There Was No Way You Could Keep Morale Up

I had to tell them, I said you either had to keep up or you’d be staying right here. There was no way you could keep the morale up because we didn’t know how the war was going in any other place, and we didn’t get any news of any kind, so. The Japanese was telling us they were winning the war, and we’d never get back to Canada, we were prisoners of war and we’d always be prisoners. At this time, after we were taken prisoner, I was in charge of a French company, of the French troops. There was only a couple of them that could speak English. I had to report to the Japanese where they were and everything else, in Japanese, I had to learn Japanese. And in this time, like if they weren’t where they were supposed to be what I reported, then I was taken out and . . . they’d knock you around, especially NCO’s like you were responsible. Your officers was taken away from us and NCO’s was responsible for their men. And if the men were either missing or weren’t reported they ensured we got batted around for it. I’ve stood out in the sun for 12 hours with no shirt on. And then at night, they’d put a blanket over you, and pour cold water on you, and it gets cold over there at night.

Mr. Agerbak describes the fact that NCO’s were responsible for their men in camp, and were often punished if their men couldn’t be accounted for.

Knud Agerbak

Knud Agerbak was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1918. His family of seven emigrated to Canada in 1927, settling in Manitoba where his father worked as a farm labourer. Mr. Agerbak started working on a farm at the age of 13. He then loaded freight for the railroad, and finally worked in a pulp mill. His sense of patriotism led him to enlist the day that war was declared in 1939. He tried to enlist in the PPCLI, but not having reached the age of 21 didn’t have naturalized Canadian status and was turned down. The Winnipeg Grenadiers did , however, accept him. He performed garrison duty in both Bermuda and Jamaica before his deployment to Hong Kong. Hong Kong quickly surrendered, and Mr. Agerbak spent time on labour gangs at KaiTak airport in Hong Kong, and the Yokohama shipyards and northern iron mines in Japan.