{"id":2276,"date":"2016-04-30T12:16:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T19:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/?page_id=2276"},"modified":"2026-02-04T11:40:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:40:39","slug":"ernie-louie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/veteran-stories\/army\/ernie-louie\/","title":{"rendered":"Ernie Louie"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Ernie KW Louie was among a very select group of Chinese Canadians in the Second World War who were trained in commando-style warfare as part of Force 136 … and then deployed\u00a0behind Japanese lines\u00a0in Malay.<\/p>

\"Ernie

Ernie Louie in uniform.<\/p><\/div>

Louie was a member of an\u00a0all-Canadian team lead by Major Joe Benoit, and dubbed Tideway Green<\/em>. Louie’s role was as a Cantonese interpreter.\u00a0Captain John Hanna was the\u00a0Mandarin interpreter and Captain Roger Caza served as the team’s\u00a0wireless operator.\u00a0On August 5, 1945 the group\u00a0was\u00a0dropped in north Johore, Malay.<\/p>

What happened next is\u00a0described in Marjorie Wong’s book The Dragon and The Maple Leaf:<\/em><\/p>

“They remained at base for about five days and then set out\u00a0on what was supposed to be a three-day trip through the jungle. Some of the equipment and kit had to be discarded to lighten their loads. The trip lasted a nightmarish seven days as they tramped\u00a085 miles through swamps and dense jungle. It rained for three full days and their boots disintegrated. They were able to retain only items necessary for their survival because of the lack of carriers.”<\/em><\/p>

The group endured harsh conditions in the jungle with equipment breaking down and little food. It was even worse for the\u00a0civilians and resistance fighters they encountered, who had been suffering for a few years due to severe food shortages.<\/p>

Fortunately, the Japanese surrendered not long after the team arrived in Malay. That\u00a0enabled Louie and his group\u00a0to focus on finding and liberating prisoner-of-war camps. They also played a role in arranging for much-needed relief drops of food and medical supplies.<\/p>

One of the biggest challenges for Louie and Tideway Green<\/em> men\u00a0was keeping the peace and dealing with the inevitable conflict and retribution that occurred after the occupation. Louie spent some of his deployment\u00a0doing police administration duties.<\/p>

He left Malay on November 12, 1945 and returned to India first (where he had done his commando training), and then eventually back to Canada.<\/p>

When he\u00a0came back home, Louie, along with his fellow Force 136 friends Henry Fung and Ted Wong, sported dragon\u00a0tattoos on his\u00a0forearms. Apparently all three wore the same design but Louie, being a lot taller than the other two men, was known to have a\u00a0“big dragon” etched onto\u00a0his arm.<\/p>

Unfortunately, Ernie lost one of his\u00a0brothers during the war. Quon J. Louie<\/a>\u00a0was a bomb aimer with the RCAF, and\u00a0killed in action over in January, 1945 over Germany.<\/p>

\"Louie<\/p>

\"Kuala

Kuala Lumpur, Malay, Nov 1945 Back row (L-R): unknown, Bing Lee, Ernie Louie, Harry Ho, Bill Lee. Front row (L-R): Ted Wong, Nationalist Chinese soldier, Mike Levy, Henry Fung<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ernie KW Louie was among a very select group of Chinese Canadians in the Second World War who were trained in commando-style warfare as part of Force 136 … and then deployed\u00a0behind Japanese lines\u00a0in Malay. Louie was a member of an\u00a0all-Canadian team lead by Major Joe Benoit, and dubbed Tideway Green. Louie’s role was as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2277,"parent":594,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-nosidebar.php","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2276","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","post-preview"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2276"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6125,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2276\/revisions\/6125"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}