Buried in this excerpt by George MacDonell is an amazing story of sabotage by two Canadian POW's. An act which required as much courage as being in combat. Has anyone seen any other references to this fire? "My name is George MacDonell. I was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1922. I was the fifth generation of Scottish immigrants. My first ancestors arrived in Canada in 1824. My mother was a nursing sister in World War I and she was a nursing sister just behind the front lines of the main trench warfare lines in northern France. My father was a major in the army. They met in London during the war, were married after the war, and I was their only child. I was sent to Wolseley Barracks, where there was a high-class boot camp for young army recruits. There, I was trained as infantry under the best instructors in the Canadian army. I became very interested in light machine guns and within a few months in this very demanding, tough training centre, I became a lance corporal. A few months later, I became a corporal and one day, the commanding officer sent for me and said, you’re going to be sent to a new regiment being formed in Québec City and you will go there as a sergeant. And you will report to the commanding officer of the Royal Rifles of Canada, which is now being recruited in Québec City. And so from the training centre, I went to the Royal Rifles of Canada, which had just been mobilized and which needed weapons instructors. I served in that regiment until it was suddenly nominated in the fall of 1941 to proceed immediately to Hong Kong. And with the Winnipeg Grenadiers, the Royal Rifles formed “C” Force, under the command of Brigadier Lawson, and we proceeded across the Pacific Ocean to Hong Kong. Within a month or so, the Japanese attacked Hong Kong in overwhelming force; their navy, air force and a massive Japanese army attacked Hong Kong. Within three weeks, the island was overrun and the governor was forced to surrender the island to the Japanese. However, the Canadians, who were penned up by that time after fighting the entire period extremely well, refused to surrender and only did so when the governor interceded personally and forced us to lay down our arms. So we did not surrender by raising our hands or throwing away our weapons. We had determined never to surrender but, finally, accepted the orders, obeyed the orders from the governor. Then began almost four years in the Japanese prison camp. I spent the first year or so in Hong Kong and then I was shipped to Japan. We were in Yokohama, Japan, in a camp called Camp 3B, and we were working in Japan’s largest shipyard, a vitally important war industry building much needed Japanese freighters and naval vessels. In order to strike back at the Japanese, these two young men, Staff Sergeant Clarke and Private Cameron, decided that they would commit sabotage through arson, damage the shipyard so that it could not produce the ships that it was scheduled to complete. And they did that by starting a fire that was timed to occur when the prisoners were back at their camp, about two miles away, during the night, under the blueprint factory and the place where the wooden forms are patterned, it’s called the pattern shop. And since in those days there was no electronic storage of information in computers, once you burned the blueprints and the patterns that came from the blueprints, there was no way you could build a ship or do anything in that shipyard. The shipyard employed thousands of people and it was the most vital war effort of the Japanese, destroyed by two young Canadians. And they did it in utter secrecy, they told no one but they pulled it off successfully and they even saved their own lives by doing so undetected. We were moved to a camp in northern Japan called Ohashi and it was there, working in a mine, again as slave labourers, that we were when the emperor of Japan surrendered to the Allied forces. Now, the Japanese army was furious at this surrender and in fact, revolted, tried to capture the emperor and continue the war but they failed. And so we were left in a very dangerous position, surrounded by hostile Japanese troops and without any arms and extremely ill: so badly starved that we were in the last extremes of starvation and one form of illness after another. And so we were in a very dangerous position. We were fed by air after a week or so when the American forces spotted our camp from the air. It took almost a month for the Americans to assemble the appropriate forces and a naval force to come to a nearby port to pick us up. So that period was a very dangerous one and one where we were in a very precarious position for about 30 days. The story, however, is not about how the Canadians were defeated. It’s about how they fought and how they behaved against impossible odds. And it’s about the mettle they showed when it was apparent that there was no hope and there was no possibility of a successful outcome. They never surrendered and they fought like tigers." The Memory Project - Stories of the Second World War - Stories
Wonderful that he was decorated for this. Amid the brutality and deprivation of Japanese imprisonment, with death as the penalty for failure, to display that offensive spirit and ingenuity is quite impressive. By any standard, the result was spectacular. From the Postal Corps. no less! CLARK, Charles Albert, Staff-Sergeant, DCM (C.97586) Canadian Postal Corps Canada Gazette dated 15 June 1946 (No. 24, Vol. 80, p.3849) and CARO/6632 dated 17 June 1946. Staff-Sergeant Clark of the Canadian Postal Corps was at Headquarters of "C" Force at Hong Kong where he displayed a high standard of courage and devotion to duty when a building in which he was quartered received a direct hit from a heavy shell. One of his officers was killed, and Colonel Patrick Hennessy, DSO, MC, second-in-command of "C" Force, mortally wounded. With the assistance of another Non-Commissioned Officer, Staff-Sergeant Clark applied tourniquets to Colonel Hennesy's legs, placed him on a door and carried him to a spot under an iron staircase for safety. Staff-Sergeant Clark went for help, to get which he had to pass a blazing building containing 300,000 rounds of small arms ammunition which was exploding. The danger from flying bullets and enemy shells did not deter Staff-Sergeant Clark who crept through this barrage and reached the Mount Austin Barracks where an ambulance was sent for. Staff-Sergeant Clark returned under the same dangerous conditions to Colonel Hennessy with the Medical Officer who treated him and then Staff-Sergeant Clark assisted in carrying Colonel Hennessy on a stretcher over very rough ground while under fire to the ambulance and accompanied him to the hospital. Following his capture at Hong Kong in December 1941 he was interned first at Hong Kong and later transported to Japan where he worked in the Nippon-Kokan shipyard in the Yokohama-Tokyo area. In connection with Staff-Sergeant Clark, Commander Edward V. Dockweiler of the United States Navy writes: "About 2000 hours, 20 January 1944, a large fire broke out in this yard, completely destroying the steel shed, ship outfitting stores, prisoner of war mess hall, riggers lobby, tool rooms, part of the ship fitters shop and mold loft. The area occupied by these buildings was about 800 by 600 feet. I would estimate the damage caused by this fire at about three-quarters to one million dollars. Aside from the monetary damage accomplished, the production of this yard was reduced about 60 percent for a period of at least eight months. At this time the yard was engaged in building escort destroyers and merchant shipping. Its tonnage production was about 8,000 tons a month. Considerable repair work also was being undertaken at this time. This fire was started by Staff-Sergeant Clark, Canadian Postal Corps, and Private K.S. Cameron, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps. The method used was a candle, the bottom of which was surrounded with celluloid shavings accumulated from soap boxes. The length of the candled determined the time of firing. This incendiary medium was placed behind some rubbish in one of the little used and inspected store rooms. The Japanese authorities made a very thorough investigation of the damage caused by the above mentioned fire, but were unable to determine its cause or the part played by these two young men effecting it. If the part that Sergeant Clark and Private Cameron played in this sabotage had been discovered, undoubtedly they would have been executed or tortured to death. This act of sabotage greatly crippled the production of this yard and directly minimized the Japanese war effort, and the contribution to the Allied war effort that these two men made under the handicap of being prisoners of war cannot be overestimated. The occurrence of this fire is part of my official report to my own Navy Department. I submit this report to your office with the recommendation that this act of Sergeant Clark and Private Cameron be properly recognized and adequately rewarded. Their conduct as prisoners of war while under my jurisdiction was exemplary and fulfilled the highest tradition of the Canadian Army". Some records estimated the sabotage contributed to about a $6 million loss (about $6 billion in today’s money) and cut production to 40% for 8 months. The act was a major blow to the Japanese ship production during a crucial period of time in their fight with the Allies.
The Military Medal. No. 0.92078 Private Kenneth Stanley CAMERON, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps. 25 JULY, 1946
Kenneth Stanley Cameron MM was born in Buckingham, Quebec, son of Joseph Herbert Cameron and Edna Lonergan. Cameron was living in Buckingham and working in his father’s General Motors Garage and Dealership, before enlisting in the Royal Canadian Army. In July 1940, Cameron enlisted in Ottawa in the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps as a private in Unit No. 9 Detachment. A few months later he was transferred to the Royal Canadian Ordnance corps in Unit HQ Force "C". He then traveled by train to Winnipeg and Vancouver and sailed for Hong Kong in October 1941. He arrived in Hong Kong in November 1941 and became part of "C" Force Brigade Headquarters staff. He worked in Hong Kong as a Clerk. After the Japanese captured Hong Kong in December 1941, Cameron was first interned as a Prisoner of War there. Later he was transported to Japan where he worked in the Nippon-Koken shipyard in the Yokohama-Tokyo area as forced slave labour. On January 20, 1944, a large fire broke out in this yard, completely destroying the steel shed, ship outfitting stores, prisoner of war mess hall, riggers’ lobby, tool rooms, part of the ship fitters shop and mould loft. The fire reduced the production of the yard by about 60% for a period of at least eight months. At this time the yard was building escort destroyers and merchant shipping. also, before the fire, there was considerable repair work being carried out. The fire was started by Sgt. Clark and Corp. Kenneth Cameron, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps. The method used was a candle, the bottom of which was surrounded with celluloid shavings accumulated from soap boxes. The length of the candle determined the time of firing. This incendiary medium was placed behind some rubbish in one of the little-used and inspected storerooms. The Japanese authorities made a very thorough investigation of the damage caused by the fire but were unable to determine its cause or the part played by these two men. If the part that Clark and Cameron had played in this sabotage, had been discovered, undoubtedly they would have been executed or tortured to death. This act of sabotage greatly crippled the production of this yard and directly minimized the Japanese war effort. The contribution to the Allied war effort, that these two men under the handicap of being POWs, cannot be overestimated. Commander Edward V. Dockweller of the US Navy, recommended that Clark and Cameron be properly recognized and adequately rewarded. As a result, Cameron was awarded the Military medal for his bravery and major contribution to the Allied war effort and Clark was awarded the DCM. Postwar Cameron settled in Ottawa and became an insurance executive and real estate broker. He married first Collette, who passed away in 1980. They had a daughter Sandra. In 1982 he married his second wife, Irene Parent Gendron. Cameron passed away in January, 1996.
Giving this thread a bump Given that this shipyard had a normal production rate of about 8,000 tons a month, I was curious as to the practical effect of the arson. With a reduction of 60 percent for a period of at least eight months, that translates to lost production of 38,400 tons. At the time, the yard was engaged in building escort destroyers and merchant shipping. If you apply the simple average of 2,500 tons displacement for an escort destroyer, that means that 15 ships were never launched or repaired as a direct result of the sabotage. There are probably precious few examples where two men from the ranks, acting on their own initiative, have had such a profound impact.
Staff Sergeant Clarke and Private Cameron - Brilliant, brave beyond words and greatly under-appreciated. More details here as part of an excellent interview series with George MacDonell who, while serving with the Royal Rifles of Canada, was captured at Hong Kong. MacDonell also wrote a book about his experience:
