Douglas Jung was born in
Victoria,
British Columbia, on February 25, 1924. During his childhood, the
Government of Canada passed numerous pieces of legislation that disenfranchised Chinese in Canada. Jung and a group of young men from British Columbia enlisted in the
Canadian Army during
World War II in order to change the status of Chinese Canadians. Jung explained his reasons for enlisting as: "Some of us realized that unless we volunteered to serve Canada during this hour of need, we would be in a very difficult position after the war ended to demand our rights as Canadian citizens because the Canadian government would say to us, "What did you do during the war when everybody else was out fighting for Canada? What did you do?" So a few of us volunteered to serve, and my group was probably the first to join up."
World War II Although Jung enlisted in the
Canadian Army in 1939, he did not receive his first assignment until 1944, mainly because politicians in Ottawa and Victoria did not want to deal with the issues of enfranchising the Chinese after the war. However,
Winston Churchill's wartime
Special Operations Executive recruited Jung and a group of Chinese-Canadian soldiers into
Force 136, a team of secret agents who deployed to
British Malaya to train local guerrillas to resist the
Japanese Imperial Army occupying Malaya and
Singapore. The mission for the Asian Canadian soldiers was known as Operation
Oblivion. They received parachute training at Australia and prepared themselves to fight in
South West Pacific. However, the operation came to an abrupt cancellation. Jung instead deployed to Japanese-occupied
British Borneo and
New Guinea, and led his troops in
search and rescue missions.
Post-WWII After the war, Chinese in Canada were enfranchised in 1947.
Veterans Affairs Canada provided funds so that Jung and his Chinese-Canadian comrades could obtain a university education. Jung graduated from the
University of British Columbia with a
bachelor of arts degree, followed by a
bachelor of laws degree in 1953. He was called to the British Columbia Bar in 1954, then set up an immigration practice in
Vancouver. ==Political career==