I went to the Vancouver Police Museum to see if they had any photos of Vancouver during the war years. Ironically, the most beautiful room in the museum is the autopsy room, a quiet, peaceful room suffused with natural light. The inscription above the door reads: Let idle talk be silenced. Let laughter be banished. This is the place where death rejoices to teach those who live."
Hanging on one wall is a tribute to members of the VPD who served in WWI.There's also a display that tells the story of Raiichi Shirokawa, a police officer who served during the First World War:
Chief Constable Malcom Maclennan hired the first policeman belonging to a visible ethnic minority. Constable Raiichi Shirokawa (PC 198), a Japanese Canadian, was hired December 14, 1917 but served only a few months before members of the Japanese community allegedly complained he was being used only to spy on them. Faced with this opposition, Shirokawa resigned the following year on December 12, 1918. No negative remarks appear anywhere in his VPD records. He died in Vancouver May 30, 1959.
--Vancouver Police Museum
The Numbers:
WWI: The Canadian Japanese Association in British Columbia put forward a volunteer reserve force of 227 men, some of whom were later admitted into the military.
--Wikipedia
WWII: 22,000 Japanese Canadians (14,000 of whom were born in Canada) were interned in the 1940s.
--Ibid
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