for Hong Kong

by Myron Momryk

The transfer of Hong Kong from British to Chinese administration dominated the news for many months in 1997. For the older generation of Ukrainian Canadians, particularly those who remember World War II, Hong Kong evokes a profoundly emotional response. This is particularly true for the Ukrainian Canadian community in Winnipeg.

The Winnipeg Grenadiers were a militia regiment, and several young Ukrainian Canadians from the city and other parts of Manitoba joined the local unit in the 1920s and 1930s. Others joined during the Depression of the 1930s to supplement their income. There was a large influx of new recruits in September 1939, when war was declared against Nazi Germany. Among this number was Ivan Slipchenko, an older recruit who was 36 years old and married.

Mr. Slipchenko was born in Stebliv, a town near Kyiv, on March 7, 1903. He completed two years at an agricultural college in 1923. With his cousin, he left Stebliv on May 10, 1923, and traveled across Siberia to China. Settling in Harbin, along with a large community of Ukrainians and other exiles and refugees from the Russian Revolution, he worked as a bus driver for two years.

On February, 25, 1925, Mr. Slipchenko immigrated to Canada, where he had relatives. He worked as a farm laborer near Edmonton, then near Yorkton, Saskatchewan, for a year. He then enrolled at an agricultural college in Winnipeg, worked in a garage in his spare time, and later set up his own operation, which he ran until 1931.

In the meantime, in 1928, Mr. Slipchenko joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers as a machine gun instructor and mechanic, and remained within the unit until 1932. On September 12, 1939, Mr. Slipchenko re-enlisted with the Winnipeg Grenadiers when the militia unit was placed on active service. On his attestation form, Mr. Slipchenko stated that his religion was Greek Orthodox and that he spoke Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, in addition to English. After basic training, the Winnipeg Grenadiers were sent, in May 1940, for garrison duty in Bermuda and Jamaica to replace a British unit. In Jamaica, the battalion performed guard duties at an internment camp and had only limited opportunities to continue their training. The battalion experienced further difficulties due to a heavy incidence of malaria and dengue fever among the troops.

Mr. Slipchenko spent over a month in the hospital due to illness. The battalion was stationed in Jamaica until September 13, 1941, when the unit returned to Canada. At the end of the two-week leave, Mr. Slipchenko and the other members of the Winnipeg Grenadiers embarked from Vancouver on October 27, 1941, for Hong Kong.

There was a shortage of soldiers, and volunteers were sought from other units which were added prior to departure. A number of Ukrainian Canadian soldiers joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers at this time. In total, there were an estimated 81 soldiers of Ukrainian origin in the unit - most were from Manitoba, but a few were from other parts of Canada.

The 1,975 soldiers of the Canadian contingent of two battalions, the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada, arrived in Hong Kong on November 16, 1941, to bolster the British garrison. Compared to the other British and Indian units, they were virtually untrained and lacked proper equipment. The Japanese were still officially at peace with the British Commonwealth, and the Canadian and British military authorities hoped that the two Canadian battalions would have sufficient time for additional training in Hong Kong. During this brief period, Mr. Slipchenko had the opportunity to become acquainted with the small community of Russian exiles who had fled Siberia to Hong Kong after the Russian Revolution. Following the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Canada and the rest of the British Empire and Commonwealth joined the U.S. in declaring war on Japan. On December 8-17, 1941, the Japanese military attacked the Chinese mainland near Hong Kong, and on December 18 crossed to the island of Hong Kong.

The battle for Hong Kong was fierce. On December 25 the governor of Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese armed forces. A total of 130 Winnipeg Grenadiers were killed in this action, including six Ukrainian Canadian servicemen.

The fall of Hong Kong came as a shock to the friends and families of the Winnipeg unit. After this date, there was rarely any reliable news about the fate of the Canadian soldiers who had fought in this engagement until the war in the Pacific ended in August 1945. In the chaos of battle, Mr. Slipchenko could have found refuge among the Russian exiles in Hong Kong, but decided to remain with his unit instead. Thus, he shared the fate of the other Canadian prisoners of war.

The Japanese held all prisoners of war in complete contempt, and the Canadians became convinced that they would all be executed sooner or later. The lack of food, medicine and proper clothing compounded the suffering of captivity. Conditions in the Japanese camps were severe, and disease, cold and despair claimed many victims. Survival was a daily struggle. Some of the Ukrainian soldiers managed to acquire garlic, which proved very useful as medicine. Other Ukrainian prisoners made crafts which they exchanged for additional food with the other prisoners.

The preoccupation with food and survival tested the most enduring friendships among the Canadian soldiers, including the Ukrainian Canadians, which in some cases were rooted in the community organizations and halls in Winnipeg.

The Japanese guards visited various forms of physical punishment and abuse on all of their prisoners, and many Canadians were particularly offended by the Japanese practice of slapping their captives' faces. Ukrainian soldiers, who were familiar with similar practices in the Russian Army, tried to allay their comrades' outrage by explaining that this was a cultural practice in certain Asian and East European armies and not a punishment specifically targeted at the Canadians. The Japanese treated their own soldiers and civilians in the same way. While such explanations calmed some outbursts of temper, they could not completely erase the strong resentment these and other physical punishments aroused.

There were various plans to escape to the mainland. George Berzenski, with three other Canadians, made an attempt on August 20, 1942. Mr. Berzenski had asked Mr. Slipchenko to join in the escape so they could use his contacts among the Russian community in Hong Kong, but Mr. Slipchenko refused and tried to dissuade Mr. Berzenski from his rashness. The attempt failed when the boat the escapees had commandeered capsized, leading to their capture. All four were executed on August 23, 1942.

Mr. Berzenski was born in Rossburn, Manitoba, and worked as a mechanic in Russel, Manitoba, when he enlisted in the Winnipeg Grenadiers in September 1939. He was 26 years old and had married only days before his departure for Hong Kong.

In 1943 Canadian prisoners were sent to camps in Japan, where they were obliged to perform heavy labor in the country's mines and shipyards. Prisoners with technical skills (such as Mr. Slipchenko) were held in the Yokohama Camp and exploited at the shipyards. Others were held in camps in Fukuoka and Osaka.

In January 1945 some prisoners were chosen by lot to broadcast prepared texts over Japanese radio, saying that they were alive and had been taken prisoner by Japan. Mr. Slipchenko was among them, and when short-wave operators in Canada and the U.S. monitoring Japanese transmissions picked up his message, they forwarded it to his wife in Winnipeg. It was the first news of him she had received since Christmas 1941.

In all, members of the Canadian units of Hong Kong spent 44 months in Japanese captivity, and as mentioned above, the conditions they endured were harsh. The death rate among prisoners of war in Japanese camps was 27 percent, compared to 4 percent in German POW camps in Europe. By late July 1945, of the 1,975 Canadians who arrived in Hong Kong, 557 had succumbed to disease, exposure or despair, or had been murdered by their captors. Nine of these victims were Ukrainian Canadians.

On August 15, 1945, the Japanese guards informed the prisoners that the war was over. News of the Canadians' release arrived in Winnipeg during a meeting of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee. Among those released was Paul Arsenych, the son of Jaroslaw Arsenych, the UCC's secretary general. When Mr. Slipchenko was liberated by U.S. troops on September 15, 1945, he weighed under 100 pounds.

Mr. Slipchenko returned by ship to Seattle, Wash., and from there to Vancouver. He made his way back to Winnipeg on a hospital train and spent some time en route in a military hospital in Brandon, Manitoba. He was discharged from the Canadian armed forces on March 2, 1946, and returned to his previous occupation as a garage operator. He was 43 years old.

Most of the Hong Kong veterans had difficulties adjusting to civilian life because the abuse they endured in the Japanese camps left most of them physically frail. At least two of the Ukrainian veterans volunteered again for the Canadian Army during the Korean War, and one was turned down outright for medical reasons. Steven Zacharko was accepted, but never went back to Asia. He served in Germany in the 1950s for several years before doffing his greens for the last time.

Mr. Slipchenko also suffered from the lingering effects of his incarceration particularly the severe malnutrition - and later on an industrial accident added to his misery. When he died, on April 24, 1972, Mr. Slipchenko was a member of the Hong Kong Veterans Association, Ukrainian Canadian Veterans Association Branch No. 141, the St. Andrew's Brotherhood Society, and was a parishioner at St. Mary the Protectress Cathedral in Winnipeg.

Canadian participation in the Hong Kong campaign was investigated by a Royal Commission in 1942, and was the subject of a number of other special investigations and reports over the years. The Hong Kong Veterans Association has regularly expressed its concern about the high rate of sickness and death among the survivors. Only 758 of the 1,418 survivors were still alive in 1987.

The role of Canadians in the battle for Hong Kong and the tragic conditions in the prisoner of war camps have remained a controversial topic for Canadian military historians. However, there is general consensus that the colony would have fallen to the Japanese regardless of the state of the contingent's military training and preparedness. Ukrainian Canadians who fell in the battle for Hong Kong are buried at the Sai Wan War Cemetery and the nearby Stanley Military Cemetery, now both under Chinese administration.

Every Remembrance Day, Ukrainian Canadians should make a special effort to keep the memory of their sacrifice alive.

(I would like to thank Walter Slipchenko, the son of Ivan Slipchenko, for his comments on a draft of this article.)

Myron Momryk is project archivist, Manuscript Division, at the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa.

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