English-Canadian politicians and journalists were starting to display signs of jealousy as soldiers from Britain, Australia and New Zealand got all the glory of fighting the Axis forces in the Mediterranean while the Canadians sat on the sidelines in Britain, leading to demands that Mackenzie King dispatch Canadian troops to Egypt, which he stoutly resisted. Mackenzie King's adamant refusal to send the Canadian Army into action by 1941 was hurting morale as many soldiers complained that it was the airmen of the Royal Canadian Air Force who getting all the glory while they forced to engage in endless training for battles that the prime minister would not allow them to fight. By the fall of 1941, Mackenzie King's nemesis, Arthur Meighen, was campaigning for the leadership of the Conservative Party on a platform of "Total War", accusing Mackenzie King of being lackluster in his commitment towards winning the war. Mackenzie King agreed to send C Force to Hong Kong as it would allow him to say that his government was supporting Britain while at the same time since the purpose of C Force was to deter Japanese from invading Hong Kong it seemed to promise there would be no losses in combat. Crerar's memo claiming that was "no military risk" had considerable influence with Mackenzie King who believed that C Force would only be doing guard duty in Hong Kong. At the same time, the claim that C Force would deter Japan from war would allow Mackenzie King to claim that Canada was playing an important role in protecting the British empire and would help him resist the pressure to send Canadian troops to fight in Egypt. Mackenzie King seems to be either unaware or did not care that Crerar, a bureaucratic general who had never seen action, had an "authoritarian submissive" personality with a tendency to say whatever his superiors wanted to hear. Into Hong Kong In Autumn 1941, the British government accepted the Canadian government's offer, mediated by a former general officer commanding in Hong Kong and Canadian, Major-General Grasett, to send two infantry battalions (1,975 personnel) to reinforce the Hong Kong garrison. At that time, war with Japan was not considered imminent and it was expected that these battalions would see only garrison (non-combat) duty. The Canadian Army's classification of units were divided into three classes with Class A on the top and Class C on the