Talks were opened to find a solution to the crisis, but it was understood that there was a very real possibility that Japan might try to seize the Netherlands East Indies together with the British colonies of Sarawak, Sabah, Malaya, and Burma to provide itself with oil, as proven by the subsequent occupations of the Japanese Army.

[7] A major problem with the British "deterrence diplomacy" was that in 1941, Britain was fully engaged in war with Germany and Italy, and it was not possible to build up the level of forces in Asia that could truly deter the Japanese.

In a memo, Major-General A. E. Grasett (the outgoing Commander of British Troops in China, and a Canadian himself) argued that increasing the size of the Hong Kong garrison would have "a strong psychological stimulus" and a "salutary effect on the Japanese".

Realizing that the only hope of inducing Japan to moderate these activities lay in an Anglo-American joint front, Britain proposed that a number of times, but was always rebuffed by Washington".

[10] The British request of 19 September stated that "there have been signs of a certain weakening of Japan's attitude towards us" and argued that sending two battalions to Hong Kong would "have a very strong moral effect on the whole of the Far East".

[14] Power had won the Military Cross in World War One, but the primary reason for his appointment as associate defense minister was because of his influence and popularity in his native Quebec.

[14] The Canadian prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, privately considered Power to be a mental lightweight and kept him in the cabinet only because he was very popular in Quebec.

Price, the son of a Quebec lumber baron who was serving in the Royal Rifles, wrote to Power saying, "With the interest you have in our welfare, you will be willing and able to convince military authorities that it is bad policy to keep a unit like ours killing time".

[23][18] Crerar's memo, claiming that there was "no military risk," had considerable influence on Mackenzie King, who believed that C Force would only be performing guard duty in Hong Kong.

[23][15] Mackenzie King appears to have either been unaware or did not care that Crerar, a bureaucratic general who had never seen action, had an "authoritarian submissive" personality and tended to say whatever his superiors wanted to hear.

[17] The commander of the Winnipeg Grenadiers was Lt. Col. John Louis Robert Sutcliffe (August 29, 1898, Elland, England - April 6, 1942, Hong Kong),[29] who had seen action in France, Belgium, Russia, Persia, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) during the First World War.

[35] Owing to a lack of space, one company of the Royal Rifles had to sail aboard the merchant cruiser assigned to guard the Awatea, HMCS Prince Robert.

[39] The first action of C Force was to march down the Nathan Road in Hong Kong, accompanied by a British Army brass band playing martial music.

[39] Maltby had initially planned to defend only Hong Kong Island and to abandon Kowloon and the New Territories, but with the arrival of the two extra battalions from Canada, he now felt he had enough troops to man the Gin Drinkers' Line that formed the frontier with China.

[43] One soldier from Oshawa, Jeff Marston, wrote home to his mother on 23 November 1941, expressing enthusiasm about Hong Kong, describing it as a "beautiful city".

[34] In the same letter, he mentioned that the Canadians loved to spend their free time at the "Roller-Dome" for roller-skating, which was full of the "loveliest looking Chinese girls I have ever seen," and at a luxurious dance hall called the Dreamland, where the latest "hit" American pop music was played.

[2] Another soldier attached to C Force, Company Sergeant Major George McDonell of the Royal Rifles of Canada, stated in an interview in 2006 that being sent to Hong Kong "...was a great adventure.

[46] Another veteran of C Force, Private Maurice D'Avignon of Quebec City, in a public letter in 1948 written in slightly broken English, stated: "When we volunteered in the Army we were ready to fight anywhere in the British Empire.

[2] On 30 November 1941, the Japanese Prime Minister, General Tojo, knelt before the Emperor and asked, via the president of the privy council, for permission to go to war and for approval of a list of operations, starting with the plan to bomb the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.

[48] Later the same day, General Sakai of the 23rd Army, based in Canton, gave orders to Lieutenant-General Sano Tadayoshi of the 38th Division to start preparations for invading Hong Kong.

[50] Company Sergeant Major John Robert Osborn was killed during the fighting on 19 December and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for bravery in battle in the British Empire, becoming the first Canadian to be so honored in World War Two.

[53] As the Winnipeg Grenadiers were a close-knit regiment recruited from southern Manitoba, the loss of so many brothers over such a short period of time could have caused morale problems, but it appears not to have done so.

[54] As his body was repeatedly pierced by bayonets, Roy Land swore so defiantly and loudly at his tormentors that a Japanese officer finally shot him in the head to silence him.

"[46] Wallis, who was accustomed to Europe, where people generally automatically obeyed their social superiors, found the Canadians, who were the product of a more egalitarian society, difficult to deal with.

I called them together and said, 'At one o'clock the company is going to attack Stanley village below us,' in broad daylight, no support, no artillery, no heavy machine guns, nothing... Now they looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

[60] Upon reaching the Japanese lines, fierce hand-to-hand fighting occurred with both sides using their bayonets to avoid killing their own as the close quarters made it inadvisable to fire their rifles.

[62] Brigadier-General Orville Kay, who had once commanded the Winnipeg Grenadiers, was sent to Chunking in August 1943 as the first Canadian military attache to China, where his primary concern was finding out what happened to the POWs taken at Hong Kong.

[68] The same allegation made against the Canadians at Hong Kong was repeated by the defeated British GOC at Singapore, Arthur Percival, against the Indian Army troops under his command.

"[61] In the same manner, D'Avignon, in his 1948 letter written in broken English, defended the record of C Force as he wrote: "If such a battle was given to the Japanese and their casualties prove it sure wasn't given by untrained soldiers.

"[47] In a summary of the controversy over C Force, the British historian Tony Banham wrote in 2015: "Clearly the Canadian authorities did not send their most battle-ready formations to Hong Kong.