{"id":2452,"date":"2016-07-18T12:49:02","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T19:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/?page_id=2452"},"modified":"2026-01-29T12:47:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:47:00","slug":"eddie-chow","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/veteran-stories\/army\/eddie-chow\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Chow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eddie Chow was a member of the first group recruited to Force 136. He was one of 13 hand-picked Chinese Canadians who were trained by British Intelligence to be part of Operation Oblivion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chow was born in Vancouver in 1919. He moved with his family to Toronto when just a teenager.<\/p>\n

\"Eddie

Eddie Chow of the Operation Oblivion team (Force 136)<\/p><\/div>\n

When the Second World War\u00a0broke out, Chow was initially interested in joining the RCAF. However, because\u00a0he was Chinese, he was not even granted an interview.<\/p>\n

Still determined to get involved and\u00a0do his part for\u00a0Canada, Chow joined the RCAMC in 1940 and became a medical orderly.<\/p>\n

While at Camp Borden, he joined the Medical Corps Band. Chow\u00a0was gifted musically, and one day he won a singing talent contest which landed him a spot on the Major Bowes Radio Show.<\/p>\n

We are not sure how or why, but Chow came to the attention of Major Kendall when he began to recruit the first group — the pilot group — for Force 136. Chow found himself back in British Columbia doing commando training in a secret camp on Okanagan Lake.<\/p>\n

Chow and the other Operation Oblivion men initially were told they were destined to be dropped behind Japanese lines in China. However, as the war in the Pacific progressed, the Americans started to wield more control over that theatre of war and vetoed the idea of having Chinese Canadian agents in the region.<\/p>\n

So the\u00a0Operation Oblivion\u00a0team\u00a0transferred to Australia for further training and to await an assignment. Among his Force 136 friends, Chow\u00a0developed the nickname “the Entertainer” because of the\u00a0one-man shows he would put on for them.<\/p>\n

\"Hank

Eddie Chow (R) with fellow Operation Oblivion member\u00a0Hank Wong.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"At

At Liverpool Rest Camp: Eddie Chow in the middle<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Louey

Eddie Chow pretends he is about to be beheaded by his Force 136 team mate Louey King. (Australia 1945)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eddie Chow was a member of the first group recruited to Force 136. He was one of 13 hand-picked Chinese Canadians who were trained by British Intelligence to be part of Operation Oblivion. Chow was born in Vancouver in 1919. He moved with his family to Toronto when just a teenager. When the Second World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2456,"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-2452","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\/2452","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=2452"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2877,"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2452\/revisions\/2877"}],"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\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ccmms.ca\/staging\/9619\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}