Tofino Chapter 17 notes

Wartime - Notes on Sources

“The number of construction workers employed at the Ucluelet and Tofino bases peaked at 1500 in late 1941.” Statistic from Leslie Hempsall, We Stand on Guard for Thee, p.126.

Quotations in this chapter from Johnny (Yoshio) Madokoro, Tommy and Harold Kimoto, Ken Barr, Trygve Arnet, Marguerite Robertson and Katie Monks come from Bossin, Settling Clayoquot. See also the interviews with Johnny Madokoro and Mary (Kimoto) Madokoro in Nikkei Images. (details above in notes to Chapter 15).

Quotations from Ronald MacLeod come from his unpublished memoirs, and from emails to the authors.

Quotations from Walter Guppy come from Eighty Years in Tofino and from Bossin, Settling Clayoquot.

Isabel Kimoto’s account of radio removal: http://www.westerlynews.ca/local-news/bc-government-apologizes-for-japanese-internment-camps-1.181214

Account of burying the bottles of sake, letter from Tatsuo Sakauye to Dorothy Arnet, February 24, 2006.

Islay Macleod’s account of the Japanese evacuation appears in “When Time Stopped,” The Sound, November 30, 1990, reprinted in News Around Clayoquot Sound: Being an Anthology of Some of the Best Beloved Blasts from The Sound Newspaper 1990-1991.

As well as the 95 Japanese from Tofino and Clayoquot, 231 Japanese from Ucluelet and nineteen from Bamfield were evacuated. The Ucluelet and Bamfield residents received their evacuation notice on March 20, 1942.

Accounts of Estevan Light shelling appear in countless articles, books and websites, far too many to list. Useful books include: Brendan Coyle, War on our Doorstep: The Unknown Campaign on North America’s West Coast; Leslie Hempsall, We Stand on Guard for Thee: A History of the War Years at the Royal Canadian Air Force Stations, Ucluelet and Tofino; Donald Graham, Keepers of the Lights; Horsfield, Cougar Annie’s Garden. Articles include: Douglas Hamilton, “Who Shot Estevan Light?– A Traditionalist Returns Fire,” Raincoast Chronicles #18. 1997; Lloyd Bailey, “The Estevan Point Mystery,” Pacific Yachting, November 1994; Dave McIntosh, “Shots in the Dark,” Legion Magazine, June 1991. Considerable detail can also be found in the reports and letters at the Coastguard Archives, Esquimalt.

Edward Redford’s account of the shelling of Estevan, from Hempsall, We Stand on Guard for Thee, p 19.

Letter from Tommy Rae-Arthur describing shelling of Estevan Point, courtesy of Peter Buckland.

“The next thing you know…” for Bjarne Arnet’s response when sent to verify a submarine sighting, see Popp, The Gumboot Navy, p. 87.

Testimony of the Japanese submarine captain, cited by Hamilton, “Who Shot Estevan Light? – A Traditionalist Returns Fire,” Raincoast Chronicles #18. 1997.

Radio Tokyo reports, see Coyle, War on Our Doorstep.

Information on beach pilings come from Keith and Ken Gibson, from Gordon Gibson’s Bull of the Woods, and from Jillian Dickens’s article “Beach Pilings Tell a Story,” Westerly News, April 7, 2004.

“there was so little to do…” from Surf Sounds, Vol. 4, No. 4. This publication of Pacific Rim National Park is located in Parks Canada archives in Tofino.

Catharine Whyte’s letters are located in the Archives of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Peter and Catharine Whyte Sous-Fonds.

Ruth White described the fighter aircraft strafing the beach on Vargas Island in “The War Comes to Vargas Island,” The Sound, November 16, 1990.

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