A new Canada Post stamp honours Chinese Canadian soldiers who volunteered for secret wartime missions while their own country subjected them to laws designed to exclude them.

Unveiled in Vancouver on Nov. 3, the Remembrance Day stamp features a 1945 photograph of 10 members of Force 136 awaiting their return home. About 150 Chinese Canadians served with the force, according to reporting by CBC’s Georgie Smyth.

Part of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, Force 136 trained recruits in espionage, guerrilla warfare, wireless communications and jungle survival for operations behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Their tasks included gathering intelligence, supporting local resistance fighters and sabotaging Japanese supply lines and equipment.

British officials saw Chinese Canadians’ English and Cantonese language skills, and their ability to blend into local populations, as advantages. Recruits faced the prospect of capture, torture and death, as well as tropical disease and harsh conditions.

Among those pictured on the stamp is Charles Hoy, whose son Brent G. Hoy said his father rarely discussed his service. Secrecy was part of the reason: the soldiers had been sworn not to talk about their work.

“Fighting for a country that really didn’t want you, but nevertheless having that deep sense to contribute,” Hoy told CBC.

The discrimination was written into law. Chinese immigrants paid a head tax between 1885 and 1923, with the charge eventually reaching $500. In July 1923, Canada banned Chinese immigration. Until 1947, Chinese people, including those born in Canada, had to register with the government or risk penalties including detention or deportation.

Rick Wong told CBC that his father, Hank Wong, was initially rejected by the navy because it was “for white men only.” He later joined the Kent Regiment and became one of the original 13 recruits for the secret Operation Oblivion mission.

For historian and curator Catherine Clement, the soldiers’ legacy represents a double victory: contributing to the Allied war effort and helping the Chinese Canadian community secure equal citizenship rights. The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1947, two years after the war ended.

Charles Hoy died in 2002 and Hank Wong in 2019. None of the Chinese Canadian Force 136 veterans lived to see the stamp commemoration, CBC reported.

For Brent G. Hoy, seeing the design brought an immediate, personal recognition: “I thought, hey gee, you know that’s my dad there.”

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