Alexander joined the army in approximately 1933, 1934. He served in India prior to the war and then was deployed to Hong Kong before the start of the war.

Alexander briefly met Admiral Chan Chak when he was in HQ. He fought in the Battle of Hong Kong and was captured on 25th December 1941.

Alexander escaped the sinking of the Lisbon Maru, though he sustained a lower abdominal wound, caused by a hook on a hatch cover, when he went down into the sea. He was rescued from the water by the brave Chinese fishermen, but after recapture by the Japanese, he wound up in a POW hospital in Hiroshima and was transferred to Osaka after recovery.

Alexander was released from the army because he became legally blind due to malnutrition, after which he was employed at a biscuit factory. He married my mother in 1946 and had one son and two daughters. Our family moved to Canada in 1955 and lived in the Toronto area, where my dad died in 1982 at the age of 65.