Remembering Sgt Ronald Routledge DCM, Hong Kong POW

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In 1997, while doing research for a book I was going to publish, I came across the citation for the Distinguished Conduct Medal awarded to Sgt Ronald Routledge in 1946. I was impressed by the courageous acts he carried out while he was a prisoner of war of the Japanese after the fall of Hong Kong. Disregarding the risk, he participated in a clandestine network that was communicating with parties outside the prisoner of war camp. When his activities were found out by the Japanese, he refused to divulge the names of his co-conspirators despite the torture that was inflicted on him. 

I managed to contact Ronald and found him to be extremely courteous and helpful, and I eventually published an article abaout him in the 1997 issue of Canadian Military History magazine.

I soon forgot about the article but, the next summer, I was surprised to receive a telephone call from a Signals Corps veteran who gave me some praise for the article, He explained that he had known Ronald in the post-war military when they were serving at Canadian Forces Base Kingston, but no one had known Ronald had won the DCM. The caller told me that, because of my article, Ronald had just been invited to be on the saluting stand for the march past during that summer’s Signal Corps annual reunion at Kingston, and I was invited to join them. I could not make it for the ceremony, however, and regretted that I missed seeing the honour paid to Ronald Routledge that day.

Unfortunately, Ronald’s health deteriorated soon after that and he passed away. But in 2010, the memory of his service in the Second World War was made permanent when one of the buildings of the Communications and Electronics School at Canadian Forces Base Kingston was named for him.