The remarkable story behind the secret Canadian guerilla force you've never heard of

Brent G. Hoy's father, Charles Hoy, didn't talk much about what he did during the Second World War.

It wasn't just that it was difficult. He also was part of a covert Chinese Canadian force, sworn to 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.

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.

"Fighting for a country that really didn't want you, but nevertheless having that deep sense to contribute," Hoy said of his 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.

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. In 1947, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed and the entrenched racism Chinese Canadians experienced began to shift.

It was a double victory, says Catherine Clement, a historian and curator whose work excavates stories of the Chinese Canadian 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. Brent G. Hoy's father, Charles Hoy, is in the bottom row, second from the right. (Canada Post)

Between 1885 and 1923, Chinese immigrants who came to Canada had to pay at least $50 to enter. The head tax was later raised to $100, then $500, before all Chinese immigration was banned in July 1923.

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. They were segregated within society too, like being prevented from working in some professions or swimming in some public pools.

Operation Oblivion

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

Undercover resistance

An undated photo of the first recruits of Force 136 training in Darwin, Australia. (Chinese Canadian Military Museum)

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.

Then began intense training in Canada and abroad, including in espionage, wireless operation and jungle survival. Their mission was to gather intelligence, support local resistance fighters and carry out sabotage operations.

They were told to expect extreme heat, insects and disease, alongside the dangers of capture, torture or death.

Members of Force 136 training in Queensland, Australia in 1945. (Chinese Canadian Military Museum)

'A suicide mission'

One recruit, dropped into Borneo, recalled living on crocodile meat, monkeys and wild pigs, in a story highlighted by the Chinese Canadian Military Museum.

"They were told to save your last bullet for yourself, carry cyanide, if you're captured don't reveal any secrets," said Wong.

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.

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. More than 80,000 people were killed instantly. A few days later, the war ended and so too did Operation Oblivion.

While most of Force 136 sailed back to Canada through England, some men, including Wong's father, were abandoned in Australia.

"They had to work their way back on a freighter in order to get back," said Wong.

When they did get back to Canada, it took another two years until discriminatory laws were repealed. Many see Force 136 and the dismembering of legislation like the Chinese Exclusion Act as inseparably linked.

When those men returned they continued fighting, says Melissa Karmen Lee, the CEO of the Chinese Canadian Museum in 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.

"Their faces belong on a Canadian stamp, their stories belong in our history books, and their legacy belongs to every Canadian," Lee said.

Rick Wong, left, and Brent G. Hoy unveil the new Canada Post stamp in Vancouver on Nov. 3. (Spill Studios)

'That's my dad there'

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.

His father, who died in 2002, appears in the stamp in the bottom row, second from the right.

Hoy says he was thrilled "beyond words" when he was sent a mock-up of the stamp.

"I thought, hey gee, you know that's my dad there."

While the stamp features only a handful of the faces behind Force 136, Hoy says it marks an acknowledgement of gratitude for the Chinese Canadians that were prepared to sacrifice their lives. None lived long enough to see this commemoration.

"This selfless sense of duty shines a bright light on the fact that we, as a generation after them, are the offspring of our ancestors' courage, persistence, commitment and sacrifice."