59 The Royal Canadian Legion MANITOBA & NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO COMMAND www.mbnwo.ca In August 1942, we were moved back to the barracks on the main land. They then put us to work building Kye Tak Airport, bringing hills down, and levelling the ground. The prisoners were getting weaker and sicker and started dying frommalaria, diphtheria, dysentery, and beri-beri where your body swells up.They were dying as many as 10 to 15 per day.We used to load them on one truck that the Japanese brought. They took a few prisoners to dig a hole and bury them. From this point, it was a very hard struggle to survive. In November 1942, I went blind from malnutrition. I was lucky that in a few days, the Japanese took a barge and took us across to Bone Road Hospital where I spent a month. My eyesight came back. Then I was back at work. Many of our boys were so sick they were not able to go to work. The Japanese camp commander who originally came from Canada, Kamloops, BC, was one of the worst officers. He was trying to repay Canadians for calling him a yellow slanteye Jap. He hit anyone who came close to him. One morning he got us all on parade square. The sick ones had to be carried out. They had to be all counted so he asked our senior Canadian doctor, Dr. Crawford, why the men were sick and dying. His answer was that the men needed food and medical supplies, which we didn’t have. The Japanese officer then turned around and beat the hell out of him (Dr. Crawford), blaming him for not looking after the sick. In January 1943, about 400 prisoners were loaded on the ship to be transported to Japan. They had us in a room where there was just enough space for standing for the two days it took us to travel to Japan, without food or water.We were then taken to a Japanese camp with about 500 Canadians. The conditions in the barracks were very bad. We were issued two blankets and we slept on straw mats. We doubled together to keep warm. The temperature in the winter was about zero. The water used to freeze in the taps; and we had to wash ourselves in that freezing water with no soap. They cemented the bathtub 10 x 10 where about ten of us went in for a bath in cold water and no soap. Some of the boys took their shirts off and put them on the floor. You would swear that the shirts were alive with fleas and lice moving in them. The food consisted of carrot tops, turnip, and a few Chinese leaves, boiled without salt to make soup.We also received a dish of red barley. One day they brought us horse bones, hooves, head and all, to make soup. You can figure out what kind of soup we had to eat. We remained there until April 1945 where we worked daily in a shipyard building ships. I was beaten several times at the shipyards for very simple reasons such as drinking water out of a tap. By this time, we had lost a lot of our prisoners to malnutrition. The American bombers were really bombing heavily around our camp, so we moved 300 miles north into the wilderness where we worked at the coal mines until August when the war ended. At this point, I just had enough energy in me to last for another three months or so. This survival for life was day to day, minute to minute. We did not know who would be next to go. The bed bugs and fleas were so bad there were times you’d think you were sleeping on the bugs. We were so exhausted we didn’t feel them. Working in the coal mines underground, the heat averaged 124 degrees Fahrenheit, and we were up to our knees in hot water at all times. By the time we finished our shift, we were exhausted. There were times the hydro was knocked out by the American bombers so we had to walk out of the mines which was about two miles. Finally, one day we got the news that the war was over, but the Japanese kept us for a week before we were freed. By this time, the American bombers were dropping food, clothing and everything else to us in 45-gallon drums by parachutes. Three weeks later we were loaded on the train and taken to Tokyo where the Americans were waiting for us. There were about 20 of us taken aboard the battleship Iowa. I spent three weeks on the ship. From there they flew us to Guam Island where we spent a week in the hospital.Then they flew us to Hawaii. I spent two days there; and then we flew to San Francisco where we spent one week. I boarded the train to Vancouver.When I got off the train, I kissed the ground and thanked God for arriving back to Canada. I arrived in Winnipeg at the end of October 1945. If there is hell on earth, I went through it. BLACK, Mike (continued)
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