Transportation - Home Base to Hong Kong

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Battle Information

We do not have specific battle information for this soldier in our online database. For a detailed description of the battle from a Canadian perspective, visit Canadian Participation in the Defense of Hong Kong (published by the Historical Section, Canadian Military Headquarters).

Wounded Information

Hospital Information

POW Camps

Transportation SE Asia to Home

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Post-war Photo

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Other Military or Public Service

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Death and Cemetery Information

Gravestone Image

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Obituary / Life Story

On October 28, 1949, John Franckiewicz, a Hong Kong veteran, drowned in Footprint Lake, located on the Ontario side of the United States-Canada border, a few miles from Fort Frances. He and his wife, Emelia Franckiewicz, aged 37, had embarked on the first leg of a weekend hunting trip when their motor-driven canvas canoe overturned in rough waters near Despair Rock, close to Burnt Island, approximately 50 miles north of Fort Frances. The accident occurred amidst a storm, casting the couple into the icy waters of the lake.
Emelia, unable to swim, was kept afloat by a heavy parka that ballooned with air. She clung to the canoe alongside her husband for about an hour. John, realizing he could not hold on much longer, urged Emelia to "hang on for your life—even if I have to go, you must try to live." Eventually, he succumbed to the cold and exhaustion, disappearing beneath the water as Emelia watched helplessly. She remained in the water for at least two hours, roughly 200 feet from Burnt Island, before the canoe drifted to shore. Weakened and in shock, Emelia washed up on the uninhabited island, where she would spend three days and four nights—90 hours—without food or adequate shelter.
During her ordeal on Burnt Island, Emelia endured bitter cold, with temperatures dropping as low as 15 degrees, along with rain and snow. She made a rudimentary shelter from a fallen tree and branches, but her wet clothes froze stiff, causing severe pain in her feet and legs. She sustained herself mentally with "visions of hot steak dinners and steaming coffee," though she became ill after drinking cold lake water. On Sunday, she waved a red handkerchief at a passing plane and heard searchers paddling nearby, once passing just 25 feet away, but was too weak to signal them. By Monday, nearing despair, she nearly gave up, at times wishing she had stayed with her husband. However, on Tuesday, November 2, provincial constables Ken Rayner (or Rainer) and Owen Sullivan of Clearwater, Ontario, rescued her after hearing her faint calls as their boat scraped the shore. She was brought to a hospital in Fort Frances, where she was treated for shock and exposure and began to recover, later recounting her story to her sister, Mrs. Edward Griffiths.
John’s fate remained unknown for days. A search began when the couple failed to meet friends on Sunday, October 31. Employees from the Ontario and Minnesota Pulp and Paper Company, where John worked, joined volunteer search parties. After finding the canoe, dragging operations commenced on Footprint Lake, initially fearing both had drowned. Radio appeals summoned more searchers, and on Sunday, November 7—nine days after the accident—John’s body was located 500 yards from shore, near where Emelia had been found. Emelia, still hospitalized, faced the devastating confirmation of her husband’s death.
Emelia Franckiewicz survived against immense odds, sustained by her husband’s final plea and her own resilience, while John’s life was claimed by Footprint Lake, leaving a grieving widow and a somber community in Fort Frances.
Compiled from Fort Francis newspaper articles related to this event, which can be found in the vault folder for H6074 John Franckiewicz.

Links and Other Resources

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Related documentation

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General Comments

Dec 1, 2001 ... Johnny Franckiewiez, WG – his is a story of courage and sadness. After the war, he settled in Fort Frances. While on his honeymoon, he drowned in Clearwater Lake. If anyone has information on Johnny during or after the war, could they please contact me?

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Canadians Bare Jap Brutalities
Evidence of Horrors Given At Hong Kong
HONG KONG, Aug. 30 — (B.U.P.)- Canadian and British prisoners of war were kicked into the water by Japanese sailors when they tried to climb aboard Japanese ships after their prison "hell ship" Lisbon Maru was torpedoed in October, 1942, it was testified before the war crimes court here today.
Lieut. Geoffrey Hamilton, Second Battalion, Royal Scots, said the prison ship appeared to be an ordinary armed transport.
His affidavit was read at the war crimes trial of Genichiro Niimori, Japanese civilian interpreter, charged with direct responsibility for the death of 846 Canadian and British prisoners of war.
Aboard the "hell ship" on which 1,816 prisoners of war were being transported from Hong Kong to Japan, Hamilton testified, "the air soon became absolutely foul and acrid, with the stench of sweating bodies packed closely together, and also due to the fact that there were no sanitary arrangements whatsoever." Only 970 survived the voyage. Hamilton's affidavit said several of the sick were in a dying condition and that "two died during one night after screaming for water and air."
Canadian Affidavits
Testimony in the form of affidavits by Canadian soldiers highlighted the trial, telling of Japanese atrocities against Canadians, including the hanging of one man for three hours by his hands. Niimori, a small horse-faced man of 40 years, is being tried on 11 counts of war atrocities.
Robert H. Challis, formerly RSM, Middlesex Regiment, England, testified that Niimori ordered Japanese sentries to open fire on prisoners of war when they broke out of the hold of the sinking prison ship after it was torpedoed.
Sapper Arthur P. Noxby, London, in an affidavit, swore that Japanese patrol boats opened rifle fire on prison ship survivors struggling in the water. He said that after being picked up from the water by Japanese ships Niimori took all the survivors' clothing.
Niimori kicked several men from the Second Battalion, Royal Scots, who were unable to stand due to dysentry, the court was told in further sworn statements. The survivors later were transferred to a prison camp at Kobe, Japan.
Brutalities to Sick
Aboard the prison ship before it was torpedoed, prisoners testified that a number of men were sick with dysentry and diphtheria, and when they asked the Japanese guards for water they were handed down a bucket of urine.
"I was one of the men who actually handled this bucket of urine," a statement from George A. Haywood, Pilsley, Derbyshire, said.
The brutally-treated Canadian and British prisoners who survived the torpedoing were forced to work in Nagoya steel mills in Japan, the war crimes tribunal was told. Kenneth Muir, Windsor Mills, Quebec, testified that he and 50 other survivors were jammed into a 20-by-30-foot hold in the Tokyo Maru for the trip back to Japan. He said the box-like room was filled with vermin and the weakened prisoners could not all lie down at the same time.
Other testimony was given concerning alleged filthy conditions aboard the prison ships and Niimori's alleged order to Japanese guards to fire on prisoners who tried to escape when the ship was torpedoed. Niimori denied all knowledge of the execution of four Winnipeg Grenadier members who escaped from North Point camp, Hong Kong, in August, 1942, according to his affidavit introduced at the trial here.
Other affidavits sent from Canada by fellow prisoners of war stated the escapees were last seen in the custody of Japanese gendarmes after being recaptured.
Helped Escape
Corp. George Cyril Meagher, Winnipeg, swore he helped four men successfully escape during a typhoon on the night of Aug. 19 despite the heavy guard and an electric fence.
Pte. Alexander Baraskiwich, Fox Warren, Man., stated that he learned the men were later seen in the custody of gendarmes, after which they were not seen. Niimori testified he did not know who executed them.
Maj. John Albert Bailie, Winnipeg, testified that four escapees were picked up by a Japanese patrol boat when the sampan in which they were fleeing began to sink. Bailie said the escapees subsequently were court martialled. The proceedings of the court martial were held in Japanese without benefit of an interpreter.
Other affidavits from members of the Royal Rifles of Canada testified to various brutalities, beatings and bad treatment they underwent during their imprisonment and transfer to Japan or within Japan.
Cpl. Wilfrid Maloof, Noranda, who was imprisoned at the Narumi camp in Japan declared that an American soldier there died within two weeks, during which time he was given one spoonful of rice and one thimbleful of tea three times daily.
George Clarke, Ottawa and Leo Edward Portersfield, Noranda, stated that one prisoner was brutally beaten with fists, tools and rifle butts for trying to sell a portion of his clothing during the trip to Japan aboard the Toyama Maru.
Victim Succumbed
This man subsequently died in Japan, Muir testified. He said when the prisoners reached Japan they were forced to work in the foremost war plant, the Nagoya steel mills. No prisoners were injured when American planes bombed Nagoya, he told the court.
Muir's testimony was further rconfirmed by Murdo Neil MacArthur, Milan, Que., and Renwick Lynn Thompson, Sawyerville, Que.
Corp. James Thomas Murray, East Kildonan, Man., said he was brutally beaten while interned at Bowen Road hospital, and was hung for three hours by his hands when the Japanese accused him of stealing. Similar testimony was given in affidavits by Rifleman James William Archibald, now a patient at Sussex Military Hospital in New Brunswick, by Rifleman Clifford Roye, Bury, Que., and Sgt. Arthur Edward Budd, Winnipeg. Testimony from Corp. Samuel Kravinchuck, Winnipeg Grenadiers, now in Regina, told of a long series of brutalities inflicted on him and other prisoners, and similar evidence was heard from Pte. John Frankiewicz, Fort Whyte, Man.
Maj. Cecil Boon, RASC, now facing a court martial in London, regularly permitted Japanese guards to beat and mistreat British and Canadian prisoners at the Shamshuipo camp here, it was alleged in an affidavit.
Corp. Kenneth Stanley Vincent, formerly of the Royal Rifles of Canada, now living in York County, N.B., swore that whenever prisoners complained to Boon about sickness or bad treatment Boon acquiesced in their beating by the Japanese.

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End of Report.

Report generated: 27 Apr 2025.