The remarkable story behind the secret Canadian guerilla force you've never heard of
Canada Post's new Remembrance Day stamp spotlights the soldiers who fought for a country that ostracized them
Brent G. Hoy's father, Charles Hoy, didn't talk much about what he did during the Second World War.
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he → hear → War
He also was part of a covert Chinese Canadian force, sworn to secrecy.
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He → swear → secrecy
Force 136, part of Britain's Special Operations Executive, was trained in espionage, guerilla warfare and jungle survival for parachute deployment behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia.
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Force → train → Asia
These soldiers wore a Canadian uniform and were prepared to sacrifice their lives, despite being shunned by their country, both in law and daily discrimination.
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soldiers → wear → law
"Fighting for a country that really didn't want you, but nevertheless having that deep sense to contribute," Hoy said of his father.
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Hoy → fight → father
That complicated legacy is being spotlighted in a black and white photograph selected by Canada Post for a new stamp, to commemorate the country's military history.
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legacy → spotlight → history
It shows 10 out of about 150 Chinese Canadian soldiers who served the Allied war effort with Force 136 and, after the war was won in 1945, came home to become part of a broader push to change how their community was treated.
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community → show → push
In 1947, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed and the entrenched racism Chinese Canadians experienced began to shift.
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Canadians → repeal → 1947
It was a double victory, says Catherine Clement, a historian and curator whose work excavates stories of the Chinese Canadian experience.
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work → say → experience
"Helping the Allies win the war, but also helping the Chinese community to win the right, like equal rights, full rights of citizens of Canada".
Canada Post's new Remembrance Day stamp shows 10 soldiers from Force 136 awaiting repatriation in 1945.
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stamp → help → 1945
Between 1885 and 1923, Chinese immigrants who came to Canada had to pay at least $50 to enter.
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who → come → 50
The head tax was later raised to $100, then $500, before all Chinese immigration was banned in July 1923.
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immigration → raise → July
From then until 1947, all Chinese people — even those born in Canada — were required to register with the government or risk fines, detainment or deportation.
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people → bear → fines
They were segregated within society too, like being prevented from working in some professions or swimming in some public pools.
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They → segregate → pools
It was under those laws, designed to exclude or ostracize people on the basis of their Chinese ethnicity, that Hoy's father, at the age of 26, still decided to volunteer in the war effort for Canada.
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father → design → Canada
It was the same story for Rick Wong's father, Hank Wong, the son of a head tax payer and a member of Force 136, also called Operation Oblivion.
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It → call → Force
Hank, who died in 2019, was the last surviving member of the original 13 members of the top secret mission to sabotage supply lines and equipment within Japanese-occupied territory in the Pacific.
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who → die → Pacific
Wong says despite first being rejected from the navy, because it was "for white men only," his father eventually joined the Kent Regiment and learned to parachute out of planes and rapidly deploy from moving trucks.
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father → say → trucks
It was in the 1940s, when Japan entered the Second War War and began to quickly invade and occupy large parts of Southeast Asia, that the British realised it needed agents in the region to support local resistance fighters.
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it → enter → fighters
Chinese Canadians were the perfect recruits, from the perspective of Britain's Special Operations Executive, easily blending in with local populations with language skills in English and Cantonese.
Force 136 was born.
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Force → blend → English
Their mission was to gather intelligence, support local resistance fighters and carry out sabotage operations.
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mission → gather → operations
They were told to expect extreme heat, insects and disease, alongside the dangers of capture, torture or death.
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They → tell → capture
One recruit, dropped into Borneo, recalled living on crocodile meat, monkeys and wild pigs, in a story highlighted by the Chinese Canadian Military Museum.
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recruit → drop → Museum
They were told to save your last bullet for yourself, carry cyanide, if you're captured don't reveal any secrets," said Wong.
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Wong → tell → secrets
He says he once asked his father if he was afraid about what was "essentially a suicide mission" while he was awaiting his deployment in Australia.
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he → say → Australia
His father replied, "you gotta do what you gotta do."
Then the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in early August 1945.
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Americans → reply → August
More than 80,000 people were killed instantly.
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people → kill → ?
A few days later, the war ended and so too did Operation Oblivion.
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Oblivion → end → ?
While most of Force 136 sailed back to Canada through England, some men, including Wong's father, were abandoned in Australia.
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men → sail → Australia
"They had to work their way back on a freighter in order to get back," said Wong.
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Wong → have → freighter
When they did get back to Canada, it took another two years until discriminatory laws were repealed.
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laws → get → years
Many see Force 136 and the dismembering of legislation like the Chinese Exclusion Act as inseparably linked.
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Many → see → Act
When those men returned they continued fighting, says Melissa Karmen Lee, the CEO of the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver.
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Lee → return → Vancouver
It's the only place in Canada, including the War Museum in Ottawa, where the public can see a permanent exhibit on Chinese Canadian soldiers.
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public → include → soldiers
"Their faces belong on a Canadian stamp, their stories belong in our history books, and their legacy belongs to every Canadian," Lee said.
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Lee → belong → Canadian
Rick Wong, left, and Brent G. Hoy unveil the new Canada Post stamp in Vancouver on Nov. 3.
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Wong → unveil → Nov.
Hoy told an audience at the unveiling of the stamp in Vancouver that he could visualize his father's "broad and knowing closed lip smile of approval" that the contributions of Force 136 would be memorialized in such a way.
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contributions → tell → way
His father, who died in 2002, appears in the stamp in the bottom row, second from the right.
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who → die → right
Hoy says he was thrilled "beyond words" when he was sent a mock-up of the stamp.
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he → say → stamp
I thought, hey gee, you know that's my dad there."
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that → think → ?
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
