57 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca The days were very hot and I was thirsty. We happened to come around the mountain and stopped at a house where the lady was very nice and brought us a pail of water. We started drinking it and all of a sudden the artillery shells started hitting the mountain. They could spot soldiers moving about. That very night we retreated eight miles back on a high mountain where the houses were already bombed. There were dead soldiers everywhere.We spent the night there. I saw a grey coat laying on a cement and I laid on it and slept most of the night. At day-break I went to pick up the coat and discovered there was a corpse under the coat where I slept. The next morning, December 24, we went back to the front lines where we spent the day and night at Mount Royal and the fighting was very fierce. Many of our boys were wounded and killed. Frank Harding and I operated the Lois Machine Gun. As Frank lifted up to move, the Japanese machine gun blasted, hitting Harding on the shoulder and the bullet came out of his back. That is how close I came without getting hit. On December 25, at early dawn, the company decided to withdraw, as we had heavy casualties and there were thousands of Japanese over the hill. We were marching down the hill when I remembered I left a loaf of bread and a half a pound of butter under the tree. That was the only food I had. I went back to pick it up. When I got back, the company had disappeared through the paths and bush. So I was on my own down the hill down the lonely path into the village of Aberdeen. There were corpses all over the streets, trucks and jeeps rolled over and buildings were bombed. I walked all the way through the village on the road without being hit by a sniper. I walked down and came to a road block which was being occupied by East Indian soldiers. They weren’t able to speak English but I knew they were on our side. I sat down and ate my bread and butter and walked on for miles until I came to another road block occupied by English soldiers near Bone Road Hospital where I laid down on the bench, exhausted, and went to sleep. I woke up about three in the afternoon and heard someone howl, “throw the arms away as the war is ended”.The Hong Kong government surrendered. That was a great feeling at that time. During the three weeks of fighting, I had only four to five meals and slept no more than ten hours. I went with the English troops to their barracks which was hit by bombs several times. There were no Canadians there and I was all alone.We stayed there for two days. I managed to scrounge myself blankets, a shaving kit, and a few cans of Bully Beef before the Japanese came in a took us prisoners. They loaded all of us on the barge and moved us across to mainland China, where I met the Canadians, our original barracks. By this time, the barracks were looted by Chinese and there wasn’t a window, door, or bed left, only a cement floor and walls. That was our home for three months. We slept on the cement floors, I was one of the thousands that was lucky to have blankets. The first week or so we were living on what we had in our possession, then the Japanese brought us some rice. We received a cup of rice a day and lined up for hot water at noon. In March 1942, they moved the Canadians to Hong Kong Island, North Point Barracks where we spent five months surviving on what we had to eat. By this time, half of our boys were so weak they were barely surviving.My friend McCauley weighed 210 lbs. before the war. By this time he was down to 90 lbs. My weight went down to 105 lbs. from 175. I had $100.00 Canadian dollars in my pocket at that time. The money was no good to me. I went to a Japanese guard and managed to buy a hundred cigarettes for $100.00. Mike Kachan and I shared in smoking saving butts in the can. When I came to the last cigarette I asked Mike, “what are you going to do because I’m quitting smoking?” There was no way of getting anymore cigarettes, but he had will power so I handed over the cigarette butts to him. We used to get Red Cross parcels once a year at Christmas so I used my cigarettes for buying extra rice from the officers. They had more rice than we did and that helped me to survive. One day, three of our prisoners escaped the camp, so the Japanese lined us up outside at attention. We stayed out there for 24 hours. The rain was just pouring, and we had no food or water while they were searching for the escapees. BLACK, Mike (continued) (continued)
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