20 Text : Christian Defrance

Japanese Kamakura, Mitsui etc Japanese-Canadians in the Great War

close look at the names inscribed on the S e r g e a n t foreigners”. Appearing tombstones of military cemeteries confirms Mitsui before a security committee, Athe global dimension of the Great War Another Japanese- the furious veteran searched in the Pas-de-. In the extension of the C a n a d i a n o r in his pockets, retrieved his communal cemetery in Aix-Noulette, three graves Canadian-Japanese medals and threw them on in particular draw the attention: resting side by soldier distinguished the floor, shouting: “What side are Kichimatsu Sugimoto, killed on 24 August himself with the 10th use are these?” It was only 1917; Tagakichi Fukui, killed on 21 September Infantry Battalion in 1985 that the Canadian 1917; and Yoichi Kamakura, killed in combat near during the 3rd Battle government apologised for Lens on 26 August 1917, at the end of the battle of Ypres and then actions committed against for Hill 70. on Ridge in its citizens of Japanese April 1917. Sergeant origin and on 2 August of Awarded the Military Medal on 4 July 1917, Kamakura was M a s u m i M i t s u i , the same year Masumi relit born in Japan in 1882 and arrived in Canada in 1908. The who was born on 7 the flame at the monument participation of the Japanese-Canadians in the First World October 1887, settled that had been built in War is a brief but uplifting tale within a much bigger story! in Port Coquitlam near Stanley Park, Vancouver, The Japanese started to arrive in the Canadian province of Vancouver, and was in 1920 to pay homage British Columbia from the 1870s onwards. When war broke awarded the Military to the country’s soldiers out in August 1914, Japanese-Canadians were keen to enlist Medal at Vimy. He was of Japanese extraction in the Canadian army, hoping to prove their loyalty to their then present during the during the Great War. The new homeland, but were met with a categorical refusal, so fighting around the Canal flame was extinguished the most determined of them headed to the country’s west du Nord in September after Pearl Harbor. coast. Close to two hundred Japanese – 196 to be precise 1918. Upon his return Sergeant Masumi Mitsui – were finally incorporated to Canada, where, like died on 22 April 1987, into English-speaking all Japanese veterans, he a few months before his battalions in Alberta, obtained the right to vote 100th birthday. On 8 and set sail for Europe. in 1931, Masumi Mitsui September 2003, David In 1916, for example, the prospered as a poultry Mitsui, the sergeant’s 52nd battalion included farmer, although his land grandson, was invited 42 Japanese soldiers: 14 and all his possessions by the Canadian were killed, buried in Aix- were confiscated during Sergeant Masumi Mitsui with his medals. Photo: Michel Gravel Michel Gravel to attend Noulette, Maroeuil, Vimy, the Second World War. the official naming ceremony of Place McKean in Aubigny etc. Of the two Following the Japanese attack , as Masumi had been involved in operations hundred volunteers, 55 on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, he was separated in this sector. As can be seen from the above examples, were never to return to from his children and interned in camps along with the the Japanese-Canadians are also part of the history of the their adopted homeland. other 22,000 Canadian-Japanese judged to be “hostile Pas-de-Calais. Fijians A prince “as black as ink”

From a paradise in the middle of the Pacific urged him to return to his homeland. He disem- to the hell of the trenches – this is the extra- l barked in Suva on 30 March, his head swathed ordinary journey undertaken by Ratu Sir Lala in bandages. As a native islander subject to the Sukuna, a chief from the Fijian islands, who decisions of the colonial authorities, Sukuna fought in the Champagne and Artois regions became a civil servant and tried to convince the and was awarded both the Military Medal British to send Fijians to the front. He was to and Croix de Guerre. Josefa Lalabalavu return to in May 1917, not as a soldier Vana’ali’ali Sukuna was born on 22 April but as a sergeant and worker in the Fiji Labour 1888 on the island of Viti Levu. His family Corps. In Calais, Sukuna and a hundred other were part of the archipelago’s nobility and men worked at the port. In January 1918, they as a young boy received a very “British” were sent to Marseille and from there to Taranto education, which included studies at Oxford in Italy. Eleven of his co-workers died in France University. He was in England when the and are buried in either Calais, Marseille or First World War broke out and was keen A group of workers from the Fiji Labour Corps. In Calais they were Taranto. In September 1918, the Fiji Labour to see battle. However, this Fijian student petrified of air raids: “back home some would think that the day of the Corps set sail for the Pacific. After a short period was black, and the British army refused to Last Judgment had come”, wrote one worker to his family. as a barrister at the London Bar, this Fijian enlist non-whites. No matter, for the Fijian “to the core” became a leading politician in crossed the Channel and joined the Foreign the islands. During the Second World War, he Legion – the American Henry Farnsworth exhorted Fijians “to spill their blood for Great spoke of a “prince as black as ink”. It is spring 1915 his first citation for acts of bravery. In September 1915, Britain”: two thousand fought alongside the Allies. and the prince and his legionnaires are in the trenches Sukuna took part in the Battle of Champagne and on During Fiji’s decolonisation process, Ratu Sukuna was in Berthonval. With the first brigade of the Moroccan the 28th, in Souain, he was wounded in the temple and president of the legislative council. The “father of Division, part of the 2nd infantry regiment of the 1st hospitalised in Lyon. “I am conscious of doing my modern Fijians” retired in April 1958 and died on 30 Foreign Legion company, Sukuna mounts an assault on duty”, he wrote to his family, “but war is hell. The May on board a ship taking him to England. Henceforth, the “Ouvrages Blancs” near Neuville-Saint-Vaast on sight of blood makes me nauseous, and the effect in the Fijian islands, the last Monday in May became 9 . Carency and followed, with their of the conflict on the local population brings tears a public holiday known as Ratu Sukuna Day. Fiji: a scenes of blood and fury, where the Fijian was to receive to my eyes”. In January 1916, the British authorities Pacific idyll home to rugby and a hero of the Great War.