LOST MEMORIES: The Internment of the Canadian Population in Hong Kong (1941-1943) and its Absence of Remembrance.

The Japanese army's capture of Hong Kong in December 1941 profoundly shocked the Western world. In Canada, the almost complete destruction of Canadian army forces stationed there and the subsequent 44 months of imprisonment of the surviving soldiers is generally seen as an abject failure that could have been avoided. But less well known is the internment of the 76 Canadian nationals in Stanley Camp, where around 3,000 Western citizens were held starting in January 1942. While recent research has focused on the Canadian military's role in the Battle of Hong Kong, scant attention has been given to the smaller group of Canadian civilians interned. This article aims to present the experiences of this community and to explain their absence in Canadians' collective memories despite recent remembrances. The first part offers background on the Canadians interned and presents their demographic profiles before the war. In the second part, I recontextualise their lives within the camps and present their experiences from the beginning until their repatriation in September 1943. The final section contends that numerous factors, linked with a lack of proper communication and the overshadowing of other experiences of imprisonment and internment, explain the absence of the civilian internees in today's discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]