William King Lowd Lore

After three rejections, he led Allied forces into Hong Kong.

William King Lowd Lore (1909 to 2012) was born in Victoria, British Columbia, to a second-generation Chinese Canadian family. In 1939, while working as a wireless operator for the Department of Transport, he applied three times to join the Royal Canadian Navy and was refused because of his Chinese ancestry. In 1943, Vice-Admiral Percy Nelles personally intervened. Lore was accepted, completed officer training, and became the first Chinese Canadian officer in the RCN and the first naval officer of Chinese descent in a British Commonwealth navy.

He served in naval intelligence in Ottawa and London, then with Allied intelligence in Southeast Asia, including work supporting the Rangoon campaign. In August 1945, attached to the British Pacific Fleet, he led Royal Marines ashore in Hong Kong, the first Allied officer to enter the city since its capture. His party secured HMS Tamar and went to Sham Shui Po, where Canadian, British and Hong Kong prisoners had endured captivity. Lore later recalled introducing himself as a Canadian officer, seeing the prisoners' emaciated condition, and sharing their tears. He was present at Hong Kong's formal Japanese surrender on September 16, 1945. After the war, he continued naval service, eventually reaching lieutenant-commander, retired in 1948, studied law at Oxford, and practised in Hong Kong. He died there aged 103.