Photographs from Bing Wong’s time in the army during World War II, at his home in Burnaby.

The ‘Tiger Force’

The Americans predicted that there would be a million casualties in the attack. Married men, like Chan, were told not to volunteer. With so many of the others having gone overseas, Bing Wong and Daniel Wong became two of the only Chinese Canadians they know to have joined the CAPF.

“They called us the ‘Tiger Force,’ ” Bing Wong said. “We were going to train under the Americans and use all American equipment but wear the Canadian uniform.”

According to a report compiled by the Canadian Department of National Defence, discussions as to how Canada might play a part in the war against Japan had started by early 1944. The documents cited in the report indicate that by September of that year, the Canadian Cabinet had concluded that once the war in Europe ended, Canadian forces should participate in the war against Japan directly in the North and Central Pacific rather than Southeast Asia and take part in the final attack of the Japanese homeland.

That would allow Canada to base its forces in Western Canada in close cooperation with the US, joining the British forces in the Southwest Pacific. The North and Central Pacific were strategically important to Canada as a Pacific-facing nation with connections to the United States.

By the end of 1944, it was decided that Canada’s contribution, the CAPF, would consist of an infantry division possibly reinforced with armour, serve as a follow-up unit to the main operation in the North Pacific theatre, use US Army equipment, be organized along the lines of a US corps and train in the US under the supervision of the US Army Ground Forces.

“We were in an unhappy position,” Wong recalled. “We were what they called ‘replacements’ for the best troops that would be sent first, so we didn’t know who we would be [going in with.”

“I trained to be a machine gunner, so say if the machine gunner gets killed, then I’d take over.”

Despite this, Wong thought he would have preferred fighting in the attack “with the whole group, instead of as a guerilla, where you’re all on your own and on the run from the Japanese all the time”, he said.

“Afterwards we found out it was just as dangerous,” Wong said.

Wong is modest about his decision to volunteer. He said that as a Chinese Canadian, the decision to join the attack and join any part of the military “wasn’t about being brave,” but just knowing there were a lot of things worth fighting for.

“When they called for volunteers, Danny [Daniel Wong] came to me after and he said, ‘Bing, did you volunteer? Being a Chinese, you have to volunteer to fight the Japanese,’ ” Wong said. “Most of the Chinese at the time, of course, we didn’t want to go to Europe; we wanted to fight [against] Japan for China.”

There were also the struggles back home in Canada to consider.

“I really didn’t want to volunteer for the Pacific Force, but I couldn’t let them think the Chinese were cowards,” Wong said. “And if we didn’t fight for the country, we would not get the vote, [and] some of the men who had families in China weren’t allowed to bring them to Canada.”