Beaten, but not broken

George S. MacDonell is one of a small number of Canadian survivors of the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941. Now 93, the veteran recalls the battle, Japanese prisoner of war camps and the courage of his Canadian comrades. Rena Li reports from Toronto.

In November 1941, 2,000 young Canadian soldiers crossed the Pacific Ocean and landed in Hong Kong to fight the Japanese army, which was occupying the then-British Crown Colony. More than 500 of them never returned home.

George S. MacDonell had just turned 18 when he quit high school and answered the call from the Canadian government for volunteers to fight in World War II. "We suddenly found ourselves in a culture which had been writing sophisticated poetry before Canada was discovered," the 93-year-old veteran recalled in an interview at his home in Toronto. "Our time on the island was a wonderful experience at one of the crossroads of the world."