Bad weather is nothing the 100 veterans and guests celebrating the 65th anniversary of VJ-Day, Aug. 15 in Ottawa hadn’t seen before.

Arthur Adams, a veteran of 436 Squadron, recalls flying supplies to the British and Indian troops holding back the Japanese invaders during the Second World War. “I remember we were told when the monsoons came that we weren’t supposed to fly, but our [Wing Commander] Ralph Gordon said, ‘The hell we won’t!”’

Adams was among the veterans of 435 and 436 Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons who came to Ottawa for a weekend of reunions and commemoration. They were joined by veterans of His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Uganda and survivors of the bitter battle for Hong Kong which saw 290 Canadians killed and the rest taken prisoner.

The ceremony was scheduled for the National War Memorial, but continuous downpour and, more dangerous, lightning caused Veterans Affairs Canada to move the event into the nearby Government Conference Centre which had once been the central downtown Ottawa railway station. There, tables were moved to make way for an abbreviated ceremony to mark 65 years to the day since Emperor Hirohito took to the radio to announce Japan’s surrender, effectively ending the Second World War.

Adams, 86, of Greensville, Ont., was among the airmen sent to Gujrat, India, in support of the British Army locked in ferocious fighting with the Japanese along the mountainous India and Burma border. Roads were virtually non-existent, so the British decided to supply the soldiers entirely by air.

Adams gained notoriety as the Brick Bomber for an incident in which he convinced his pilot to fly low over a Japanese aircraft they spotted parked on a beach. Adams had the bomber doors open and kicked out a load of bricks the plane was carrying and successfully smashed the enemy aircraft to pieces.

Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn arrived to sit at the head table and was joined by the Chief of Defence Staff, General Walter Natynczyk, who circulated around the room chatting comfortably with the veterans. Among the guests were Dominion President Pat Varga and Dominion Secretary Brad White representing The Royal Canadian Legion.

Certainly the acoustics in the old railway station added to the mournful sounds of the trumpeter and piper playing Last Post and the lament.

The Act of Remembrance was read in English and French.

Francis Agnes, president of the Eastern Ontario branch of the Burma Star Association, read the Kohima Epitaph.

“When you go home,
Tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.”

The epitaph is inscribed on the memorial at the Kohima War Cemetery in India which is kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The lines are attributed to English classics professor J.M. Edmonds who translated a number of epitaphs from classical verse following the First World War.

Then Blackburn and Natynczyk placed wreaths along with representatives from the Burma squadrons, Hong Kong veterans and HMCS Uganda.

A wreath for 435 Squadron was placed by singer and composer Loreena McKennitt who is the honorary colonel of its modern incarnation, 435 Search and Rescue and Transport Squadron based in Winnipeg. McKennitt founded the Cook-Rees Memorial Fund for Water Search and Safety in 1998 following the deaths of her fiancé, his brother and another friend in a drowning accident in Georgian Bay.

As a special tribute to the veterans following the placing of wreaths, McKennitt sang Amazing Grace accompanied by the Central Band of the Canadian Forces. Again the acoustics of the old station made her soprano rendition even more haunting.

The rain continued throughout the afternoon, forcing organizers to cancel a second ceremony planned for the afternoon at the Hong Kong Veterans Memorial Wall.

However, a few did go to the memorial wall including Varga who had been scheduled to place a wreath. “I just had to see the wall for myself,” she said as she walked about the memorial.

The Hong Veterans Memorial Wall was unfinished when it was unveiled in August 2009 (Granite Memorial Recalls Hong Kong Sacrifices, November/December 2009). Carol Hadley of Winnipeg, the chair of the Memorial Wall Committee, was pleased to see the granite monument and surrounding landscaping completed.

“The top represents the four mountains where they fought,” she said. “On one side are the names of those in the Winnipeg Grenadiers and on the other the names from the Royal Rifles of Canada.”

Hadley, one of the first members of the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association, a group formed mostly of the children of surviving Hong Kong veterans said, “We knew we had to do something to permanently keep alive the memory of what these men went through.”

The monument, now finished, will continue to do that.