Description
Mr. Forsyth remembers food and clothing being dropped by American planes shortly after the war ended.
Thomas Smith Forsyth
Mr. Forsyth was born on a farm just outside of Pipestone, Manitoba, on April 26, 1910. He worked on the farm and attended school until grade 11, joining the army the following year when war was declared. After being accepted into the Winnipeg Grenadiers, Mr. Forsyth was briefly stationed in Jamaica guarding German POWs before being posted to Hong Kong. Captured in the Battle of Hong Kong, Mr. Forsyth was interned as a POW in North Point and Sham Shui Po prison camps, before being sent to Niigata Camp 5B in Japan as a slave labourer. After years of heavy labour, physical abuse, and terrible living conditions, Mr. Forsyth was liberated from 5B when Japan surrendered. He returned to his family in Manitoba soon thereafter.
Transcript
Interviewer: Mr. Forsyth, after that tragedy, after that tragedy, the war ended. What do you remember about how you learned that the war was over?
There was plane, a plane went over when we were, we were coming in off the dock, after working all day, a plane from over and dropped millions of, millions, dropped millions, of little leaflets.
It's a notice to the prisoners's of war and it said that, "Food will be dropped and, and, and new, clean uniforms will be dropped." It was American uniforms but that was alright, we were glad, if anything, that was new and clean.
Interviewer: At that time, Mr. Forsyth, did you have a clear appreciation of the fact that you had been liberated, that you were free? That the war was over?
Well, I saw a man weeping, I saw a man weeping and, and, and the odd one was, well, let's face it, the odd one was hysterical, was hysterical.