He Had a Code of Honour and Wasn’t Going to Commit Me to Die

Heroes Remember

He Had a Code of Honour and Wasn’t Going to Commit Me to Die

Transcript

The guards everywhere were brutal, you might say, but then the Japanese soldiers lived under a brutal system, you know. The private is smacked by the lance corporal, the lance corporal is smacked (inaudible) by the sergeant and so on, up the line. They looked with disdain at prisoners of war; you should be dying for your country, not being a prisoner of war. So they didn’t hold much respect for us. The, one chap, Condo, that Kamloops kid you may be familiar with, he was a vicious type. Here was a Canadian-born and educated young fellow that went back to Japan. But I imagine, that in fairness to him, he faced some pretty embarrassing situations at the time, somebody calling him a little yellow bastard or something like that, you know. You can see the both sides if you look at it, particularly as you get older. When I was in Shinagawa prison camp, (inaudible) in Shinagawa, and I had pneumonia and pleurisy, and I was pretty well out of it, they had a Canadian acting as orderly in there and the Jap officer of the day, in this case it was a sergeant, he was a big burly type and I was lying back, and he came in and the orderly said (inaudible) and this big Japanese thought he said shinda which is die. He went up one side and down the other. You know, it was so funny that you’d run into these types that had a code of honour and he wasn’t going to commit me to die until I was . . . . Those things stick with you. No, I remember coming out that I grabbed up as much medication that I could find, and that was few and far between, and put it in a water bottle. To deceive the Japanese, you have to do the obvious. I can explain that. They did a kit check where we were going back to our camp and they asked me where my water bottle is. Course I said I forgot it and I ran back into the hut to get it and put it with my gear, and they took it as a natural thing and it had these medications that was there. They had used a type of sulpha drug that I think was killing the fellows more than just stuffing the disease out and the doctors had no way of checking their blood to see what was happening. There was one, a doctor Ito, and I can’t remember the exact, and if a fellow had excruciating hemorrhoids he would have the fellows on their hands and knees and he would go in there with scissors and cut them out. Try that for size. There was one chap that was working in the shipyard and he had his fingers smashed and they put the bone cutters below the joint without anaesthetic (makes cutting noise), off it comes. I ran into a Royal Scot chap that had his leg amputated without anaesthetic, had passed out, you know.

Description

Mr. Barton describes both compassionate and brutal treatment by POW camp personnel.

Thomas Barton

Thomas Barton was born in Victoria, British Columbia, on June 8, 1920. His father worked as the Deputy Registrar with the Supreme Court in Victoria. After attending high school, Mr. Barton worked for the Victoria Times, a local newspaper before joining the Underwood Typewriter Company. He enlisted in September, 1939 as a staff clerk. Upon reaching Hong Kong, Mr. Barton was attached to Brigade Headquarters. Despite minimal training, he was compelled by heavy Canadian losses to assume a combat role. After the surrender of Hong Kong, he spent time in North Point and Sham Shui Po, POW camps in the colony, and was then sent to the Japanese labour camps, Sendai being the last. Mr. Barton feels that the Canadian Government was remiss in not recognizing the Veterans of Hong Kong much sooner than it did.

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