We Were Living Like Kings

Heroes Remember

We Were Living Like Kings

Transcript

The Royal Scots were there and they met us and of course we were told we were Canadian soldiers and we were going to meet these English soldiers who were British Tommies and to be proud, hold our heads high. When we met them, we couldn’t understand them. Most of them I could not understand. I said, “If that’s English, then I’m not talking English.” Anyway, the Royal Scots, they marched us up to a barracks called Sham Shui Po and we were in there. We were living like kings. The Chinese, they made our beds, they cleaned our rifles, we had a mosquito net over us. In the morning they would wake us up and they would shave the boys. They went to shave me and I had no whiskers. So I said, “Don’t put that razor on my face.” So we had a few weeks there. We were living like kings. It was a dirty city, both cities, Hong Kong, Victoria and Kowloon, it was dirty. The hundreds of Chinese women, children, laying out on the streets, sores on their heads. We had to walk over them sometimes going down to this Sun Sun Hotel. They had no food. We were much better off than them.

Description

Mr. MacWhirter describes a soldier’s life in Kowloon and compares it with the squalor and misery of the local population.

William MacWhirter

William MacWhirter was born in Niagara Falls, New York, USA, on January 10, 1924. He was one of five brothers. During the depression, his family returned to Hopetown, Quebec, where he completed grade 8 in school. By 1939, his father, a First World War Veteran, had joined the Veterans Guard and two older brothers had enlisted; William became head of the family farm at the age of fifteen. He eventually enlisted in New Carlyle at the age of seventeen. His basic training took place in Val Cartier and St. John, and as a member of the Royal Rifles, D Company, he was deployed to Hong Kong. After a futile attempt to defend the colony, William joined many other captives in the dismal North Point and Sham Shui Po POW camps. He was eventually sent to the labour camp at Omini, Japan. He returned home safely, but he has paid a heavy price, physically and emotionally. He remains, however, an ardent patriot.

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