Long Night’s Journey into Day: Prisoners of War in Hong Kong and Japan, 1941-1945

Notes

this emergency, Japan needs us to produce rather than study. I think we should concentrate on working in earnest.”69 There is much that can be admired in this attitude. Unhappily, carried to extremes, it contributed to the misery of life in the Far East in the early 1940s—for, among many others, tens of thousands of prisoners of war. 320 / Long Night’s Journey into Day At Hong Kong, there was a delay of almost four weeks between the apparent surrender of Japan and the arrival of Allied relieving forces. The ex-POWs had difficulty coping. One noted in his diary as late as 4 September: “All of us are just going on our nerves, drinking too much, too much entertainment all of a sudden.”1 Finally, the war ended officially on 16 September 1945. On that date, Maj.Gen. Okada Umekichi, Occupation Commander, and ViceAdm . Fujita Ruitaro, C in C, South China Fleet, signed the capitulation documents and surrendered their swords to Rear-Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt, RN. This long-awaited ceremony took place at Government House in Hong Kong.2 A nurse who spent the last three years of the war in Stanley internment Camp recalled: “We heard later, that we only had about 8 days to live as we were going to be killed in groups of 30, as we were becoming a liability. We were saved by the atom bomb.”3 This assessment of the effect of the atom bomb is common among former Far East POWs. Whether civilian internees distant from the Home Islands would have been killed is uncertain, but it seems unlikely that POWs in Japan would have survived an Allied invasion. Casualties As it was, Canadian losses at Hong Kong were heavy. A total of 23 officers and 267 Other Ranks were killed or died of wounds: 5 officers and 16 Other Ranks of Brigade Headquarters, 7 and 123 of the Royal Rifles, and 11 and 128 of the Winnipeg Grenadiers. Inclusive in these numNotes to Chapter 10 are on pp. 373. 321 Chapter 10 The Journey Ends—But It Never Does bers are those who were murdered by the Japanese when trying to surrender or after they had surrendered. Twenty-eight Canadian officers and 465 Other Ranks were reported wounded.4 Until 1943, all Canadian prisoners of war were kept in camps at Hong Kong. As a result of previous injury or of conditions there, 4 officers and 124 Other Ranks died. In addition, four POWs from the Winnipeg Grenadiers were shot by the Japanese, probably without formal trial, when captured attempting to escape. The diphtheria epidemic in the summer and autumn of 1942 caused 58 deaths. Ironically, regarding the survivors, some Canadian medical officers believed that this epidemic actually may have saved some lives, as the Japanese isolated for months men who were carriers of the disease and who would otherwise have been forced to labour on Kai Tak aerodrome to their physical detriment.5 Figure 10.1. HMCS Prince Robert entering harbour at Esquimalt, BC, carrying Canadian ex-prisoners of war home to Canada, October 1945. (National Archives of Canada, National Photographic Collection PA. 116788.) Beginning in January 1943 a single Canadian officer and 1,183 Other Ranks were taken on one or another of four drafts to Japan, where they were forced to labour in various industries, chiefly mining. This left a total of only 369 Canadian POWs in Hong Kong for the last two years of the war, a high proportion of whom were officers. In Japan, conditions were extremely bad because of the exhausting labour, and an additional 136 men died. Thus, of the 1,975 Canadians 322 / Long Night’s Journey into Day who sailed from Vancouver in October 1941, 557 were buried or cremated in the Far East.6 Ironically, when those Canadians who had remained in Hong Kong were ready to be sent home, it was an old friend that did the job. HMCS Prince Robert, one of the ships that had brought them to the Far East, was charged with the responsibility of seeing the sickly, emaciated survivors home again.7 She arrived in Esquimalt on 20 October 1945.8 The Medical Cost of Imprisonment One US medical officer stationed at Guam examined 325 ex-POWs from Japan during September 1945. All were seen 12 to 15 days after release. Of the 325 ex-POWs, there were 129 US...