1941
Many men were to weak to walk and it was many months until they were healthy again
The arrived in Hong Kong on November 16, 1941, with the naive idea that the Japanese only had 5,000 troops with little artillery and were not able to fight. They were very wrong. The Japanese attacked them with 50,000 soldiers with superior weapons and training. The advance the Japanese were estimated to make in one week, they took in 12 hours.
On December 7, the Japanese high command ordered its forces into action across Asia. The most memorable event was that of the attack on Pearl Harbour. Overshadowed and often forgotten are the other Japanese attacks in the hours after Pearl Harbour - the Phillipines, Malaya and then Hong Kong.
With the Japanese attacking and little defense, Canadian troops commandeered the last ferry across the harbour to safety. Now all the Japanese had to do was cross the harbour to attack them but the Canadian soldiers were assured that the Japanese would never cross the water at night because they were racially prone to sea sickness and because of their eye shape, they couldn't see properly at night.
