Remembrance Day and Captain Roger Cheng

Captain Roger Cheng Aka Captain Fong parachuted down to Kapit with four other Canadian Chinese soldiers. It was into this situation that 29-year-old Roger Cheng and four other Chinese-Canadians, Jimmy Shiu, Norman Lowe, Roy Chan and Lewis King, were flown on August 6, 1945. Cheng was the first Chinese-Canadian to become an officer in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, a rare accomplishment in those days. He was an electrical engineering graduate from McGill University and spoke fluent Cantonese, making him a natural to head this team.

From Kapit he led the Allied soldiers to liberate the people from the Japanese Occupation. What is special to me is the Japanese Camp was ten minutes from my Grandpa's house. My grandpa and my dad were privileged to witness the surrender.

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/second-world-war/uncommon-courage
http://www.rcsigs.ca/index.php/Cheng,_Roger_K

Roger Kee Cheng served as a member of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals during the Second World War. He saw service in Ottawa prior to undertaking commando and guerrilla training for his subsequent service in the Molucca Islands and Borneo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day

The federal department of Veterans Affairs Canada states that the date is of "remembrance for the men and women who have served, and continue to serve our country during times of war, conflict and peace"; specifically, the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, and all conflicts since then in which members of the Canadian Armed Forces have participated.[14] The department runs a program called Canada Remembers with the mission of helping young and new Canadians, most of whom have never known war, "come to understand and appreciate what those who have served Canada in times of war, armed conflict and peace stand for and what they have sacrificed for their country."[15]
Link From China to Borneo and Beyond

Force 136

Force 136 was a branch of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. 

Link

Its covert missions were based in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia, where orders were to support and train local resistance movements to sabotage Japanese supply lines and equipment. 

While Force 136 recruited mostly Southeast Asians, it also recruited about 150 Chinese Canadians . It was thought that Chinese Canadians would blend in with local populations and speak local languages. Earlier in the war, many of these men had volunteered their services to Canada but were either turned away or recruited and sidelined. Force 136 became an opportunity for Chinese Canadian men to demonstrate their courage and skills and especially their loyalty to Canada.

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Another group was headed by Captain Roger Cheng, an electrical engineer and the first Chinese Canadian officer in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. Roy Chan, Louey King, Norman Low and Jimmy Shiu served with Cheng. They were dropped into Borneo to make contact with Dyak indigenous peoples who lived deep in the jungle. Louey King recalled: “While in the jungles of Borneo we lived on crocodile meat, monkeys and wild pig. It was incredibly hot and steamy there: often over 45°C. I was shot in the leg in a skirmish.”

In August 1945, Captain Cheng’s group joined a British team gathering information about Japanese troops and prisoner-of-war camps, where about 25,000 British POWs were being held. The Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima the day the men arrived in Borneo. Cheng and his men helped transfer British POWs to Australia after Japan surrendered and came up against Japanese units that refused to surrender.

Several Chinese Canadians stayed in Southeast Asia well into the fall of 1945. They assisted with liberating prisoner-of-war camps, preventing revenge massacres, and maintaining order and security during the chaotic post-surrender environment.

Captain R.K. Cheng

Captain R.K. Cheng

Born on 16 May 1915 Roger Kee Cheng went on to graduate as an electrical engineer from McGill University in 1938, be commissioned as the first Chinese-Canadian officer in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals in 1941, and serve in Borneo as a member of the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) component of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1945.

Second-Lieutenant Cheng began his officer training on 3 October 1941, probably at the Officer Training Centre in Brockville, Ontario. He was promoted Lieutenant (Lt) on 23 May, 1942, and completed his officer training at the Canadian Signal Training Centre in Kingston, Ontario, on 10 August, 1942.

Lt Cheng was then posted to the Canadian Signals Experimental Establishment (CSEE) in Ottawa, and promptly attached to the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps (RCOC), and seconded to the Master General of Ordnance (MGO) Branch of the Director of Electrical and Communications Design (DECD). On 1 October, 1943 he was made an Acting Captain. On 27 May 1944, he ceased his attachment and secondment, and was taken on strength of No. 11 District Depot in  British Columbia.

From 28 May until 26 August, 1944, at which time he started five days embarkation leave, it is probable that Lt Cheng, was a member of an original group of Chinese-Canadians who became known as the Kendall Group, and underwent special training in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley.

On 3 September, 1944, having finished his embarkation leave, Lt Cheng was promoted Captain, and posted to the "Q List", signifying that he was now officially on loan to the British forces. While details of his activities between then and 6 August, 1945, are sketchy, indications are that he, and five other Chinese-Canadians were landed, on that date, in Sarawk, in northern Borneo, by Catalina Flying Boat Upon arrival, the group joined a small British team which was gathering information on the movements of the Japanese as well as about conditions in prison camps in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, where about 25,000 British prisoners of war were being held. The day after the team landed, the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Although Japan surrendered, many isolated Japanese units refused to accept defeat and the war dragged on for months. The team's major accomplishment was assisting in transferring many emaciated prisoners to Australia before returning home themselves.

On 31 October, 1945, Capt Cheng was attached for all purposes from the SRD to. No 1 Canadian Special Wireless Group, a signals intelligence organization that had arrived in McMillan's Road Camp, Darwin, Australia on 18 April, 1945. He returned to Canada on 5 January, 1946, at which time he was again taken on the strength of No. 11 Disrtict Depot.

On 7 March, 1946, Roger Kee Cheng was discharged from the Canadian Army.