How the last Canadian military death of the Second World War led to strong ties with Japan

opinion

Kanji Yamanouchi is Japan’s ambassador to Canada.

At the end of the Second World War, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m. on Aug. 9, 1945. Since then, Aug. 9 has been remembered by people all over the world as a special day to commemorate the victims, pray for peace, and reaffirm our commitment to a “world without nuclear weapons.”

Although it is little known to the general public, it was also the day when an air raid was carried out from the British aircraft carrier HMS Formidable on a naval base in Onagawa Bay in the Tohoku region of Japan. During the operation, the attacking force’s leader, Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray of British Columbia, was killed in action. He was 27 years old.

Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray was killed during an attack on a naval base