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procedure that was adopted and it is a fair presumption that he was not ignorant of the character of the additions he was getting. He relied, no doubt, very largely and properly upon the acceptance of these additions by the officers of the Royal Rifles in the one case and by Colonel Sutcliffe and his second-in-comma in the other case. I accept the view of General McNaughton in the statem already quoted that, if the inspection was judiciously made and if the men accepted were men of character, there is no reason to doubt that when the time came they would prove to be competent soldiers.
At an earlier stage of this Report, I mentioned the general rule that was circulated among a number of the District Officers Commanding under date of 18th August, 1940, respecting the sending of reinforcements overseas from Canadian Training Centres. The notification of this rule bears the signature of Colonel J. K. Lawson, who later took command of the Canadian Expedition to Hong Kong. As the notice is short it may be quoted in full:-
Training-Reinforcements C.A.S.F.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO,
August 18, 1940.
1. I am directed to request that you will ensure that reinforcements from C.A.S.F. Training Centres are not sent overseas unless they have completed the full period of training laid down, without obtaining prior authority from N.D.H.Q.
2. In the event of such authority being granted, I am to request that you will ensure that a complete record of the stage of training reached by each man accompanies him, as indicated in H.Q.S. 3498-5 of 26th January, 1940, paragraph 5.
(Sgd) J. K. LAWSON,
Colonel, for Chief of the General Staff.
Strictly, it is doubtful if this rule had any application to the men added to the strength of the Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers in October, 1941. The rule applies literally to those men who enlist in battalions which are already overseas, and for which trained reinforcements are provided from the Training Centres. The two battalions that went to Hong Kong were non-divisional units and had no establishments at any training centres from which reinforcements could be drawn. The transfers made in October, 1941, were not reinforcements being sent overseas from Training Centres, within the terms of the general order of August 18, 1940; and, therefore, that order is technically inapplicable.
Nevertheless, the order of August 18, 1940, is based on the view that Canadian soldiers should not leave Canada on service until their training has been completed, without special authority from N.D.H.Q. I understood from several of the witnesses that this was the approved military practice, although in fact it had been necessary on occasions-mainly because of the shipping situation- to deviate from the rule. In the cases of the men added to the strength of the Royal Rifles and Winnipeg Grenadiers, such authority from N.D.H.Q. was, of course, obtained. The officers in charge in both Military District No. 2 and Military District No. 10 were in constant communication with Colonel Hennessy, who was the officer in charge of this phase of the preparations at N.D.H.Q., and who gave full permission for all the steps taken to obtain volunteers for the two battalions.
General Crerar, who, as Chief of the General Staff, had been responsible for the general policy expressed in the order of August 18, 1940, was absent from Ottawa during the period when steps were taken to bring the two battalions up to strength. He cannot, therefore, have any personal responsibility with this phase of the organization of the expedition. Nevertheless, he stated, in response
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to a question sent to him, "that if the formation commander and the officers commanding units were content to accept as volunteers, following personal inspection, a proportion of reinforcements who had not completed certain elements their advanced training, and if this question had been referred to me at the le, I am satisfied that I would have concurred in this deviation from my stated general policy."
General Stuart says:—
Therefore the problem is this: I admit that I wanted to give those unit refresher training. What were we to do? To make use of the ship- ping that we were told would be available on the 17th, remembering the conditions as they were at the time, my lord: we were at peace; war, accord- ing to the best information we had was not imminent; therefore why should not that refresher training be carried out at the other end, namely, at Hong Kong, and let us make use of that shipping that was placed at our disposal for that purpose? And again, in view of the stress, the importance that the British authorities placed upon our taking advantage of that shipping in order to get those people there just as early as possible, we chose that alternative, and I submit that there was not a second choice.
Q. There was no alternative?-A. There was no alternative, my lord. Q. I understand you to say that there was no practicable alternative? -A. No practicable alternative, my lord.
On the whole matter I find that there was no dereliction of duty or error in judgment from the mere fact that approximately 120 men were included in the expedition before they had completed their prescribed periods of training.
I have already found that the addition of these men did not impair the efficiency of the expedition nor did it constitute an injustice to these men them- selves. I have also found that there was no breach of any general order relating to reinforcements in the addition to the Hong Hong force. It is beyond question that it is better practice to send fully trained men overseas than it is to send men who are only partly trained. I believe however that, in the circumstances existing in October, 1941, the course taken to bring the units up to strength was fully justified, even though it resulted in the incorporation of a small number of men who were incompletely trained. However it would be most unfortunate if, from these findings, it was inferred that Canada did not have, in October, 1941, sufficient fully trained men in the country to provide the numbers required by the two battalions. I investigated this question but, for obvious reasons, I cannot give the exact figures of trained men in Canada at that time. I can state, 'however, that in the training centres alone — despite very large numbers going forward to England early in October, 1941, and also in November, 1941 there were many hundreds of fully trained men available. And outside the training centres, in other battalions stationed in Canada, there were tens of thousands of men who had received more than six months' training.
In these circumstances, it many seem a little strange that any men who had not completed their training were included in the expedition. The explanation is to be found in the speed and secrecy with which preparations had to go forward. Between the date of the definite advice from England as to the details of the proposed expedition (October 9) and the date of sailing from Vancouver (October 27) only eighteen days intervened. Accordingly it was necessary to concentrate efforts in one or two localities to obtain the required number of volunteers. In seeking these volunteers the need of secrecy prevented any disclosure of the specific nature and destination of the expedition, and the number of volunteers was undoubtedly restricted by this inability to give any information of the type
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