CDKW00440 - Japan as a Home Base

In August 1951, members of the Canadian Liaison Mission to Japan went to visit the Commonwealth hospitals and training grounds staged in the Kure region of western Japan. Per A. R. Menzies’ account, there were about 1,500 Canadians stationed in Kure; earlier efforts to staff Pusan with hospitals and training were unsuccessful due to minimal infrastructure, whereas the Kure region already had British infrastructure left in place from the recent Allied postwar occupation of Japan. Menzies described the training grounds as effective, with the Commonwealth troops forming “good fraternal relations,” and remarked that recent Canadian civilian staff sent to Kure have drastically raised Canadian troop morale. There are mentions of getting the Canadian Red Cross involved and asking for additional Canadian magazines and newspapers to entertain hospitalized soldiers—a clear indication that Menzies did not believe that fighting was close to ending, based upon the ground situation.