Individual Report: H6389 Alfred MATTHEWS

Rank:	First Name:	Second Name:
General Information
Private	Alfred	Stanley
From:	Enlistment Region:	Date of Birth (y-m-d):
St. Vital MB	Manitoba	1912-07-13
Appointment:	Company:	Platoon:
	A

Transportation - Home Base to Hong Kong

Members of 'C' Force from the East travelled across Canada by CNR troop train, picking up reinforcements enroute. Stops included Valcartier, Montreal, Ottawa, Armstrong ON, Capreol ON, Winnipeg, Melville SK, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper, and Vancouver, arriving in Vancouver on Oct 27 at 0800 hrs.

The Winnipeg Grenadiers and the local soldiers that were with Brigade Headquarters from Winnipeg to BC travelled on a CPR train to Vancouver.

All members embarked from Vancouver on the ships AWATEA and PRINCE ROBERT. AWATEA was a New Zealand Liner and the PRINCE ROBERT was a converted cruiser. "C" Company of the Rifles was assigned to the PRINCE ROBERT, everyone else boarded the AWATEA. The ships sailed from Vancouver on Oct 27th and arrived in Hong Kong on November 16th, having made brief stops enroute at Honolulu and Manila.

Equipment earmarked for 'C' Force use was loaded on the ship DON JOSE, but would never reach Hong Kong as it was rerouted to Manila when hostilities commenced.

On arrival, all troops were quartered at Nanking Barracks, Sham Shui Po Camp, in Kowloon.

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

Date Wounded	Wound Description	References
41/12/19	A bullet graze to the back.	36

Hospital Information

Name of hospital	Date of admission	Date of discharge	Comments	Reference
HK-BMH	07/23/1942	N/A		118(42 Sep 21)

POW Camps

Camp ID	Camp Name	Location	Company	Type of Work	Arrival Date	Departure Date
HK-NP-01	North Point	North Point, Hong Kong Island			41 Dec 20	41 Dec 22
HK-AS-01	Argyle Street	Kowloon, Hong Kong			41 Dec 22	Dec 26
HK-SA-01	Shamshuipo	Kowloon, Hong Kong			Capture	42 Jan 22
HK-NP-02	North Point	North Point, Hong Kong Island			42 Jan 22	42 Sep 26
HK-SA-02	Shamshuipo	Kowloon, Hong Kong			42 Sep 26	43 Jan 19
JP-To-3D	Tsurumi	Yokohama-shi, Tsurumi-ku, Suyehiro-cho, 1-chome, Japan	Nippon Steel Tube - Tsurumi Shipyards	Variety of jobs related to ship building	43 Jan 19	45 Apr 16
JP-Se-4B	Ohashi	Iwate-ken, Kamihei-gun, Katsushi-mura, Ohashi, Japan	Nippon Steel Company		45 Apr 16	45 Sep 15

Transport to Japan

Draft Number	Name of Ship	Departure Date	Arrival Date	Arrival Port	Comments	Reference
XD3A	Tatuta Maru	43 Jan 19, left Shamsuipo Camp, 0500 hrs; left Hong Kong 1300hrs	43 Jan 22, 0400 hrs	Nagasaki, Japan	Boarded train, arrived in Tokyo on 43 Jan 24 at 0700 hrs, boarded electric train for 10 mile ride to camp	Tony Banham

Transportation SE Asia to Home

Transport Mode	Arrival Destination	Arrival Date	Comments
NATS 50848	Oakland	1945-10-03	Guam Passenger Manifest embarked 1945-09-30 NATS

No other or additional related information found. Please submit documents to us using the contact link at the top of this page.

Post-war Photo

Note from his daughter- received December 2016- this picture was taken on his way home after the war. He is quite bloated due to having had beriberi numerous times. I always knew him as being tall and thin.

Other Military or Public Service

No other or additional related information found. Please submit documents to us using the contact link at the top of this page.

Death and Cemetery Information

Date of Death (y-m-d)	Cause of Death	Death Class
2007-07-10		Post War
Cemetery Location	Cemetery	Grave Number	Gravestone Marker
Winnipeg Manitoba Canada	St. Vital Cemetery	Ash Blk 6-1018-0	Yes

Gravestone Image

Obituary / Life Story

ALFRED STANLEY MATTHEWS Peacefully on July 10, 2007, just three days prior to his 95th birthday, Alfred Stanley Matthews passed away surrounded by his family. Dad was born on July 13, 1912, to Mae and Charles Matthews, living most of his life in St. Vital. Five years were spent overseas during the Second World War. He married Elsie Nystrom in March 1940 and together they raised two daughters, Joyce and Katherine, in a home he built himself after the war. Dad worked for International Harvester Company, retiring in 1974, and was an active member of the Hong Kong Veterans Association and the Royal Canadian Legion. He had a lifelong interest in gardening and also enjoyed carpentry, snooker, and playing cribbage with anyone who had time to play. In later years, he and Mom enjoyed travelling across Canada and the US and many countries in Europe as well as a trip back to Hong Kong. Dad had a long and full life and will be greatly missed by his two daughters and nine granddaughters, Joyce (Ralph) Hagyard, Kristine (Adam) and Luanne (Derek); Katherine (Bob) McGregor, Laurel Ann, Tracy, Carrie, Colleen (Shawn), Ashley, Kathryn and Melissa; sisters, Olive (David) Peat and Eilleen Baylis; and his brother Ray (Florence) Matthews; and numerous nephews and nieces and their families and his cat. He was predeceased by his parents; his wife Elsie in 1998; his brothers and sisters-in-law, Charlie (Mary), Wally (Daisy), Cliff (Fjola), and brother-in-law Doug Baylis. Funeral services will be held July 14, 2007, at 10:30 a.m. at Bardal Funeral Home Crematorium, 843 Sherbrook Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba. A private graveside service will take place before the service. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative Association, 1 Stafford Road, Ste. 164, Nepean, ON K2H 1B9, or the St. Vital Historical Society. BARDAL FUNERAL HOME 843 Sherbrook Street, 774-7474 Ample parking behind Funeral Home Condolences: www.bardal.ca As published in the Winnipeg Free Press on July 12, 2007

Links and Other Resources

There may be more information on this individual available elsewhere on our web sites - please use the search tool found in the upper right corner of this page to view sources.

General Comments

Alfred MATTHEWS -taken after he had signed up.
Alfred signed up September 1939 and trained at Fort Osborne Barracks. Then he was sent to Jamaica for 17.5 months along with his brother Cliff and then they were ordered to Hong Kong.,BR> In August 1982, he and his wife Elsie returned to Hong Kong on a personal pilgrimage to visit sights he last saw 40 years earlier. He was interviewed by Ian McLean of the South China Morning Post. He spoke of how ex-POW's weren't getting adequate pensions to live on from the government, and some of his own experiences - being sent to Hong Kong and zigzagging over the Pacific having nothing but mutton to eat, for a month; being transferred from Shamshuipo to Japan to work in various Iron Mine Shops; and his reaction to the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima when he was at Ohashi about 100 miles away. 'We were outside our huts and suddenly the sky darkened. It was just like night. Then there was a flash and it was day again. We were told to go back inside, but we had a feeling the end of the war was near and we just jumped around and cheered.' He later saw the devastation caused when travelling by train through the area and that scene remained with him.
He returned home, built his own house and worked hard to provide for his family, He served in many positions in the Hong Kong Veterans Association in Winnipeg including president working to obtain better pensions for vets from the government.
He loved gardening and flowers and taught us to enjoy them too. He was a strong man to endure what he did and live to be nearly 95 years!
Submitted by his daughter Joyce Hagyard on 2016-12.

'C' Force Family Connections:

Brother of H6282 Clifford Matthews

End of Report.

Report generated: 27 Apr 2025.

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Additional Notes

(These will not be visible on the printed copy)

Service numbers for officers ("X") are locally generated for reporting only. During World War II officers were not allocated service numbers until 1945.
'C' Force soldiers who died overseas are memorialized in the Books of Remembrance and the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, both sponsored by Veterans Affairs Canada. Please use the search utility at VAC to assist you.
Some birthdates and deathdates display as follows: 1918-00-00. In general, this indicates that we know the year but not the month or day.
Our POW camp links along with our References link (near the bottom of the 'C' Force home page) are designed to give you a starting point for your research. There were many camps with many name changes. The best resource for all POW camps in Japan is the Roger Mansell Center for Research site.
In most cases the rank displayed was the rank held before hostilities. Some veterans were promoted at some point prior to eventual post-war release from the army back in Canada. When notified of these changes we'll update the individual's record.
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In some cases the References displayed as part of this report generate questions because there is no indication of their meaning. They were inherited with the original database, and currently we do not know what the source is. We hope to solve this problem in future.
We have done our best to avoid errors and omissions, but if you find any issues with this report, either in accuracy, completeness or layout, please contact us using the link at the top of this page.
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