Over the next four years, the number of Canadians who died as prisoners of the Japanese exceeded those who fell defending Hong Kong with starvation being the primary cause of death among the Canadian POWs. Brigadier-General Orville Kay who had once commanded the Winnipeg Grenadiers was sent to Chunking in August 1943 as the first Canadian military attache to China, where his primary concern was in finding what happened had to the POWs taken at Hong Kong. To assist with his work, Kay had Captain Morris Perrault attached to the British Army Aid Group operating in southern China.