Surrender and Captivity
—the prisoners of war
It is not intended to describe in detail the harrowing ordeal suffered by the survivors of the battle for Hong Kong from Christmas 1941 until the surrender of Japan. During those 44 months when they were totally at the mercy of their captors, they had no alternative but to endure and survive as best they might.
When the white flags went up on 25 and 26 December the fate of members of the garrison varied. Although large bodies of troops were seldom seriously molested by the Japanese, in other situations, particularly in some of the hospitals and dressing stations, there were hideous scenes when wounded soldiers were butchered and nurses raped and murdered. Throughout the battle soldiers who surrendered singly or in small numbers-Canadians cut off from their units after the many battles in rough country, men who fought until their positions or pillboxes were overrun, soldiers who had been wounded and could not be brought off the battlefield-were likely to be killed out-of- hand by the Japanese. Civilians, both European and Asian, were also the victims of Japanese atrocities immediately after the surrender.
The men of the Royal Rifles, in common with the other members of the East Brigade, were held in the area of Stanley Fort until 31 December, when the prisoners from this area were marched across the Island to North Point Camp. The survivors of the Winnipeg Grenadiers had reached Mount Austin barracks in the evening of 25 December. They spent the nights of 26, 27, and 28 December in Peak Mansion, the lecture rooms of the University of Hong Kong, and Victoria Barracks respectively. At no time during this period did the Japanese issue any rations. Finally, on 30 December, the Grenadiers were moved by a very circuitous route across to Kowloon and into Shamshuipo Camp with the rest of the prisoners taken in the Western sector of the Island. On 23 January 1942 the Grenadiers and Royal Navy were moved to North Point to join the Royal Rifles while the rest of the military prisoners were concentrated at Shamshuipo. At North Point C Force reconstituted itself, and the Japanese permitted the Canadians to administer their own affairs to a certain extent. The naval prisoners were removed in April making North Point an all-Canadian camp.
North Point had originally been built by the British in 1939 to house Chinese refugees. It had been badly damaged in the battle and used by the Japanese to stable their horses and mules. As a result, there were huge piles of garbage and manure outside the wire which the Japanese refused to deal with. Inside the camp conditions were little better with the huts crowded to triple their intended capacity. The departure of the naval personnel eased the crowding somewhat, though the huts still held twice as many men as they were designed to accommodate. No beds or bedding were issued. Flies were "truly amazing in their numbers", and bedbugs, rats, lice, cockroaches, and ants tormented sleeping men.
Rations were at their lowest during the first months of captivity, averaging less than 900 calories daily per man. The food itself was of very poor quality and deficient in many vital respects. Particularly badly affected by this were the prisoners who had been wounded or exhausted during the battle. Such men often died if they were not fortunate enough to be taken to the military hospital at Bowen Road, which had been left in operation by the Japanese, though even their recovery was far from certain due to lack of medical supplies. There was also a hospital in the camp, but it was not the "show piece" that the Japanese considered Bowen Road. The other scourge of the early months was dysentery, caused by poor sanitary conditions and exacerbated by the inadequate diet. Among the fatalities was Lieutenant Colonel Sutcliffe of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, who died in April 1942.
Despite the many problems, the Canadians contrived to keep their morale high and to make the best of conditions. Stern measures taken early eliminated most theft and pilfering. Improvisation and scrounging enabled kitchens and ovens to be built, as well as facilities for cobblers, barbers, and tailors. A library, ration store, and quartermaster's store were also established. Particularly useful was a workshop with such tools as saws and lathes. As this was illegal, a close watch had to be kept for Japanese whenever it was in operation.
The Japanese paid commissioned officers, who then contributed a substantial portion of their earnings to a fund to purchase amenities for the other ranks, particularly the sick. In addition, the men were put to work by the Japanese, mainly on extending the Kai Tak airfield, and were paid small amounts. At first these work parties were popular, but as sickness increased, even men who were quite ill were forced to participate, with serious consequences.
In spite of illness and other adversities, there were entertainments: music (the Grenadiers established a dance band), handicrafts (there were two all-Canadian handicraft exhibitions held in the summer of 1942), educational classes, and lectures, all of which helped to take the prisoners' minds off their plight.
In the summer of 1942 additional diseases began to make their appearance. Beriberi and pellagra were diagnosed in August, both caused by nutritional deficiencies, and the first cases of a diptheria epidemic appeared in September.
September also marked the move of the Canadians back to Shamshuipo Camp on the mainland. The move was apparently brought about because that month the Japanese sent their first draft of prisoners to Japan for forced labour. These, numbering more than 1800 men, were drawn from the British troops at Shamshuipo. Almost half their number were drowned when the ship Lisbon Maru which was taking them to Japan was torpedoed by an American submarine.
Diptheria raged during the first months of the Canadians' stay at Shamshuipo and 50 of them died from the disease. Only a small quantity of serum was available, some obtained from the Japanese and some purchased on the black market. The medical officers were thus presented with the agonizing dilemma of which patients should receive the serum.
One of the most serious problems faced by the medical officers was the arbitrary manner in which the Japanese determined which prisoners could be hospitalized. By October, the seriousness of the situation forced the Japanese to supply some facilities for the ill. After the war the Japanese Camp Commandant and Medical Officer were both sentenced to death, primarily for this neglect. The sentences were later reduced to prison terms.
The Japanese guards at Shamshuipo were usually arrogant and insensitive rather than actively cruel, although there were some exceptions. One of these was a Canadian-born Japanese, Kinawa Inouye, known to some as the "Kamloops Kid". He was tried and executed after the war for his brutalities.
Between January 1943 and April 1944 a total of 1183 Canadian other ranks and one medical officer were sent to Japan in four separate drafts. There they worked as forced labourers, mainly in coal and iron mines. Very little information is available about these men and their experiences. Conditions varied, but sickness and industrial accidents, including an avalanche at Niigata, caused the deaths of no less than 136 of their number.
For the diminishing band of men remaining at Shamshuipo, conditions did not greatly improve. The Japanese preferred to keep the huts crowded rather than spread the reduced numbers around the camp. Many essential personnel and skilled handymen were taken away on the forced labour drafts, dislocating, at least temporarily, the life of the camp.
Among the things that did improve was the food, largely due to the sporadic arrival of Red Cross food and medical parcels. Despite the pilfering of many by the Japanese, the parcels made a tremendous difference, and the physical condition of the prisoners rose and fell with their availability. Personal parcels started to arrive in 1945, some of which had been despatched in 1942! They, too, had been subjected to theft but were still valuable. Not only were these various parcels worthwhile in themselves, but they also provided articles for trading on the thriving black market, which supplied the prisoners with many necessities. An incalculable boost in morale was given by the arrival of the first large inward mail shipment in March 1943. Others followed erratically, though few letters were ever less than a year old, as the Japanese had first to read and translate them for their own records. There was no consistency in delivery and some Canadians would get scores of letters at a time while others would get none.
All was not quiet submission to the Japanese. Contraband Chinese newspapers were brought into camp, translated, and circulated, so that Japanese propaganda could be counteracted to some degree. Radios were operated clandestinely, until April 1943, when penalties became so severe that all radios were disposed of. Some of the prisoners were in contact with British officers in China and with Chinese Nationalist elements and the Hong Kong Chinese resistance movement. These courageous men were involved in smuggling information and medicine into the camp. Some of these men were arrested by the Japanese and several were executed. One Canadian, Sergeant Routledge of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in a Chinese prison in Canton. Successful escapes were rare, and any escapee who was recaptured was brutally punished or killed. Four Winnipeg Grenadiers, Sergeant J.O. Payne, Lance-Corporal G. Berzenski, and Privates J.H. Adams and P.J. Ellis, escaped from North Point Camp on 20 August. They tried to cross to the mainland in a sampan but it capsized and they were recaptured and shot.
With the departure of the last draft of labourers to Japan, there were approximately 450 Canadians left at Shamshuipo, 150 of whom were in hospital with beriberi and pellagra. These men endured the next year and a half as best they could. In mid-August rumours began to spread about the Russian entry into the war and the A-bomb. By 14 August the C Force diary recorded that there were, "Very few in camp now sceptical.'' The next few days saw the Japanese depart. The prisoners took over the camp, and conditions immediately started to improve. On 22 August it was announced that a British naval force was on its way to Hong Kong. This rather disappointed the Canadians, who noted, "we feel that if this was a former American possession we would have been out of here days ago; probably the English have to turn back the history pages to find out what the precedent was at Crecy and Ladysmith."
HMCS Prince Robert arriving at Esquimalt with repatriated POWs
Finally on 30 August the Fleet arrived, including HMCS Prince Robert. 31 seriously ill Canadians were transferred to a hospital ship and almost all the remainder embarked on the Empress of Australia for Manila. There, on 14 September, they were united with the survivors of the groups who had been sent to Japan. They were to stay at Manila until 18 September, when they embarked on the next stage of their journey home. They left behind them, besides the men who had died in the fighting, 128 who had died in the Hong Kong camps, the four men who had been shot after escaping, and 136 who had died in Japan. In all, of the 1975 Canadians who sailed with C Force, 557 never returned.