15
90
TYPEX
MOST IMMEDIATE
INWARD TELEGRAM
FROM: CANADA (H.C.)
TO:
D.0.
D. 22nd July, 1942, 10,53 D.
11 R. 23rd
No. 1454 MOST SECRET
7.45 a.m.
S.D.
14 (1) My immediately preceding telegram. Following are extraots from Drew's letter July 11th. You will remember that the caso he seeks to establish is that the Canadian Government had received warning of deterioration of situation in Far East which should have prevented them from sending inadequately trained troops to Hong Kong.
(2) First extract begins. "On October 16th the Japanese Government fell and a new government was formed under extremists of the War Party. On the same day the press of the whole world carried belligerent statements by official spokesmen of the new Japanese Government, leaving no doubt of their determination to follow the programme of military expansion to which their party was committed, As evidence of the importance attached to this event, the Roberts Report on the Pearl Harbour attack, discloses that on the same day the War Department and Navy Department in the United States instructed their Pacific outposts to make their dispositions with dua regard to the early possibility of war. You were informed that the Government of the United Kingdom was of the same opinion as the Government of the United States and that they were acting accordingly. It is inconceivable that you were not informed on the very day it happened of the reaction of the British Government to the startling
Unless our change in the Japanese situation on October 16th. partnership with the United States in a Joint Defence Board is utterly meaningless, then it is also inconceivable that you were not informed of the reaction of the Government of the United States. General Pope, who is stationed at Washington, gave evidence at the inquiry that Canada would be informed of any important decision affecting matters of joint concern to Canada and the United States. But in any event, I know that you wer: definitely informed on October 24th which was three days before the troopship sailed from Vancouver with the Hong Kong force".
(3) Later on Drew reverts to the telegram of October 24th as follows: Begins. "Now I wish to discuss in detail some of the misstatements of fact in the report. In its wider implications I believe that the most serious finding in the whole report is that which refers to the transmission of military information from London to Ottawa. The Commissioner says that the Canadian Government relied, and necessarily relied, upon the British Government for confidential information as to the military situation in the Far East. Having thus established a basis of dependence upon the British Government, which seems strangely inconsistent with the existence of an elaborate intelligence branch of our own, and our association with the United States in a Joint Defence Board, the Commissioner then emphasises over and over again that the Canadian Government received no warning of increased danger in the Pacifio prior to the despatch of the Hong Kong force on October 27th. After many references to this subject the Commissioner says in his report 'We should remind ourselves once again that in October 1941 there were no hostilities in the Pacific and the best informed opinion available to the Canadian authorities was that hostilities would not arise in the near future' . "No matter what information
nay
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