80th anniversary of the Fall of Hong Kong: A New Brunswick soldier's story

New Brunswicker Fred Pollock was angry about his new posting in the fall of 1941. 

The Norton man had been in the army for a year and the closest he had gotten to going overseas was when the unit was posted in Gander, N.L.

And his latest job, guarding the coast of Saint John Harbour, not far from his hometown, wasn't what he had in mind when he signed up.

But when his unit, the Royal Rifles of Canada, was given tropical gear and boarded a train for the west coast, the 24-year-old Pollock realized he was on his way to the Pacific and the British colony of Hong Kong.

"I was told he was complaining he was being sent to where the action isn't," his nephew Bill Pollock said in an interview from his Edmonton home. "But he learned the reverse was true."

Thomas and Ethel Pollock had three sons — Lawson, Fred and Clifford — and they had all helped run the family farm.

Clifford and Fred both liked music and would often play guitar at local dances. The brothers also liked to play hockey.

His younger sister Viola described Fred as playful and willing to spend time with her, despite a 13-year age difference. 

Lawson, the oldest, joined the RCAF in 1937 as a mechanic.

The other two followed their brother into military service when war broke out.

The youngest, Clifford, enlisted on Sep. 4, 1939, just days after Germany invaded Poland, and nearly a week before Canada would declare war. He joined a medical unit attached to New Brunswick's Carleton and York Regiment .

Fred signed up in October 1940 and was placed with Quebec's Royal Rifles of Canada.

When Pollock's regiment arrived in Hong Kong on Nov. 16, along with the Winnipeg Grenadiers, the nearly 2,000 Canadian soldiers joined troops from Britain, India, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The addition of the Canadians brought Hong Kong's garrison to about 14,000. Most had no combat experience.